Grammys Preview: Elizabeth Warren Is the Underdog Who Won’t Win

Associated Press

The Grammys are, generally speaking, quite trivial. While the awards serve as the authority on the best of the music industry, the awards are notorious for not recognizing really great artists outside of the mainstream arena. Let’s be clear: This is not, nor is it intended to be, a groundbreaking claim, but to not make this prefacing disclaimer gives the Grammys the credit they don’t deserve.

The list of 2015 nominees, like always, give nods to the top artists in the Top 40 genre. Industry experts nominated the best of the already notable, and, like any popularity contest, the winners will likely be the ones people/fans gave the most attention to. The process is like selecting the next Regina George in the already famous and favored pool of Plastics.

It seems lazy, doesn’t it? Well, no one should be shocked that Nantucket-native Meghan Trainor pops up in two of the biggest categories: Song of the Year and Record of the Year for “All About That Bass,” the catchy booty-claiming track. This makes sense, though. Trainor’s song stayed in the Billboard’s Hot 100 for months, and her debut album Title topped Billboard 200 in its first week. People like Meghan Trainor and her doo-woop sound.

But although we’re used to being exposed to the best, living in Title Town and everything, sometimes it’s even better rooting for the underdog. And for Boston reps, it’s Elizabeth Warren.

The Senator is in the running for Best Spoken Word Album for her audiobook, A Fighting Chance. But at first glance, the popularity odds aren’t really in her favor. Also nominated are actor James Franco, former president Jimmy Carter, cult filmmaker John Waters, disco singer Gloria Gaynor, and the late comedian Joan Rivers.

So if we’re looking at this from the most talked-about angle, James Franco and Joan Rivers probably gained the most attention in 2014 between Rivers’ sad and untimely death, and Franco’s association with the Interview debacle. Warren and her book, in the mean time, have not received nearly as much attention, and of the nominees, might be the least interesting. She is, after all, a new politician, and why take a lame acceptance speech from Warren when you can have the drama of Joan Rivers memorial sequence? You mustn’t forget the mystique!

It’s hard to make solid predictions, ultimately. But don’t pretend that the Grammys’ history of omission is escapable.