What if: Metallica won the grammy

When the Hard Rock/Heavy Metal grammy was added in 1989, Metallica came up against Jethro Tull. Despite being dead certs to win the Grammy, Metallica lost to Jethro Tull.

What if Metallica won?
 
When the Hard Rock/Heavy Metal grammy was added in 1989, Metallica came up against Jethro Tull. Despite being dead certs to win the Grammy, Metallica lost to Jethro Tull.

What if Metallica won?

Hey, how could a band named after a 17th century agricultural innovator possibly lose? Huge level of awesomeness there. ;)
 
Hey, how could a band named after a 17th century agricultural innovator possibly lose? Huge level of awesomeness there. ;)

No. One, which is from one of the best metal albums of all time by one of the big pioneers of thrash metal, losing to some guy playing a flute?
 
No. One, which is from one of the best metal albums of all time by one of the big pioneers of thrash metal, losing to some guy playing a flute?
So?

Crest of a Knave was a very well put together hard rock album, and the Award was for Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal performance. It's hardly the most disappointing thing the Grammys have ever done.
 
So?

Crest of a Knave was a very well put together hard rock album, and the Award was for Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal performance. It's hardly the most disappointing thing the Grammys have ever done.

The Tull Grammy is infamous in the metal world, but given that we live in a universe where Milli Vanilli won a Grammy, yeah, I'd say that qualifies as dramatic understatement!
 

Heavy

Banned
The Tull Grammy is infamous in the metal world, but given that we live in a universe where Milli Vanilli won a Grammy, yeah, I'd say that qualifies as dramatic understatement!

My favourite anecdote concerning Milli Vanilli; when interviewed by Classic Rock Presents AOR a few years ago, shortly before his untimely passing, Jani Lane hoked out that "Heaven" peaking at number two behind "Girl You Know It's True" was basically the same thing as being number one.

As for the thread title, I'm not sure it would have much of an impact. Metallica winning might have earned them some more credibility, but it's not like losing did them any harm in the eyes of music fans (if anything, it only discredited NARAS).

In a similar sense, would Public Enemy not losing the Best Rap Performance award to Will Smith have made much of a difference?
 
The only difference I could see if Metallica actually won the Grammy, would be the metal music world taking the Grammys more seriously (most of us metalheads nowadays, view the Grammys like they're a joke). Being one of the early thrash kids (I first heard, and bought Metallica's "Kill 'em All" album in 1984, when I was a Junior in college - at that time the album was released by an independent label [Megaforce Records]), I remember Metallica very much being an underground band until the late 80s. They didn't get that much airplay on the radio, and even MTV didn't start playing Metallica stuff until 1986 or so, when they showed them on the air live at the Wacken Festival. Not winning the Grammy award meant that Metallica remained a band that was successful, but only in the metal music community. Winning the Grammy award probably means that the "In Justice For All" album becomes THE album that starts to get them noticed in the general music world. But I doubt that it would be to the level of the following "black" album (which was a bit more commercial sounding IMO, due to being less thrash metal oriented).
 
My favourite anecdote concerning Milli Vanilli; when interviewed by Classic Rock Presents AOR a few years ago, shortly before his untimely passing, Jani Lane hoked out that "Heaven" peaking at number two behind "Girl You Know It's True" was basically the same thing as being number one.

I saw Jani Lane at the M3 festival in 2009 or 2010; he was absolutely freakin' hilarious. It was an all-day show, so his set began at like 4:30, and he basically delivered a monologue punctuated by songs. It's a shame -- though not a huge surprise -- that he drank himself to death.
 
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