Harry Styles won big at the Grammys on Monday with his third studio album, Harry’s House, taking out the Album of the Year and Best Vocal Pop Album awards.
It seemed to be a genuine surprise for Styles, who opened his speech with the words, “well, shit,” with much of the speculation tipping Beyonce to take out the top award for Renaissance.
But it was the last line of his speech that left some viewers a bit unsettled.
“This doesn’t really happen to people like me very often. This is so, so nice,” he said, choked up.
Styles was up against nine other nominees including Coldplay, Lizzo, Bad Bunny, ABBA and Beyonce.
People have pointed out that in fact, “people like him” are exactly the kind of artists who typically win the award.
The category has a long history of being won by a white male, or a group including white males. It’s been done at least thirty times before Styles.
Had Bad Bunny won, his album Un Verano Sin Ti would have been the first Spanish-language album to snag the award. If Beyonce had won, she would have been the first black woman to receive the award since 1999.
“‘This doesn’t happen to people like me’ is the most white privilege-iest thing to ever be uttered at an awards show ever for all time,” Vulture podcast host and former NPR journalist Sam Sanders said in a tweet shortly after the speech.
And there was a chorus of agreement.
“Harry styles said “this doesn’t happen to people like me very often” and I gotta be honest I can’t think of a type of people this happens for more,” said one person.
“I love Harry Styles as much as the next person but for him to win AOTY (Album of the Year) and THEN SAY THAT TONE DEAF SPEECH.”
Other people online speculated that he was referring to his upbringing in a single-parent household. While some fans wondered if he was referring to his start in a boyband on the UK X-Factor.
“I wanna know what he meant tho because the only minority he can claim is ‘Englishman in LA’,” speculated one viewer.
The final words from Styles concluded a speech in which he spent most of his time honouring his fellow nominees, who included previous winners Adele and Kendrick Lamar.
“I think on nights like tonight it’s important for us to remember
there is no such thing as ‘best’ in music,” Styles said.
Harry Styles performing “As It Was” during the 65th Grammy Awards. Source: AAP, SIPA USA / USA TODAY Network
“I don’t think any of us sit in the studio making decisions on what is going to get us one of these.”
Another moment from the night attracting some head scratches came from a post uploaded by Bad Bunny to his Instagram.
On the photo taken of the TV during his performance, closed captions read: “Speaking in non-English, singing in non-English”.
A fan on Twitter said the least CBS, the channel broadcasting the award show in America, could have done would have been to write “speaking Spanish”.
A post shared by Bad Bunny on his Instagram after his Grammys performance. Credit: Instagram/@Badbunnypr
The Grammy’s long battle with diversity and inclusion
The organisers of the Grammys, the Recording Academy, have long fielded accusations of rigging, favouritism, and racism.
Even Styles’ One Direction bandmate Zayn Malik was among the artists who criticised the awards for their lack of transparency.
In a bid to halt the claims, the Recording Academy opened its voting up in 2019. Nominations and winners would no longer be decided by an anonymous committee. Instead, they would be decided by their voting members – of which they have thousands.
In 2021, Canadian singer The Weeknd accused Grammy organisers of being corrupt after he was snubbed in the nominations, despite having a song that spent a record-breaking 52 weeks in the US Top 10.
The Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, told Billboard magazine in an interview: “If you were like, ‘Do you think the Grammys are racist?’ I think the only real answer is that in the last 61 years of the Grammys, only 10 Black artists have won album of the year.”
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