The GRAMMYs snubbed Vinnie Paul, Kyle Pavone and Oli Herbert in their 'In Memoriam' piece

Every year we get excited in the hope that the Grammys, the ARIAs and, well, any musical awards ceremony watched by millions of people (thousands for the ARIAs) will pay respect to each and every genre there is, more importantly for our sake, bands within the heavier music scene.

This year we had raised expectations for the Grammys whose heavy metal/rock nominations list included bands like Fever 333, Underoath, Bring Me The Horizon, Ghost, Trivium, Between The Buried and Me, Deafheaven, High on Fire, Halestorm and more (revisit the winners list here).

But, as usual, there was yet another disrespectful fuck up to add to the evergrowing list of disappointments we seem to add to each year (more recently Megadeth's slap in the face when a Metallica song was played as they accepted their award and the time they "forgot" to turn James Hetfield's microphone on during the band's duet with Lady GaGa).

This time around it was a mindblowing colossal fuck up of disrespectful proportions when three members of the heavy music industry were left out of the night's "In Memoriam" segment, paying their respects to those musicians who have left this mortal coil in the past year. As expected rapper Mac Miller and DJ Avicii were included, but absent from the list were heavy metal royalty Vinnie Paul (HELLYEAH/Pantera), Kyle Pavone (We Came As Romans) and Oli Herbert (All That Remains), all of whom passed away in 2018.

The move was noticed by heavy music fans all across the internet and even by Halestorm frontwoman Lzzy Hale, who was also not only up for an award on the night, but also had presenting duties too, who shared her disappointment on social media:

"There's a committee at The Recording Academy and, in December, they put together a list that goes into the hundreds, 300 to 400 people. They go through that list and this committee votes. And from that, they cut it down to a reasonable number for television. I get it. But that is not an excuse for not including my friend Vinnie Paul of PANTERA/HELLYEAH, who has in fact been nominated for four Grammy Awards.

Insane, that an actual Grammy nominee, like Vinnie, or anyone who contributed to the heavy music scene would be cut for timing constraints or whatever reason imaginable. Lzzy also added that was part of the reason why she was there, to represent the community:

"I am very much aware that our genre is still not given the respect that it deserves. This is why I'm involved. That's why I was there, in my leather jacket and horns raised, representing my genre presenting awards at the pre-televised ceremony. That is why I was present at the televised show, sitting next to the cool kids.

Regardless if the ceremony is mainstream, all music genres should be met with the same dignity and respect as some of the most listened to, despite what critics alike think. We get amped up about these things because we care about this scene, this community and those within it.

The ARIAs copped it from us when they only aired a measly 7 seconds of Parkway Drive's win for the Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Award at least year's woeful event and we will continue to fight and make a noise about it until this bullshit hierarchy and disrespect is completely removed in future years.

Poor form Grammys. Pick up your act (again)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkbVHZB6TqY&w=853&h=480]