Fiona Apple wins Best Alternative Music Album at the 2021 Grammys
Fiona Apple has officially won the Best Alternative Music Album award at the Grammys for Fetch The Bolt Cutters. The award was presented during the Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony.
Apple was nominated alongside Beck’s Hyperspace, Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher, Brittany Howard’s Jaime and Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush for the coveted award.
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Apple has already taken home one other 2021 Grammy for Best Rock Performance for “Shameika.” This particular category made history this year as it’s the first time all of the nominees are female. “Shameika” was also up for Best Rock Song, but award went to Howard for “Stay High.”
You can follow along with the rest of the 2021 Grammys winners here.
With ‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters’ Fiona Apple takes home Best Alternative Music Album #GRAMMYs https://t.co/nBtKKkVWQw
— Recording Academy / GRAMMYs (@RecordingAcad) March 14, 2021
Over the years, Apple has earned 11 Grammy nominations and one win in the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance category, now Best Rock Performance, for “Criminal” in 1998. Her Best Alternative Music Album nomination this year isn’t the first in this category for Apple. Previously, she was recognized in the category in 2001 for When The Pawn… but lost to Radiohead’s Kid A. As well, she was nominated again in this category in 2013 for The Idler Wheel…. However, Gotye’s Making Mirrors took home the award that year.
Apple had a great run on the charts with Fetch The Bolt Cutters after its release last April. The album, which is her first in nearly eight years, debuted at No. 1 on both the Billboard Top Rock Albums and Alternative Albums charts. She achieved the exact same chart-topping success with The Idler Wheel… following its release in June 2012.
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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.
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Just eight months after winning her first Grammy, Apple appeared on the Alternative Press Issue #111 cover in October 1997.
Fetch The Bolt Cutters is available to stream below.
More on the 2021 Best Alternative Music Album nominees
Beck is truly no stranger to the Grammys. Over the course of his career, he has been nominated 22 times and won 7 awards. 2015 was perhaps his biggest year at the awards show when he walked away with Album Of The Year for Morning Phase. He won against Beyoncé’s self-titled LP, Ed Sheeran’s X, Pharrell Williams’ G I R L and Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour. That same year, Beck also won the award for Best Rock Album.
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Although Beck didn’t win Best Alternative Music Album for Hyperspace, he did walk away with the 2021 Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical award. His acceptance speech is available to watch below.
Back in 2019, he won both of these categories for his album Colors. He also was previously nominated for Best Alternative Music Album in 2009 for Modern Guilt.
More recently, Beck has been collaborating with Paul McCartney. He is one of the many artists teaming up with the Beatles member to reimagine his 2020 album. McCartney III Imagined features St. Vincent, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Idris Elba and Dominic Fike among others. For the new release, which arrives on April 16, Beck is reimagining McCartney’s “Find My Way.”
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Hyperspace is available to stream below.
The Grammys is a big night for first-time nominee Bridgers. Thanks to her new album Punisher, she earned four nominations including Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for “Kyoto” as well as Best New Artist.
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Bridgers recently told Variety that she is grateful to be nominated amongst so many artists she listened to during the global pandemic this year.
“One of my favorite people called me and was like, ‘If you hadn’t gotten nominated, the Grammys would be bullshit establishment—but the fact that you are is the best thing to ever happen,’” she told Variety. “Of course, it’s a dream, and the most special part to me is to be nominated this year, with so many artists who made the records that got me through the pandemic.”
Since the release of Punisher in June, Bridgers’ career has soared. After the full-length peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Album Sales chart, she released her Copycat Killer EP. The four-track release includes reimaginations of her songs “Kyoto,” “Savior Complex,” “Chinese Satellite” and “Punisher.”
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Although her Grammy nominations are locked in, Bridgers is showing so signs of slowing down. Last month, she made her debut on the coveted Saturday Night Live stage. Earlier this week, she revisited “Kyoto” for an emotional new rendition with singer-songwriter Jackson Browne. The new version is part of Spotify’s new Singles series that features this year’s Best New Artist nominees. For the series, Bridgers also released a cover of one of her favorite John Prine songs called “Summer’s End.”
As well, Bridgers is among the artists teaming up with Paul McCartney to reimagine his 2020 album. McCartney III Imagined features St. Vincent, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Idris Elba and Dominic Fike among others. For the new release, which arrives on April 16, Bridgers has recorded a new rendition of McCartney’s “Seize The Day.”
Bridgers is celebrating Women’s History Month as our Alternative 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.
.@phoebe_bridgers Power Issue: Women Rising, AltPress Issue 392
Available now: https://t.co/DtduTub23f pic.twitter.com/PdsenkL7A4
— altpress (@AltPress) February 26, 2021
Punisher is available to stream below.
Along with Best Alternative Music Album, Howard scored four other nominations for her work on Jaime this year. Her song “Stay High” was up for Best Rock Performance, but Apple’s “Shameika” ended up taking home the award.
However, Howard has already walked away with one 2021 Grammy Award. She officially won Best Rock Song for “Stay High” during the Grammys Premiere Ceremony. Meanwhile, “Goat Head” is nominated in the Best R&B Performance and “Short and Sweet” is included in the Best American Roots Performance category this year.
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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 her career, Howard has earned 16 nominations and four wins for her solo music and work in Alabama Shakes. Back in 2020, she received two nominations in the Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song categories for “History Repeats.” As well, Alabama Shakes walked away with the Best American Roots Performance award for “Killer Diller Blues” in 2018.
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In 2016, Alabama Shakes took home the award for Best Alternative Music Album. Their LP Sound & Color was up against Wilco’s Star Wars, Björk’s Vulnicura, Tame Impala’s Currents and My Morning Jacket’s The Waterfall.
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.
Not only does Brittany Howard (@blkfootwhtfoot) have 5 nominations this year, she’s performing at the #GRAMMYs!
Watch her performance March 14th at 8pm ET/5pm PT on @CBS: https://t.co/FSYA126ROz ? pic.twitter.com/274SozLeLo
— Recording Academy / GRAMMYs (@RecordingAcad) March 12, 2021
Jaime is available to stream below.
Tame Impala have some history with the Best Alternative Music Album category at the Grammys. As it turns out, all of their studio albums excluding InnerSpeaker have been nominated in this category. Back in 2014, Lonerism lost to Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires In The City. Then, in 2016, Currents lost to Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Color.
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Along with their Best Alternative Music Album nomination for The Slow Rush, Tame Impala’s “Lost In Yesterday” is also nominated for Best Rock Song this year. In the United States, The Slow Rush gave 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.
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The Slow Rush is available to stream below.
What are your reactions to the Best Alternative Music Album win? Let us know in the comments below.
