"What is that?"
"It's a major award."
"A major award?
Shucks I wouldn't know that, it looks like a lamp."
If you win a major award, it usually means you're the best of the best at what you do.
But sometimes, you win because whoever voted for you wasn't right in the head that day.
That's the only way to explain how these incredibly prestigious awards got doled out to incredibly
undeserving winners.
"And the busiest beaver award goes to Phyllis Lapin!"
"This says bushiest beaver…"
Jethro Tull's Metal Grammy
It wasn't until the late '80s that the Grammys got around to noticing that hard rock and
metal music existed.
When they finally did, they assembled a solid list of nominees for their Best Hard Rock/Metal
Performance category: Metallica, AC/DC, Jane's Addiction, Iggy Pop … and Jethro Tull.
The Grammy seemed like it was Metallica's to take.
…And Justice For All was red-hot, and they had just blown the Grammy crowd away with
a blistering rendition of the song "One."
And then...
"And the winner is…
Jethro Tull."
Tull frontman Ian Anderson admitted that he thought the band would lose, which is why
the band didn't even attend the ceremonies.
Even the Grammy website throws shade at the decision, calling Tull "a fine group of longstanding
musicians, but arguably the least hard or metal of the nominees."
The very next year, the Grammys realized what metal actually was, and Metallica won easily,
no flutes required.
"We gotta thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year, right?"
Steely Dan's Album Of The Year
Jethro Tull wasn't the last time the Grammys got something wrong.
In 2001, Steely Dan released Two Against Nature.
It came and went without any major hits, but it still got nominated for 2001's Album of
the Year Grammy.
It's competition?
Iconic albums by Eminem, Radiohead, Beck, and Paul Simon.
And the winner was…
"Two Against Nature, Steely Dan."
According to Rolling Stone, the Grammys were getting flack for even nominating Eminem in
the first place, due to his profane lyrics.
Steely Dan also won that year for Best Pop Vocal Album, meaning a group of '70s soft
rockers were suddenly poppier than N'Sync and Christina Aguilera.
Even Walter Becker of Steely Dan was confused, telling MTV,
"I thought that was weird…
Maybe we're in the wrong category or something."
We Are The World's Record the Year
You'd have to go all the way back to 1986 to see when the Grammys really started getting
dumb.
"We Are the World, we are the children."
By all accounts, the celebrity-soaked "We Are The World" is pure schlock, and even the
artists who performed on it think so.
Billy Joel told Rolling Stone,
"I remember most of us who were there didn't like the song, but nobody would say so.
I think Cyndi Lauper leaned over to me and said, 'It sounds like a Pepsi commercial.'"
Somehow, the musical event got honored with a Grammy, which is even more baffling when
you consider the classics it beat out, which included Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing,"
and Huey Lewis & The News' "The Power Of Love."
When's the last time you heard "We Are The World" on the radio?
Simply put, the Grammy committee voted for sentimentality over substance, and now look
incredibly silly — though they're probably used to that by now.
Driving Miss Daisy's Best Picture Oscar
Up against films like Dead Poets Society and Field of Dreams, Driving Miss Daisy probably
shouldn't have had much of a chance of winning 1989's Best Picture.
But it's the film that wasn't even nominated for Best Picture, Spike Lee's provocative
Do the Right Thing, that got the worst shaft.
Even Kim Basinger took her time on stage to mention the snub.
"But there is one film missing from this list that deserves to be on it, and that is Do
the Right Thing."
Driving Miss Daisy, meanwhile, seemed like a step backwards from progressive film-making.
In the years since, Morgan Freeman himself has expressed regret about the movie, saying
in an interview with The Guardian that his role worked to popularize, quote, "this wise,
old, dignified, black man" that's more special guardian than human.
It's not a compliment, and if popularizing that trope is Daisy's legacy, you can see
why the Academy should've given the nod to Kevin Costner's spooky baseball team instead.
Steve Nash's double NBA MVP
Steve Nash was a damn good NBA player, but his winning two MVP awards in a row makes
no sense.
In the 2004-2005 season, Nash won the MVP over Shaquille O'Neal, who had just gotten
to the Miami Heat and helped the team earn the best record in their conference, bringing
them to the conference finals, where they lost in seven games.
Meanwhile, Nash did roughly the same thing with his Phoenix Suns, bringing his team to
their conference finals, where they lost in five games.
The voting was super-close: Nash edged Shaq 1066-1032.
Clearly, a case could be made for either man.
But then Nash won MVP again, after guiding his Suns to another first-place record and
another deep playoff run.
The voting was more decided this time around, with Nash getting 924 points; 236 more than
LeBron James, who was, at the time, about the only good player on the Cleveland Cavaliers,
having just guided them to their first playoff run since 1998.
It's unclear how that doesn't scream "MVP" to basically everyone.
In 2017, Nash was quoted by CNN, saying,
"...the MVP is such a subjective thing that it almost says more about the voter than it
does about the players."
That might just be his way of saying that, in the mid-2000s, voter subjectivity was off
the mark.
Peyton Manning's Super Bowl MVP
Without question, Peyton Manning is one of the best players in NFL history.
That said, when he won his first Super Bowl in 2006, the decision to award him the MVP
was just about the worst that could've been made.
In early 2017, ESPN's Mike Sando ranked all the NFL MVPs, and Manning's Super Bowl XLI
nod ranked 41st out of 50.
But since everyone below him isn't a transcendent icon of the game, his run especially looks
bad.
While his Indianapolis Colts won, 29-17, it was almost in spite of Manning.
His numbers were decidedly mediocre, and his defense basically won the game for him.
Manning's one touchdown throw happened six minutes in, and the rest of the game was the
defense stuffing Chicago's attempts to score.
The Indy defense had just as many touchdowns on interceptions as Manning did.
Three field goals from Adam Vinatieri, one of the best kickers in league history, didn't
hurt either.
Ultimately, it seemed like an award given to a legendary, beloved figure just because
he's legendary and beloved.
He'd just won his first ring, so why not heap honors on him?
That doesn't change how one of his defensemen deserved the honor several times more than
he did.
But at least when he won his final Super Bowl in 2016, Peyton was able to demonstrate real
class by celebrating with the one person he truly loves:
"Peyton. The first guy you kiss can't be Papa John, okay?
It can't be!
And if I see that as a commercial I'll throw up."
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