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What's Right And Wrong About The 2015 'Best Metal Performance' Grammy Award Nominees

Heavy metal and the Grammys Awards. They go together like peanut butter and tuna fish.  No matter how hard they try, and honestly - they’ve never tried that hard, they can’t get it right.  Whether they’re ignoring the genre’s most important artists at their artistic peak, or giving them token awards past their prime, it’s at best too little, too late. And unfortunately, for the most part this year’s nominees for ‘Best Metal Performance’ are more of the same.

The Grammys didn’t even formally recognize the genre until 1989, with the creation of the ‘Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental’ award. After over-the-hill classic rockers Jethro Tull famously won over Metallica, it was renamed the ‘Best Metal Performance’ award and Metallica finally won. And then won again in 1991. And again in 1992. Look, we all love Metallica, and yeah, they were on a roll in the early ‘90s, but the Grammys didn’t think any other metal acts deserved the award those years?  It made metal fans wonder if they even bothered to listen to all the artists nominated.

[caption id="attachment_273439" align="aligncenter" width="615"]metallica grammys Metallica performs with Lang Lang at the 2014 Grammy Awards. [Photo Credit: Getty Images][/caption]“It’s embarrassing the decisions and nominations given for rock and metal. They seem to be totally random and lacking any real logic,” said DJ and That Metal Show host Eddie Trunk in an interview last year. He added, “They gave Motörhead a Grammy for a live version of a Metallica cover? Judas Priest gets a Grammy for a live version of a 30-year old song? These are crowning moments in these artists amazing career?? It is just a total joke.” Let’s take a look at this year’s nominees and see what’s right and wrong about them.