Top 10 Proofs Metal Grammy Awards Are Untrustworthy and Misleading

The Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance is presented "to recording artists for works (songs or albums) containing quality performances in the heavy metal music genre." It's an annual ceremony to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position". (wiki)

Metal Grammy was first awarded in 1990 for achievements in 1989 and earlier. Before that, there was one category for both metal and hard rock. In 1989 Metallica's "...And Justice for All" lost out to Jethro Tull in the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance category. This choice led to widespread criticism as journalists suggested that the music of Jethro Tull did not belong in the hard rock or heavy metal genres. Entertainment Weekly named this award "Grammy's 10 Biggest Upsets".

In response, the organization separated the genres and created two categories: Best Hard Rock Performance and Best Metal Performance. As you can see below, the separation of the Metal category didn't help much because judges continued with new and even bigger "upsets". But if you look at these Grammys from the positive side, you can have lots of fun - Metal Grammys have been such a great comedy for 25 years with jokes all the way.

Metal Grammy Awards prove that if you nominate wrong bands, you get wrong winners. Most of the nominees, and subsequently - many winners, are shockingly irrelevant.
Feel free to comment on the winners and nominees. You can also suggest songs/albums that should have been nominated but weren't.
The full list of winners and nominees by year is available on Wiki - "Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance".
The Top Ten
1 1999 Nominee: Nashville P**** - "Fried Chicken and Coffee"

How this can be confused with metal: "Nashville is an American rock & roll band from Atlanta, Georgia. Their musical style has been variously described as psycho-billy, Southern rock, hard rock and cowpunk, as well as "sleaze rock". The band's lyrical themes mostly revolve around sex, drugs, drinking, fighting, and rock 'n' roll." (wiki)

2 2015 Winner: Tenacious D - "The Last in Line"

This is one of the hardest metal comments I have ever had to make.
"The Last in Line" is a Dio cover. I love Dio, his song and Jack Black (School of Rock - all time favorite). And I have nothing against Tenacious D but lets be more responsible for a second. Tenacious D are a comedy rock band and they don't have the skills of a real metal band - Tenacious D even skipped the guitar solo on their studio version! This solo isn't hard to play but they weren't able to play it.
So the winner of 2015 was a cover song, which performance was significantly worse than the original - not only the guitars but everything else, including vocals (sorry Jack, Dio is better).

Other nominees:
Anthrax - "Neon Knights"
Mastodon - "High Road"
Motörhead - "Heartbreaker"
Slipknot - "The Negative One"

3 1995 Nominee: Anthrax and Public Enemy - "Bring the Noise" (live)

Other nominees:
Soundgarden - "Spoonman"
Megadeth - "99 Ways to Die"
Pantera - "I'm Broken"
Rollins Band - "Liar"

Ha, two more surprises - Soundgarden are a grunge band. And who are Rollins Band in metal history?

Bring The Noise is an awesome song, why did they need Anthrax in it?

@Billyv - yes, I know that in non-metal categories there are flaws, too.

4 1995 Winner: Soundgarden - "Spoonman"

This is a very good song by a very good band but it's grunge, not metal. Soundgarden may have some metal influences but they are still grunge. And this particular song - Spoonman - is definitely not a metal song.
Again, the guys from the Grammys prove they don't know what metal is.
Other nominees:
Anthrax and Public Enemy - "Bring the Noise" (live)
Megadeth - "99 Ways to Die"
Pantera - "I'm Broken"
Rollins Band - "Liar"

5 1997 Winner: Rage Against the Machine - Tire Me

This Grammy Award tells me that this was the best of metal released in 1996. What is so mindblowing in this performance - the guitar solo, drumming or vocals? Or the complexity and epicness of this song?
Other nominees:
Korn - "Shoots and Ladders"
Pantera - "Suicide Note, Pt. II"
White Zombie - "I'm Your Boogieman"
Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper - "Hands of Death (Burn Baby Burn)"

6 1993 Winner: Nine Inch Nails - "Wish"

Other nominees:
Helmet - "In the Meantime"
Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction
Ministry - "N.W.O."
Soundgarden - "Into the Void"

Big upset: the obvious winner is Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction is probably the 2nd best album by Megadeth. But the guys from the Metal Grammys don't like 100% metal, they can tolerate metal only in small doses - maximum 5% metal content.

Nah, I would say that Nine Inch Nails deserved the award more than Megadeth.

I guess christangrant wanted to add his reply (with the small letters) to the SwagFlicks comment and not to mine...

Just to remind you, Nine Inch Nails aren't even a metal band.

7 2004 Winner: Metallica - "St. Anger"

Metallica had great songs/albums deserving a Grammy but this one is not among them. Just no. I'm beginning to think the Metal Grammys actually praise the worst in metal. Most of the metalheads think this is the worst Metallica album.
Other nominees:
Korn - "Did My Time"
Marilyn Manson - "Mobscene"
Spineshank - "Smothered"
Stone Sour - "Inhale"

St. Anger and Lulu are widely considered the worst Metallica albums.

8 2003 Winner: Korn - "Here to Stay"

Other nominees:
P.O.D. - "Portrait"
Slipknot - "My Plague"
Stone Sour - "Get Inside"
Rob Zombie - "Never Gonna Stop (The Red Red Kroovy)"

Note: Stone Sour is the 2nd band of Corey Taylor, singer for Slipknot, both bands nominated.

Why only nu metal / rap metal / alternative metal bands are nominated for the most part? These subgenres don't put much emphasis on the "technical proficiency and overall excellence" compared to many other metal subgenres.
I can list hundreds of songs/albums released in 2002 with significantly better metal performances than the nominated stuff.

Look what other songs were released in 2002: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence - Dream Theater, Deliverance - Opeth, The Odyssey - Symphony X, And Then There Was Silence - Blind Guardian, March of the Fire Ants - Mastodon, The Glass Prison - Dream Theater, and many more of this caliber.

9 2016 Winner: Ghost - "Cirice"

This song is nowhere near the Best Metal Performance from 2015 metal albums. A simple and generic song every average rock band can play. But we are talking about metal standards here. Nothing special in the performance of this song, let alone mindblowing from metal viewpoint.
The riff is a ripoff - it is composed of 2 well known riffs by Slayer: Skeletons of Society and a close variation of the intro to Raining Blood.
Instantly forgettable solo.
Weak vocals.

I agree with everything Metal_Treasure said

10 1990 Nominee: Dokken - "Beast from the East"

This nomination was "again the subject of controversy when rock musician Chris Cornell (lead vocalist for the band Soundgarden) was perplexed by the organization's nomination of the band Dokken in this category."(wiki)
I can understand why Cornell said it - because both grunge and metal musicians hated this poser metal subgenre "glam metal" and didn't consider it metal. But I am also perplexed by the organization's nomination of Chris Cornell's band - Soundgarden.
Other nominees:
Faith No More - The Real Thing
Metallica - One
Queensrÿche - "I Don't Believe in Love"
Soundgarden - Ultramega OK

Winner: Metallica - One
Big upset: a glam metal band was nominated but not Annihilator and their thrash metal masterpiece Alice In Hell.

Well at least One by Metallica won the award which it deserved

The Contenders
11 1989 Winner: Jethro Tull - "Crest of a Knave"

I commented on this case in the list description above. I put it at #10 because it’s a well known “upset” (Metallica lost out to Jethro Tull). Jethro Tull's lead singer Ian Anderson was surprised by the band's nomination, as both Anderson and music critics did not consider the group's music to be part of the heavy metal/hard rock genre.
Other nominees:
Metallica -...And Justice for All
AC/DC - Blow Up Your Video
Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking
Iggy Pop - Cold Metal

Something funny: In the early 90s Metallica won a Grammy and Lars Ulrich of Metallica said "We wanna thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year".

12 1991 Winner: Metallica - "Stone Cold Crazy"

Summary: As I said, if you nominate wrong bands, you get wrong results. Just to remind you that by definition, The Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance is for "QUALITY performances in the heavy metal music genre." But judging by the nominees and winners, I would say the Metal Grammys are awarded for QUANTITY (number of sold copies). Many nominated bands are not even metal (or are barely metal) but sold more copies and even won for that reason. Of course, if a band’s sound is poppy and barely metal, this band will sell more copies. The Grammys mission statement is great on paper but the judges don't comply with it: "to honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".

I put it at #11 because this wasn't a very bad choice - Stone Cold Crazy by Queen was probably the first thrash metal song and I understand the importance of this song. But there were better choices - Judas Priest’s Painkiller and Megadeth’s Rust in Peace are some of the greatest metal albums of all time and the best albums by these two iconic metal bands. Why praise so much a cover song?

Other nominees:
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Suicidal Tendencies - Lights...Camera...Revolution!

13 2017 Nominee: Korn - "Rotting In Vain"

A boring mediocre combination of pop+rap+punk, with some of the worst clean vocals I have ever heard. How is this metal? And how is this the best of metal?
Any song from Obscura's Akroasis is 100x better than Rotting In Vain. Oh, and Obscura songs ARE metal.

14 2017 Nominee: Megadeth - "Dystopia"

This album is overhated on this website while yes there was better albums that year this album did derserve being nominated because it was a good album but I agree there was better albums that year but this is not proof that The metal grammys are misleading

I agree with christangrant that nominating the song Dystopia isn't a proof that the Metal Grammys are misleading. But some of the other nominated songs ARE - look at the nominees I listed to this item.

Um No this isn't a bad thing afterall it was a good album nice try but you can't stop Metal

I didn't add this and I wouldn't add it.

15 2017 Nominee: Baroness - “Shock Me”

Sorry, this song is rock and not metal, and it's nothing special.

Only 2017 nomination I care about honestly.

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