For the 64th year running, the trophy for least intelligible award show goes to the Grammys. As Billboard reports, the Recording Academy has declared Bo Burnham‘s Inside (The Songs) ineligible to compete for Best Comedy Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
Burnham shared his quarantine opus Inside in March, and it quickly became a pandemic sensation. Less a traditional comedy special than a musical exploration of an unravelling mind, it captured the zeitgeist a second time when Inside (The Songs) dropped in June. The special has already taken home trophies at other, more reputable award shows, including Outstanding Music Direction, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special at the 2021 Primetime Emmy Awards. A Best Comedy Album Grammy for The Songs seemed all but assured, but now it won’t even be nominated.
The deliberations of the Recording Academy’s annual screening committee meetings have not been made public, the better to protect committee members who have an axe to grind or are merely incompetent. So it’s unclear why an album of comedy songs is ineligible for the Best Comedy Album award. But Billboard hears that the Grammys are still considering Burnham for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, where it will compete with movie and video game soundtracks.
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Is Inside (The Songs) even a compilation — a word that suggests something put together by assembling previously separate items? Does it belong in a category that has recently doled out trophies for the Jojo Rabbit soundtrack, A Star Is Born, and Hugh Jackman & Various Artists for The Greatest Showman? Only the Grammy screening committee can say.
Republic, Burnham’s label, has also submitted Inside (The Songs) for Album Of The Year, and “All Eyes On Me” for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, and Best Song Written for Visual Media. Inside will also be in consideration for Best Music Film.
Earlier this week, the Grammys came under scrutiny for their decision to block Kacey Musgraves’ pop-country album star-crossed from the Best Country Album category. These head-scratching decisions were one of the reasons the Grammys rolled out a series of reforms earlier this year, though as Burnham and Musgraves prove, questions remain unanswered.
Earlier this month, Phoebe Bridgers covered the Inside song “That Funny Feeling.”
