Culture
23 Dec 20

Talking Heads to receive Lifetime Achievement Award at 2021 Grammys

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, the late jazz musician Lionel Hampton, opera singer Marilyn Horne, Salt-N-Pepa, Selena will also be honoured with the award alongside Talking Heads.

The Recording Academy has revealed the recipients of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Awards a month after publishing the nominees for the 2021 Grammy Awards.

The 2021 Lifetime Achievement honourees include icons from a range of genres, with Talking Heads, Selena, and Salt-N-Pepa all receiving the Special Merit gramophones alongside Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, opera singer Marilyn Horne, and late jazz great Lionel Hampton.

The Talking Heads’ accolade is particularly interesting, as the legendary alt-rock group never received a Grammy during their existence as a band.

Their only nomination arrived in 1984 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group for 'Burning Down the House'.

Trustees Awards, which recognise “significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording,” will go to producer/songwriter Kenny “Babyface” Edwards, engineer Ed Cherney, and composer/arranger Benny Golson.

This year’s Technical Grammy will go to jazz drummer Daniel Weiss.

The 2021 Grammy Awards are set to take place Sunday, January 31st - with Trevor Noah of The Daily Show hosting the ceremony.

A statement announcing the Special Merit Awards noted that, “Given the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, more details about the special award presentation event will be announced at a later date.”

The Weeknd was snubbed from the nominations, while Beyoncé leads the pack with nine nominations.

BTS also received their first music-related nomination for 'Dynamite', while Best Rock Performance features all female-led nominees (Fiona Apple, Big Thief, Phoebe Bridgers, HAIM, Brittany Howard, and Grace Potter) for the first time ever. Elsewhere, Dua Lipa scored six nominations.

The Recording Academy has been criticised for its failure to recognise the contributions of Black artists in the past by artists like Drake and Nicki Minaj, which may explain this years' diverse recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Awards and Grammy nominations in general.