Something that really pissed off Ariana Grande fans was her lack of wins at the Grammy Awards just two weeks ago. They were very vocal on Twitter about how she was snubbed for her latest album thank u, next at the award show while Billie Eilish swept the big four categories and then some with her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Ever since doing a one-on-one interview feature with Eilish for Rolling Stone, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong declared himself a big fan of the ‘Bad Guy’ singer. In an interview with USA Today, where he mostly promotes the band’s new album Father Of All…, he was asked about Billie’s wins at the Grammy Awards. In the same response, he dragged Ariana and the Grammy’s.
He said:
‘It was great. I mean, I only heard about it – actually trying to watch the Grammys is pretty brutal, but I’m stoked for her and Finneas (O’Connell, her brother and producer). It’s insanely well-deserved. Their music is very real, and you can tell it all comes from them, which is what sets it apart from what other pop acts are doing. It’s not even comparable to think about what she does compared to someone like Ariana Grande. She’s the real deal.’
Ouch.
Now who knows if he doesn’t actually like Ariana or if he just wanted to get a big headline out of this. It was effective nonetheless. Promptly, Twitter went berserk. Some Arianators quickly went into defense-mode for their favorite pop star.
He's nobody pic.twitter.com/aJzvzyOOFd
— Ornella ♡ (@ornellacht) February 8, 2020
https://twitter.com/fairIygrande/status/1226162565962698754?s=20
It’s kind of comical. I’ve always found stan accounts on Twitter to be extremely entertaining. They shouldn’t be taken so seriously. After all, Billie’s album is truly superior to Ariana’s and the industry clearly agrees. And that’s okay, that doesn’t mean that Ariana’s thank u, next is bad because it’s not. It’s just that what Billie and Finneas were able to create in their room is a true piece of art from start to finish, and it deserved all the accolades it got.
As far as watching the Grammy Awards being barely tolerable, Armstrong explained that he doesn’t like the lack of rock music representation on the telecast. This is what he said about that.
‘It’s just the stuff they showcase, I’m not into it. There’s one or two artists like Lizzo that I think are really good, but the rest is like a bad prom. I just think the music is crap. There’s no rock music. The fact that they aired a comedy record (award) and didn’t have a rock band on television, I just don’t even know what that is. I love comedy just as much as the next guy, but they are doing a disservice to rock music. That’s the way I feel about it.’
He’s not wrong though! It would be nice to see all genres have more representation on the broadcast. After all, the likes of Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, and Cage The Elephant had massive years last year – but we didn’t see any of them take the stage at music’s biggest nights. That should definitely change next year!
