So picture this: the year is 2013, the Grammys are handing out awards, and Album of the Year is up for grabs. The nominees? A ragtag crew of artists who couldn't be more different from each other if they tried. Buckle up, friends — this is going to be a wild ride.
First, we had fun. — yes, that's literally their name, complete with the period. Their album Some Nights served up epic, stadium-sized anthems that made you want to scream into the void. These guys basically turned every track into a fireworks show and somehow made it work.
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Next up was Frank Ocean with Channel Orange, an album so smooth it could butter your toast from across a room. It was R&B mixed with splashes of pop, funk, and whatever Frank decided to throw into the blender that morning. The man practically invented a new genre of wistful grooving, and we all fell for it.
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Then came Jack White, the man who acts like disaster fuel and sounds like a rock god. His solo debut Blunderbuss proved he could carry an entire album without the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, or literally anyone else. Only Jack White could turn a word that means total mess into a critically acclaimed masterpiece.
2013 Grammy Nominees by Various Artists (CD, Jan-2013, Capitol) for
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Representing the folk scene was Mumford & Sons with Babel, an album filled with stomping feet and obligatory banjo strumming. Every song sounded like your cousin's bonfire party finally got a record deal. Somehow, they made banjo music feel both ancient and absolutely unavoidable.
You had a band literally called fun. competing against a guy named Frank Ken Ocean, a one-man White wonder, and men who wear Mumford overalls. The voting panel at the Grammys essentially had to choose between chaos, class, madness, and handmade crafts.
55th GRAMMY Awards - Album Of The Year Nominees | GRAMMYs - YouTube
In the end, fun. took home Album of the Year with Some Nights, beating out the competition by sheer relentless euphoria. Frank Ocean left empty-handed but forever iconic — a tragedy no amount of Channel Orange vinyl reissues could fix. Meanwhile, Jack White went home and probably punched a wall because that's how Jack White processes feelings.
The 2013 Grammy field showed us that Album of the Year is basically a game of musical musical chairs at a house party. Every nominee brought something delightfully strange to the table, and nobody should have left Early. Only at the Grammys can a band named after an emotion — pure fun, by the way — defeat a guy who sounds like he shops at vintage heaven and a folk group wearing explosiveness on their faces.
