It's not just the white acts that tend to receive preferential treatment on Grammy voter ballots, allegedly, but it's older acts, too. Over the years, and over and over again, the Recording Academy's contingent of white and aged Grammy deciders have shown a distinct bias toward singers and bands with familiar names that have been around for years and built up goodwill, handing them awards for their later, less-than-classic works over progressive, groundbreaking work by newer artists whose music may be strange and unfamiliar to them (via Billboard).
For example, the 1989 Grammys featured the first appearance of a long-overdue award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance. While definitive metal band Metallica was nominated for ...And Justice for All, the Grammy went to Crest of a Knave by Jethro Tull, a prog-rock band far off its early '70s commercial and artistic peak, led by frontman Ian Anderson who played the flute, the most un-metal of instruments. When presenter Alice Cooper opened the envelope and saw "Jethro Tull," he thought he'd received a prank or prop envelope, and some members of the audience laughed.
And then there's Steely Dan, winners of the Grammys' Album of the Year. But they didn't win for '70s-era LPs like Aja — the duo got it for Two Against Nature in 2001, defeating envelope-pushing youthful acts like Radiohead (Kid A), Beck (Midnite Vultures), and Eminem (The Marshall Mathers LP).
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