Brittany Howard’s “Stay High” wins Best Rock Song at the 2021 Grammys
Brittany Howard has officially won Best Rock Song at the 2021 Grammys for “Stay High.”The award was presented during the Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony. Howard was up against a stacked list of nominations including Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto,” Fiona Apple’s “Shameika,” Tame Impala’s “Lost In Yesterday” and Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief’s “Not.” Read more: This virtual Fall […]
In her speech, Howard goes on to thank her family, the Grammys Academy, her managers Kevin Morris and Christine Stauder and her band. As well, she gave a special thanks to her sister.
“I want to thank my sister who the album is named after, it’s called Jaime,” she says. “Thanks for being my guide and teaching me about music.”
You can follow along with the rest of the 2021 Grammys winners here and watch Howard’s acceptance speech below.
As well, Howard’s song “Goat Head” is in the Best R&B Performance category while “Short and Sweet” is up for Best American Roots Performance. This means that Howard’s new music spans four different genre categories at this year’s Grammy Awards.
Back in December, she revealed to Entertainment Weekly that it’s incredibly gratifying to have one album nominated in multiple genre categories.
“The thing I was most excited about, honestly, is one album being nominated for so many different genres,” Howard told Entertainment Weekly. “That’s really unusual. That’s exactly how I wanted it to go, because I like all kinds of music and I create my music just with whatever I’ve heard before.”
Throughout Howard’s career, she has earned a staggering 16 Grammy nominations and 4 wins for both her solo music and work in Alabama Shakes. In 2020, Howard was nominated in the Best Rock Song category for “History Repeats.” The same song was also nominated for Best Rock Performance. In the end, Gary Clark Jr.’s “This Land” won both categories.
This year, Howard is taking the Grammys stage for a special performance. She is among artists such as Harry Styles, Post Malone, Taylor Swift and Doja Cat who are also performing during the awards show.
Bridgers’ Best Rock Song nomination marks the second for her hit single “Kyoto.” The Punishertrack was also up for Best Rock Performance, a category that includes a historic all-female nomination list for the first time. Along with these two Grammy categories, Bridgers is also nominated for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album for Punisher.
Bridgers is celebrating Women’s History Month as ourAlternative Press cover star. For the premiere Power Issue: Women Rising, we’re highlighting an array of strong, independent women in rock music and within alternative culture.
Back in 1998, she won her first and only Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, now Best Rock Performance, for “Criminal.” To date, this song still remains one of Apple’s most popular and currently has over 58 million streams on Spotify.
Apple had a great run on the charts with Fetch The Bolt Cuttersafter its release last April. The album, which is her first in nearly eight years, debuted at No. 1 on both the BillboardTop Rock Albums and Alternative Albums charts. She achieved the exact same chart-topping success with The Idler Wheel… follow its release in June 2012.
These days, Apple is continuing to fight for social justice. Her social media is flooded with posts and stories about topics such as International Women’s Day and Black Lives Matter. More recently, Apple has been fighting to keep virtual courtrooms open amid the COVID-19 crisis so court watchers can observe bail proceedings.
Just eight months after winning her first Grammy, Fiona Apple appeared on the Alternative Press Issue #111 cover in October 1997.
You can stream “Shameika” below.
This year, Tame Impala snagged a Best Rock Song nominated for “Lost In Yesterday.” Alongside Bridgers, Apple and Howard, Tame Impala are also included in the Best Alternative Music Album category for their LP The Slow Rush.
Then in 2016, they were nominated again in the same category for Currents which lost to Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Color. This means that all of Tame Impala’s studio albums excluding their debut LP InnerSpeaker have earned Best Alternative Music Album nominations.
In the United States, The Slow Rushgave Tame Impala their highest-ever chart appearance. The album went on to debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and sold 110,000 equivalent album units in its first week. This chart debut beat Currents which earned just 45,000 first-week sales after its release in 2015.
Although things are looking very different elsewhere in the world, concerts are making a comeback in Australia amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This week, Tame Impala returned to the stage in Perth for a special performance.
Now, they’ve received two more nominations thanks to their song “Not.” Adrianne Lenker is not only nominated for Best Rock Song for “Not,” but Big Thief are also nominated in the Best Rock Performance category for the track.
“Not” appears on Big Thief’s latest album Two Handswhich follows up U.F.O.F. As it turns out, both albums were released in 2019, showing the dedication and craft Big Thief have for the music they create.
According to NPR, the band began recording Two Handsjust days after finishing up U.F.O.F. All of the vocal takes were done in one or two takes and the instruments were tracked live. Out of the album’s 10 tracks, “Not” stands out. In fact, it is the highest streaming song from the album on Spotify with almost 10 million plays.
You can stream “Not” below.
What are your reactions to the winner of the Best Rock Song category? Let us know in the comments below.