Morgan Wallen is one of the biggest male artists today. With a hit like "Last Night" which has smashed numerous Billboard chart records, and its parent album, "One Thing At A Time," Wallen is undisputably the biggest country music artist of the 2020 decade.
With the Grammy Awards voting officially opened for nominations, conversations about Wallen possibly landing a nomination and hopefully, a win, continue to grow. However, it's not looking as sunny as the Song of the Summer was hoping it would be.
Morgan Wallen Might Not Be Nominated For Grammy Awards?
Speaking to Variety, Recording Academy Nashville Chapter Trustee Tracy Gershon is cautioning against assuming commercial success would automatically translate to a guaranteed nomination or win.
"I would say, unlike other awards, the Grammy voters don't necessarily vote on commercial popularity. In fact, they tend to vote on artistic merit," she added.
Notably, "Last Night" recently earned its 16th nonconsecutive week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts, while "One Thing At A Time" is now the biggest album of 2023.
It's also important to note that the Grammy's history of nominating and winning commercially successful records has been quite thin. For example, everyone was shocked, including Bonnie Raitt herself, when her song "Just Like That" won last year's Song of the Year. The song was practically unheard of by the general public but it was largely praised by critics and the Academy voters, obviously.
Additionally, commercially successful songs like The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" and Ed Sheeran's "Shape Of You" were also shut out of nominations. Should Morgan Wallen be nominated on 2024, it would mark his first Grammy nomination of his career.
Will Morgan Wallen's Past Issues Affect His Grammy Nomination Chances?
Many also theorize that Morgan Wallen's previous controversies - racial slurs and disobeying COVID-19 protocols - might impact his chances of being nominated.
However, Tracy Gershon believes that only people on the West and East Coasts are holding him up to that sentiment, but people on the Midwest seem to have moved on.
She also pointed out that although the track was wildly successful on the numbers, the track is "just not really resonating with the record" on the coasts "as much as middle America did" on "Last Night."
Morgan Wallen is up against a lot of country music artists in the upcoming awards season including Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll, Chris Stapleton, Tanya Tucker, Ashley McBryde, Brandy Clark, Maren Morris, and even Megan Moroney.
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