CLEVELAND — If you watched the 66th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night, you heard Jay-Z call out the awards show while accepting the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award, specifically related to Beyoncé never winning its Album of the Year honor, so we're checking the facts behind his claim.
"The most Grammys," he said, referencing Beyoncé's 32 Grammy Awards won over the course of her music career, to date. "Never won album of the year. That doesn't work."
Beyoncé has won those awards for her solo work, work with Destiny’s Child and under work the group name, The Carters, which she and husband Jay-Z completed together. That’s the most Grammy Awards any artist has ever won.
Based on these facts, Jay-Z claims that winning the most Grammys should equate to winning the Grammy for Album of the Year.
THE SOURCE
To verify whether that’s true or false, we went straight to the source. We went to Grammy.com and looked at Grammy.com winner announcements dating back to 1998, which was the first year Beyoncé released a studio album with Destiny's Child.
WHAT WE FOUND
We found that Beyoncé has been nominated herself four times for the Album of the Year Award. She was nominated in 2010 for "I am... Sasha Gierce," in 2015 for "Beyoncé," in 2017 for "Lemonade" and 2023 for "Renaissance."
As Jay-Z said, she has lost in the Album of the Year category each year, usually to the person who had won the most Grammys overall that year. In three out of the four years, the artist with the most overall wins that year also won the Album of the Year award. Here's who won Album of the Year, and how many Grammys they took home compared to their direction competition in the category, during those years:
- Grammy.com 57th Annual Grammy Awards winner announcement (February 2015):
- Winner: Beck (3)
- Competitors: Pharrell Williams (3), Sam Smith (4), Ed Sheeran (0), Beyoncé (3)
- Grammy.com 59th Annual Grammy Awards winner announcement (February 2017):
- Winner: Adele (5)
- Competitors: Beyoncé (2), Drake (2), Justin Bieber (0), Sturgill Simpson (1)
- Grammy.com 66th Annual Grammy Awards winner announcement (February 2023):
- Winner: Harry Styles (4)
- Competitors: Lizzo (2), Kendrick Lamar (3), Coldplay (0), Brandi Carlile (3), Mary J. Blige (0), Beyoncé (4), Bad Bunny (1), Adele (2), Abba (0)
But at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards in Feb. 2010, Beyoncé had the most overall wins with six, and the artist with the second most wins, Taylor Swift, won the Album of the year Award.
Beyoncé isn’t the only artist that’s ever happened to. In Feb. 2002 at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards, the "O Brother, Where Art Thou" soundtrack won Album of the Year. That was its only award that night, besting U2 which had won four awards, and OutKast, which had won two.
And in Feb. 2008, Herbie Hancock won Album of the Year at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, taking home two Grammys that night. Hancock beat out Amy Winehouse who had won five, and Kanye West, who had won four.
THE ANSWER
So, we can verify that the claim that winning the most Grammys should equate to winning the Grammy for Album of the Year is false, because that’s not how it’s always happened in the past. At least when it comes to looking at the number of wins per artist for each individual year, who have been nominated in that category.
While the nominee in the Album of Year category with the most overall wins that year has also won the top prize the majority of the time since 1998, it doesn't always happen that way.
Do you have a claim you'd like us to Verify? Send that claim to us via email at verify@wkyc.com or text us at 216-344-3300.
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