Did Jon Batiste Deserve To Win The ‘Album of The Year’ Grammy Award?
Album Review #10 of 100 in 2022: My thoughts on ‘We Are’ by Jon Batiste
Between the time I was 13 years old and 35 years old, I was a very faithful viewer of The Grammy Awards and watched it every year. I was also very much in tune (pun intended) with the annual Album of the Year awards that were given out during those years. I just now looked at a list of the winners from that period, which was between 1979 and 2001, and there were only three winning albums listed from then that I didn’t own a copy of.
For whatever reason, my musical tastes started to change around the start of the 21st century and I pretty much stopped listening to “Top 40” radio stations regularly. Although I didn’t dislike most of the new music I heard, I no longer went out of my way to listen to it. I didn’t know what most of the big “hits” were, so I no longer had much of an interest in watching the annual Grammy Awards. It became very rare for me to even be familiar with most of the music they honored. Between 2001 and 2022, the only Albums of The Year that I’ve even listened to all the way through are Adele’s 21 and Taylor Swift’s Folklore.
When I started doing the 100 New Albums in 2022 Challenge created by Nia Simone McLeod, one of my goals for my own version of the challenge was to listen to and review a lot of artists that I was completely unfamiliar with. At the start of this week, while looking for some new music to delve into, I remembered that this year’s Grammy Awards had been presented on April 3, 2022. I read an article about it and discovered that this year’s Album of the Year award had been given to Jon Batiste for his We Are album.
I’d heard of Jon Batiste, but before this week, I couldn’t have named any of his songs. I may have heard one of them at some point, but I wouldn’t have been able to say with any confidence, “Hey, that’s a Jon Batiste song!”
Note: In the short time I’ve been working on this article, I’ve already mistyped “Batiste” as “Bat site” three times. I’m going to be careful about not doing it anymore, but I won’t be surprised if at least one “bat site” gets accidentally published in the final draft of this article.
But moving on…
Even though I’d never heard of Jon Batiste, I decided to give his award-winning album a try — even though I wasn’t even sure what kind of music he made. My only concern/fear/possible deal-breaker was that I hoped it didn’t contain a lot of excessive cursing, since I generally get turned off by music that does that — regardless of what genre it is.
I was relieved — and very impressed — as soon as I heard the opening song, which is the title track, “We Are.” Not only was there no cursing, but right from the start, all I was hearing was great music, great vocals, and great lyrics. Plus, the uplifting, opening song even contained a high school marching band. Fun!
It was a fantastic start to the album. But then…
Well…it stayed fantastic! Song after song, I remained impressed. I loved how I was hearing a little bit of everything: rap, R&B, jazz, funk, rock and roll, and much more.
Even before I was done listening to the We Are album for my first time, I turned to my wife and said, “This is one of the best albums I’ve heard in many years.”
Since then, I’ve listened to it four or five times. I enjoy it more with each listen. There are no songs on it that I dislike.
Here are some of my favorites from it:
Cry
A fantastic ballad with wonderful music and vocals.
I Need You
This one is just a lot of fun to listen to! I highly recommend watching the music video for it. It’s incredibly entertaining. Even though I’m not much of a dancer, this song makes me feel like dancing.
Whatchutalkinabout
Whoops. Wrong “Whatchutalkinabout!” Sorry. Here’s the right one:
Whatchutalkinabout
I love the vocals and music in this one. It’s got a fantastic beat and the chorus is very catchy.
Boy Hood — Featuring PJ Morton and Trombone Shorty
This song blew me away right from the very first time I heard it. It’s probably my favorite song on the album. I love the trombone parts, the vocals, the lyrics….and everything else about it.
Show Me The Way — Featuring Zadie Smith
Musically, this one reminds me a little bit of the kind of soul/pop ballads that bands like Earth, Wind, & Fire made famous in the 1970s and 1980s. Still, having said that, the song does not sound dated in any way. It has a classic vibe to it, but it still sounds new and fresh.
There are seven other songs on the We Are album. I could have easily shared all of them here and had nothing bad to say about any of them.
So, getting back to my question from the title of this article: Did Jon Batiste deserve to win the Album of the Year Grammy Award for this album?
Seven other albums were also nominated, including ones by Doja Cat, Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Olivia Rodrigo, and Billie Eilish. I haven’t heard any of them, so I can’t say for sure if any of them were any more deserving than Jon Batiste’s album was.
Plus, music and all other art are subjective, right? What one person loves, another person may hate. Who is to really say that one artistic work is “better” than any other? I think that’s part of why a lot of people dislike awards shows and awards, in general — but that’s a whole other story for another time.
Still….even without hearing the seven other albums that were nominated for Album of the Year in 2022, I think that, yes — Jon Batiste’s We Are album was a very, very worthy choice to receive the award. Maybe one of more of the other nominated albums were also great and deserving of the award — but I highly doubt that any of them were any “better” than Batiste’s album.
Like I said earlier, I think it’s fantastic and one of the best albums I’ve heard in a very long time. I love it.
Out of 5 possible stars, I give it….drumroll, please…5 stars!
As I said above, this review is part of the 100 New Albums in 2022 series that I’m doing. If you’re interested (and even if you’re not) here are my other reviews of the new music I’ve listened to this year:
Also, if you’re a music lover, I highly recommend you check out the works of these great writers, who often share stories about the music they love. They also write about other fascinating topics — so, really folks, you can’t lose here by clicking on any of their names! Check them out: Kevin Alexander, Rob Janicke, M. Berg, Mary DeVries, Nicole Brown, Steve Devine, Paul Combs, J.P. Williams, Anthony Overs, Billy Hartong, Terry Barr, Chris Zappa, Joel Selby, Mark Holburn, Alex Markham, PJ Jackelman, Sarah Paris, Aimée Gramblin, David Acaster, Christine Schoenwald, and Charlie Cole.
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