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On February 8th, Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj will both be returning to the Grammys — and both will be vying to take home their first trophy. Like Patti Smith (one nomination), Björk (13) and Snoop Dogg and Brian McKnight (16 each), neither have won a gramophone of their own. Here now, a rundown of the pop stars, punk icons and rock geniuses whose work has never been recognized by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Brian McKnight
Paul Warner/Getty Images
Times nominated: 16
Sort of the Susan Lucci of R&B, Brian McKnight co-holds the ignominious honor of being the artist who has the most Grammy nominations without a win. Surely you would think that somewhere in his deep and velvety catalog, brimming with favorites like "Anytime" (lost Best Pop Vocal Performance to Stevie Wonder's "St. Louis Blues" in 1999) and Back at One (lost Best R&B Album to TLC's FanMail in 2000), there is an album or song or video or duet worthy of a statue. But maybe his pristine adult contemporary R&B – though apparently highly nominate-able – is somehow too safe, too staid for even the Grammy records? Actually, scratch that: McKnight's 0-fer is probably just bad luck.
Snoop Dogg
Gabriel Olsen/FilmMagic
Times nominated: 16
With last year's nomination for Best Reggae Album (for Reincarnated), Snoop matched Brian McKnight for the dubious distinction of most nominations without a win. In the past, the man now called Snoop Lion (or is it Snoopzilla?) made the final cut for classics "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang," "Gin and Juice" and "Drop It Like It's Hot," among others. He can probably find some consolation in knowing he's been beaten out by the eminently worthy likes of Kanye West, Beyoncé (twice) and Dr. Dre.
Martina McBride
Rebecca Sapp/Getty
Times nominated: 14
Martina McBride has sold more than 14 million albums and won the Country Music Association's "Female Vocalist of the Year" award four times, but she has yet to catch a break at the Grammys. The closest she ever came was in 1996, when an album on which she was featured, Amazing Grace – A Salute to Gospel, won for Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album. But it was the compilation's producer, Bill Hearn, who got the award.
Björk
Mark Horton/WireImage
Times nominated: 13
Although it would seem that Björk's art-rock is a tad too far out for even the Grammys' Alternative categories, the Icelandic icon's eccentricity isn't much of an issue for other organizations doling out music awards. Björk has won BRIT Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, 21 Icelandic Music awards, an award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, two Webby Awards and the award for Best Actress at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. So her trophy room is fully stocked.
Nas
Suzi Pratt/Getty Images
Times nominated: 13
Nas' failure to win even one Grammy can perhaps be chalked up to an unfortunate generational loophole: 1994's Illmatic – which is largely considered to be not only his masterwork, but a seminal album in hip-hop history – was released before the Best Rap Album category was even introduced in 1996. His gritty gamechanger didn't even garner an Album of the Year nomination – surely Illmatic was better than the eventual winner from its year, Tony Bennett's MTV Unplugged.
Busta Rhymes
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Times nominated: 11
In late Nineties, the New York City motormouth lost Best Rap Solo Performance two years in a row to Will Smith: in 1997 "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See" fell to "Men in Black" and "Dangerous" was beat by "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It." But Busta has kept on plugging, earning a nomination as recently as 2012, when "Look at Me Now" was cited for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song.
Katy Perry
Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Clear Channel
Times nominated: 11
It's hard to imagine a world in which a megastar like Katy Perry, whose Teenage Dream produced a record breaking five Number One hits, cannot count a single golden gramophone among her many decorations and novelty bras — but here we are. To be fair, the competition has been stiff. Perry has lost to Adele (a nine-time winner) on three occasions: in 2009, 2012 and 2013, and a different category each time. But she's up for two awards this year (Prism is up for Best Pop Vocal Album and "Dark Horse" for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance) and Adele isn't around, so maybe this is Perry's best chance.
Tupac Shakur
Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Times nominated: 7
Appearing onstage to introduce Kiss at the 1996 Grammy Awards telecast, Tupac served the ceremony with an indictment: "You know how the Grammys used to be: all straight-looking folks with suits," he said. "Everybody looking tired. No surprises. We tired of that. We need something different." Pac was up for two awards that night – "Dear Mama" for Best Rap Solo Performance and Me Against the World for Best Rap Album – hoping to be a part of that something different, but instead he went home Grammy-less.
Public Enemy
Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage
Times nominated: 6
The Grammys didn't give out an award for Best Rap Album until 1996, but there is no doubt that Public Enemy's pivotal 1988 effort It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back should have held its own in the Best Album race, which wound up being won by George Michael's Faith. And no disrespect to Young MC who won Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group award for his 1989 track "Bust a Move," but "Fight the Power" came out that same year. Come on!
Depeche Mode
PAUL BERGEN/AFP/Getty Images
Times nominated: 5
As far as Eighties rock bands go, Depeche Mode are just one small rung of success below the U2s and Bon Jovis of the world. Dave Gahan, Martin Gore and Co. have sold huge amounts of albums, consistently play arenas and, in Gahan's case, come back from the dead. But they've never won a Grammy. Perhaps just as weirdly, four of the band's five nominations have come since 2001.
Nicki Minaj
Mike Pont/FilmMagic
Times nominated: 6
In 2012, Nicki was taken in the Best New Artist category by soft-spoken indie crooner Bon Iver (or was it Bonny Bear?). But she was definitely the winner of that year's unofficial award for wildest performance, as Nicki used her allotted onstage time to perform an exorcism on... herself.
The Notorious B.I.G.
David Corio/Redferns
Times nominated: 4
Three of Biggie's four nominations were posthumous, including one for Life After Death, which lost the Best Rap Album race in 1998 to Puff Daddy's No Way Out. Ironically, No Way Out's biggest hit was the Biggie tribute track "I'll Be Missing You."
Queens of the Stone Age
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Times nominated: 6
Josh Homme shared an award with Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones for his work with Them Crooked Vultures (the band's "New Fang" won Best Hard Rock Performance in 2011), but he has yet to make that kind of magic happen for his primary outfit, Queens of the Stone Age. In 2014 the hard-rock heroes made two more bids for trophies, this time for Best Rock Performance ("My God Is the Sun") and Best Rock Album (...Like Clockwork) but lost both.
Guns N' Roses
Cassandra Hannagan/WireImage
Times nominated: 3
GN'R pretty much rescued hard rock from a spandex'd abyss and 1987's Appetite for Destruction has gone platinum 18 times over, but apparently none of that mattered enough to Grammy voters to compel a win for the band. Heck, Chinese Democracy didn't even get a nomination, which, given the 14 years that went into making it, just seems unfair. Former Gunners Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum did earn a Grammy, though, with Velvet Revolver. ("Slither" won in 2005 for Best Hard Rock Performance.) So there go your arguments for cosmic justice.
Oasis
Will Ireland/Classic Rock Magazine/TeamRock via Getty Images
Times nominated: 3
The self-proclaimed "greatest rock band in the world" went home from the 1997 Grammy Awards show nil-for-two nominations. Their mega hit "Wonderwall" lost Best Rock Song to Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason" and Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group to Dave Matthews Band's "So Much to Say." Oasis haven't even been nominated for an award since 1999, when "All Around the World" was up for Best Music Video, Short Form. Presumably, this is cause, like so many things are, for tension between Liam and Noel Gallagher.
Justin Bieber
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Times nominated: 2
With megastars like Justin Bieber, Drake, Florence and the Machine and Mumford & Sons all in contention for Best New Artist at the 2011 Grammy Awards, it would be an understatement to say it was a surprise when jazz singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding was announced as the winner. So maybe Bieber's manager Scooter Braun was right when he called Justin an "underdog" in the eye of the Grammy nominating committee.
Patti Smith
Mark Horton/WireImage
Times nominated: 2
Neither of Smith's nominations were for her genius debut album, Horses, released in 1975. Instead, she was up for Best Female Rock Vocal performance in 1998 for "1959" and in 2001 for "Glitter in Their Eyes." The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer will just have to content herself with the National Book Award she won in 2010 for her memoir, Just Kids.
Journey
Jun Sato/WireImage
Times nominated: 1
Journey's 1981 hit single "Don't Stop Believin'" achieved cultural ubiquity long before capping The Sopranos series finale (and kicking off Glee), but neither the song, nor the massive-selling album from which it came, Escape, was bestowed with a nomination. Journey didn't receive Grammy recognition until 1997, long after its commercial heyday, when "When You Love a Woman" earned a nomination for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The winner in that category was the Beatles, for "Free As a Bird."
Kiss
Neil Lupin/Redferns via Getty Images
Times nominated: 1
It is truly one of the weirdest and most frustrating quirks in the annals of Kisstory that the hottest band in the world was completely ignored by Grammy voters until 1999. That's when the face-painted foursome scored their first, and so far only, nomination — Best Hard Rock Performance for "Psycho Circus." But even the most ardent members of the Kiss Army can't be too upset about who bested their heroes that year: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, who won for "Most High."
Morrissey
Mat Hayward/FilmMagic
Times nominated: 1
For all his legendary work with the Smiths, for all his sterling solo work, for each and every one of his diatribes (there is a Best Spoken Word Grammy category, after all) Stephen Patrick Morrissey's only nominated effort was his 1992 album Your Arsenal. Moz lost in the Best Alternative Music Performance category that year to Tom Waits' Bone Machine, an event that likely did little to lighten his legendarily dyspeptic mood.
- The Kinks
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Times nominated: 0
The Kinks have been ignored by Grammy voters despite being one of the driving forces behind the Sixties British Invasion and their subsequent surprising reinvention as a late-Seventies/early-Eighties arena-rock success. At least Ray and Dave Davies know they're responsible for the most beautiful rock ballad ever, "Waterloo Sunset." So they're likely not losing any sleep over their Grammy snubbing.
Spice Girls
MJ Kim/Spice Girls LLP via Getty Images
Times nominated: 0
In 1996 the Spice Girls became global phenomenon, as Spice became the best-selling girl-group album of all time. And yet, their girl power was not enough (too much?) for the Grammy voters, who often choose to reward (often artistically dubious) commercial success with nominations rather than wins. Not in this case, though.
The Strokes
Martin Philbey/Redferns
Times nominated: 0
The Strokes' 2001 debut album, Is This It, is credited with breathing new life into New York City's rock scene. But they couldn't even crack the list of nominees list for that year's Best New Artist (won by Alicia Keys) or Best Rock Album (won by U2 for All That You Can't Leave Behind). The band's subsequent albums have been similarly shut out.
Talking Heads
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Times nominated: 0
Actually, the New York City pioneers have sort of tangentially won two Grammys: Artist Robert Rauschenberg was awarded a Grammy in 1986 for Best Recording Package for his work on the band's True Stories. Similarly, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister won for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package, for his work on Talking Heads' 2003 box set Once in a Lifetime. Frontman David Byrne shared a Grammy with Cong Su and Ryuichi Sakamoto, the trio responsible for 1987's The Last Emperor score, which won in the category of Best Album of Original Instrumental Background Score Written for a Motion or Television.
The Velvet Underground
Rob Verhorst/Redferns
Times nominated: 0
Winning an award as symbolic of mainstream success as a Grammy likely never even crossed the avant-garde minds of the Velvet Underground, but you'd think that maybe one of the band's posthumous reissues would've earned at least a nomination for packaging or something — if only as a belated tip of the cap. But no. For his part, Velvets frontman Lou Reed won just a single Grammy during his long and illustrious career: Best Long Form Video in 1999, for Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart.