Featurrre: Investigating Paramore’s Best Rock Album Win At The 66th Grammy Awards
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Hayley Williams dreams of shattered glass ceilings
February 6, 2024
Last night at the 66th annual Grammy Awards, Paramore won “Best Alternative Music Performance” and “Best Rock Album”. I didn’t watch the broadcast, apparently they weren’t even in attendance. What really stuck out about this accomplishment though was a detail in their press release “acceptance speech”, a portion of which said this:
“Turns out, our win for Best Rock Album was a historic feat as we are the first female-fronted band to ever take home a trophy for this category. Ridiculous but true!”
Really? How can that be?
I was simultaneously surprised and not at all surprised by this claim. At RCR we’re pretty suspicious of the corporate music machine, especially after the Jann Wenner bomb went nuclear, but that’s a story for another time. So we went digging through the records and here’s what we found.
First of all the award category itself is only 29 years old with its inaugural appearance in 1995. That being said, there have been a few female-fronted winners in the past. In 1996 Alanis Morisette won Best Rock Album for Jagged Little Pill. In 1997 Sheryl Crow won Best Rock Album for the self titled Sheryl Crow and in 1999 won again for The Globe Sessions.
Do Alanis Morisette or Sheryl Crow not rock hard enough to qualify? I have my own opinions but I’ll let you the reader decide. Nonetheless, the list is dominated by dudes and I support Paramore’s advocacy to “make these rock and alternative spaces to be more inclusive”. And I support their victory, This Is Why is one of my favorite 2023 albums. I was at the Boston Calling festival last May and missed their headline performance, throwing up by the porta-Johns with drunken heatstroke. Still kicking myself about that one. Check out the full record of Best Rock Album winners below!
- 1995: The Rolling Stones, Voodoo Lounge
- 1996: Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill
- 1997: Sheryl Crow, Sheryl Crow
- 1998: John Fogerty, Blue Moon Swamp
- 1999: Sheryl Crow, The Globe Sessions
- 2000: Santana, Supernatural
- 2001: Foo Fighters, There Is Nothing Left To Lose
- 2002: U2, All That You Can't Leave Behind
- 2003: Bruce Springsteen, The Rising
- 2004: Foo Fighters, One By One
- 2005: Green Day, American Idiot
- 2006: U2, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
- 2007: Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Stadium Arcadium
- 2008: Foo Fighters, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
- 2009: Coldplay, Viva La Vida
- 2010: Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown
- 2011: Muse, The Resistance
- 2012: Foo Fighters, Wasting Light
- 2013: The Black Keys, El Camino
- 2014: Led Zeppelin, Celebration Day
- 2015: Beck, Morning Phase
- 2016: Muse, Drones
- 2017: Cage The Elephant, Tell Me I'm Pretty
- 2018: The War On Drugs, A Deeper Understanding
- 2019: Greta Van Fleet, From The Fires
- 2020: Cage The Elephant, Social Cues
- 2021: The Strokes, The New Abnormal
- 2022: Ozzy Osbourne, Patient Number 9
- 2023: Paramore, This Is Why
