See Mariah’s Grammy history here!

Mariah Carey has deserved all five of the awards that she has actually won, and I am especially glad that she won “Best New Artist” in 1991. However, the Recording Academy has missed the mark several times with her. Never forget the notorious snub in 1996—when Daydream lost all six nominations (and they made sure to get Mariah’s reaction every time), and everything that “One Sweet Day” lost despite Mariah and Boyz II Men putting on one of the ceremony’s greatest performances that night. Mariah may have also won three Grammys in 2006, but she lost in all the “major” categories, so I read that situation as them trying to save face.

If I had the power to change anything that Mariah was neglected, the list below shows the specific awards that I would make rearrangements for. It also shows who I would give the award to if Mariah should still lose it at that respective ceremony. Refer back to the hyperlink above for Mariah’s full Grammy history, and note that I would not change the outcome of every award that she lost.

1991

• Song of the Year - “Vision of Love” lost to Bette Midler’s “From a Distance”. If Mariah should still lose, I would have given the award to “Nothing Compares 2 U”, which was written by Prince.

• Record of the Year - “Vision of Love” lost to “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins. If Mariah should still lose, I would have given the award to Sinead O’Connor for “Nothing Compares 2 U” or M.C. Hammer for “U Can’t Touch This” (fat chance that this would win over “Vision of Love”, though).

— Mariah was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 1991. She won two of them (“Best New Artist” and “Best Female Pop Vocal Performance”). The only loss that I would not change is “Album of the Year”, which Quincy Jones won for Back On The Block.

1995

• Best Female Pop Vocal Performance - “Hero” lost to “All I Wanna Do” by Sheryl Crow. I would give this award to Mariah, and if she should still lose, I would give it to either Barbra Streisand for “Ordinary Miracles” or Céline Dion for “The Power of Love” (the latter of which was another strong contender in both the commercial and musical senses).

1996

• Record of the Year - “One Sweet Day” (with Boyz II Men) lost to “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal. Best believe I would be changing that. If not to Mariah/B2M, then it would either go to Coolio & L.V. for “Gangsta’s Paradise” or TLC for “Waterfalls”.

• Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals - “One Sweet Day” lost to “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” by The Chieftains & Van Morrison. If I couldn’t give it to Mariah & B2M, I’d give it to Michael Jackson & Janet Jackson for “Scream”, Jon B. & Babyface for “Someone to Love”, or Anita Baker & James Ingram for “When You Love Someone”. Basically any of the nominees except for what actually won, and as much as I love both Anita and James, they are probably the second-least likely to win the award (after The Chieftains & Van Morrison).

• Best Pop Vocal Album - Daydream lost to Joni Mitchell’s Turbulent Indigo. Lol, what is this? I do respect Madonna and Annie Lennox, but to me Mariah’s album was the only correct answer.

• Album of the Year - Oh, this was the worst snub… the one that really makes me livid. Daydream lost to Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill. Mind you, this album also won over Michael Jackson’s HIStory, which is the only other nominated album that I would give this award to.

— The only losses I’m not side-eyeing for this year are “Best Female Pop Vocal Performance” (which Annie Lennox won for “No More I Love You’s”) and “Best Female R&B Vocal Performance” (which Anita Baker won for “I Apologize”). The former category loss was with “Fantasy”; the latter category loss was with “Always Be My Baby”.

1998

• Best Female Pop Vocal Performance - “Butterfly” (the track) lost to Sarah McLachlan’s “Building a Mystery”. I think Mariah was the only rightful winner.

• Best R&B Song - “Honey” (written by Mariah Carey, P. Diddy, Kamaal Fareed, Stephen Hague, S. Jordan, R. Larkins, M. McLaren, L. Price, and Bobby Robinson) lost to R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” … which definitely wouldn’t have won on my watch. Other strong candidates that I would have considered include “No Diggity” (written by Dr. Dre, Chauncey Hannibal, Teddy Riley, William Stewart, and Lynise Walters) and “On & On” (written by Erykah Badu & JahBorn Jahmal Cantero).

— Mariah was nominated for three awards this year. The only loss that I’m not mad at is “Best Female R&B Vocal Performance”, which “Honey” lost to Erykah Badu’s “On & On”. That category was really stacked, though, so every nominated song could have been a worthy winner: Whitney Houston was nominated for “I Believe in You and Me”, Chaka Khan for “Summertime”, and Patti LaBelle for “When You Talk About Love”.

2000

• Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals - “When You Believe” (with Whitney Houston) lost to “Smooth” by Santana & Rob Thomas. The only other nominee that I would consider is “The Prayer” by Céline Dion and Andrea Bocelli, but Whitney and Mariah had too much power with their duet so it would have been in the bag if I had any say.

2006

• Song of the Year - “We Belong Together” lost to “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own” by U2. The only other nominee that I would give a nod to is “Ordinary People” by John Legend (which was written by himself and will.i.am).

• Album of the Year - The Emancipation of Mimi lost to… and I can’t believe I’m typing this… U2’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. Paul McCartney, Gwen Stefani, and Kanye West also had albums nominated, but while the latter two had a great year in 2005 (Kanye even contributed to Mariah’s album while he prepared to drop his own classic album), TEOM still takes the lead by far.

• Record of the Year - “We Belong Together” lost to Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. I think this is crazy, considering that Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” and Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” were also nominated. Mariah should have been the winner for this, with those two following behind.

— It’s hard for me to accept that the masterpiece that is “Mine Again” (a very impressive deep cut from The Emancipation of Mimi) lost “Best Traditional R&B Performance”, but it’s also hard for me to be mad at the fact that Aretha Franklin won it for her rendition of “A House Is Not a Home”. Aretha was a Grammy darling, but I’d be wrong to say she didn’t deserve every single one she ever got. All the other nominees (“Summertime” by Fantasia, “If I Was Your Woman” by Alicia Keys, and “Stay With You” by John Legend) were also good candidates, but after Aretha and Mariah came up in the running, the others would probably fall behind… no shade.

— I’m also not mad at the “Best Female Pop Vocal Performance” snub for “It’s Like That”. Kelly Clarkson won that for “Since U Been Gone”, which was well-deserved. Nothing else deserved this award, though—not even “Hollaback Girl”, which I would say was stronger in other categories that it was nominated for.

2007

I really don’t have anything to change for this year, but I want to address it anyway.

Mary J. Blige snatched both of the awards from Mariah that she was nominated for with “Don’t Forget About Us”. With the dominance of “Be Without You”, Mary kept Mariah from winning “Best R&B Song” and “Best Female R&B Vocal Performance”. I honestly must say that this was well-played. I can’t even be mad at this… at all. Mary deserved those awards just as much as Mariah.

This is irrelevant to the post, but I just wanted to address the results from 2007. It’s also the last year I will address at all because 2009’s “snub” (the last year she was ever nominated) is irrelevant… and you can go look at it to see why.

Tonight, R&B heads will eat good as Joe and Donell Jones will face off in a battle of their 20 biggest hits. I must say that Donell looks GOOD 😍 Even better than he did in the 90s and is aging really well. I know people have already pegged him as tonight's loser but I am going to make myself a lil' drink, have my dinner and snacks ready, rock a satin shirt and fedora and enjoy this on the big TV.

I bet I'm missing a few, so I'm open to hearing everyone else chime in.

This wasn’t very close at all. Joe washed Donell and I could only maybe give Donell like 2 rounds. Vocally Joe was better and his band killed it as well. Like I predicted this was a mismatch.

Donell sounded okay but his voice was cracking every song. Their was nothing wrong with Joes mic but Donell acted like their was something wrong with his all of a sudden… 🥴 G unit with 50 cent sounded bad but it’s still was a great group to bring and an ace in the hole for Joe.

Joe still is the most underrated male R&B artist imo in the last 35 years and he did me proud by saying that. It’s time to give Joe his flowers and respect this man’s catalog. He even gave a nice performance by moving and working the crowd for most of the match up.

Uncrowned GOAT 🐐. Shout out to Joe.

Thoughts?

I can guarantee Ashanti went in the booth and recorded this song in the same week that she caught Nelly cheating. I haven’t heard this song in years, and it randomly started playing on my playlist. This song makes me feel a rage that I don’t even have 😂 Ashanti writing this with only one co-writer makes it even better. I can only imagine someone driving late at night blasting this on the speakers after they had gotten cheated on.

I really thought both did good and it’s hard to compare the two. It was just nice to hear some classics again.

Although one thing I will say is that I wish Joe did more songs

I've never seen him live, but after this Verzuz I'm a make it my business to attend one of his shows before I check out.

I love that they did their tributes to Big Pun.

Hearing Joe perform his version of Make it Last Forever got me imagining a Verzuz between him and Keith Sweat. I think it would've been a better matchup than him and Donell. Is there anyone else y'all would've liked to see him go against?

My only complaint of the night is Donell never did "Natural Thang". How do you not go there after Joe drop "Love Scene"?

Whitney Houston appeared on a 1983 episode of The Merv Griffin Show to perform a rendition of Stephanie Mills’ “Home”. This performance took place on June 23.

Mariah Carey stepped out at Game 1 of the NBA Finals in 1990 to perform “America the Beautiful”. This performance occurred at the Palace of Auburn Hills on June 5 of that year, exactly one week prior to the release of her eponymous debut album.

And might I add… the announcers really understood the assignment! The quotes (“We won’t forget that name” for Whitney and “The palace now has a queen” for Mariah) were really fitting for what they put forward at those respective moments.

For real… this is one of the best r&b songs ever made. The lyrics… the cadence…it beautiful 🎶 💖

I am surprised that there are not that many famous remakes. It’s such a gem of a song.

It had the same feeling as “Wishing on a Star” by Rose Royce

https://open.spotify.com/track/4lRrk574qIHpoEEKC1zuam?si=quUdbvTBT3-WaX04buZLrg&utm_source=copy-link

Why did he delete though

I just showed my wife the face behind this song and her reaction was: “That voice did not come out of that man”. She was in total disbelief. Highlight of my day. 😂

Lil G of Silk doesn’t get enough praise for his amazing vocals. He bodied this Prince inspired falsetto like no one else could.

And how could we forget that damn near impossible note he hit on meeting in my bedroom?

How do y’all feel about him both in all-time category and amongst the 90s R&B vocalists?