Why Taylor Swift Isn't Going To The Grammys

Now Taylor Swift is following Ari's lead. Although she's up for three awards, according to Us Weekly the ex-Grammy darling will spend Sunday night with her cats. This decision is unsurprising, in a few ways.

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Swift's highly-anticipated and rather good new album Lover was mainly relegated to the Pop awards (Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Pop Solo Performance), scoring only one major nomination: "You Need To Calm Down" for Song of the Year.

Sunday night would've been Taylor's first Grammys since 2016, when she won Album of the Year for 1989, controversially over Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly. Taylor attended her first Grammys in 2008, where she lost Best New Artist to Amy Winehouse (fair) and didn't miss a year until 2017, the first that she wasn't nominated. She stayed home in 2018, when she was only up for Best Country Song for one-off single "Better Man."

A fly-on-the-wall scene from Swift documentary Miss Americana, which premiered last night at Sundance, depicts the musician learning over the phone that she has received no major Grammy nominations for Reputation, her sometimes-maligned 1989 follow up. She's clearly shaken, but vows to simply "make a better album." Swift pointedly attended her boyfriend Joe Alwyn's premiere for The Favorite instead of the 2019 Grammys.

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The choice to stay home likely also follows from Swift's prickly new stance towards her former industry keepers. She's been waging war against her ex-label Big Machine Records' Scott Borchetta and his business partner, Scooter Braun — as well as, generally, the trend of private equity infiltrating business practices.

Speaking of evil men, the Grammys are currently in a shambles, after ex-CEO (the organization's first female leader) Deborah Dugan filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint accusing the Academy of pay discrimination, sexual harassment, and a crooked voting process influenced by boardmembers' ties to artists.

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Oh also… fewer of the most famous and culturally relevant people bother to turn up every year, particularly those in the hip-hop world, which the Grammys continue to tokenize and ignore. Although we'll miss out on whichever floral Stella McCartney frock Swift had on call, you gotta respect her big ideas and power moves.

Photo via Getty