February 22, 1989. The Shrine Auditorium. Los Angeles, California. The Grammys. Shock-rocker Alice Cooper and pop-metal siren Lita Ford were brought onstage by host Billy Crystal, and Cooper went straight into it: “The nominations for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance are…” Ford then listed the nominees: “…And Justice For All, Metallica.”
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The camera cut to the band, who were gathered backstage as they had just finished their performance of the song “One.” (They’d just performed, right before their category, and were already onstage? Check. The word “metal” is right there in the name of the band? Check.)
Ford continued, “Blow Up Your Video, AC/DC; “Cold Metal,” Iggy Pop; Crest of a Knave, Jethro Tull; and Nothing’s Shocking, Jane’s Addiction.” The camera showed Iggy Pop, as he was the only other nominee in attendance.
Cooper leaned into the microphone and reached into his jacket pocket, “And the Grammy goes to, I have the envelope here somewhere, oh, that’s not it,” he said as he produced a small rubber snake and handed it to Ford. “Alice, I told you to leave your pets at home,” the former Runaway said, and she tossed the snake into the crowd.
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As Cooper opened the envelope, the snake came flying back toward the podium. Laughter followed as Ford retrieved it and threw the toy snake further into the audience. “They wouldn’t let me bring the real one,” Cooper continued. “And the winner is Crest of a Knave, Jethro Tull.”
A short snippet of Tull’s “Jump Start” played as the trophy was handed to Alice Cooper, “And they’re not here, so we’ll accept this and divvy it up backstage. Thank you.” A mixture of applause and boos followed. The applause died, and the boos continued as the television coverage faded to commercial.
Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson told broadcaster and music journalist John Beaudin, “I actually apologized to Alice for what he went through and thanked him for stepping up to do that.” Jethro Tull was in the studio in Buckinghamshire, England, recording. Anderson goes on to explain that “I was told by our record company, by the then-head of Chrysalis in the USA, not to bother going, which is a euphemism for, ‘We’re not going to pay your airfare or get you a hotel because we don’t think you’re going to win.'”
Cooper remembered later, “We went to the Shrine Auditorium for rehearsals that day, and that involved opening an envelope with a dummy card inside, which has a name on it. But it’s never the name of the real winner; it just gives you something to read out. I think, during rehearsal, the name on that card was Jethro Tull, so I read it out,” Cooper continued, “I opened the envelope [during the show], and when I saw the name, I thought they’d given me the envelope from the rehearsal. I looked at it again, and it did have a different seal on it and details like that. It was the real thing. So I said: ‘For the Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Grammy, Jethro Tull.'”
Ford said, “There were people in the hall who were upset, and there were people complaining backstage, saying, ‘How did that happen? Metallica should have got it! How come Jethro Tull got it?’ I just tried to stay out of that.”
The backlash was intense over the next few days. All these years later, the controversial choice might best be chalked up to name recognition. The voting members of the academy were certainly more familiar with Jethro Tull’s body of work than a relatively new band such as Metallica or Jane’s Addiction.
The next year, the category was split into Best Hard Rock Performance and Best Metal Performance. In what feels like a bid to put a bandage on the wound still gaping from the year before, Metallica’s song “One” was included in the Metal category. How could this be? This was the very same song the band performed live the year before. It was included on the …And Justice For All album that lost to Jethro Tull.
The loophole was that the song was released as a single in January 1989, making it eligible for the award nominations of 1990. The award for Best Hard Rock Performance was awarded to “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour. The Best Metal Performance went to “One” by Metallica. The awards were both presented before the telecast and were announced by Bob Seger during the show. Metallica did not attend.
If the Grammys were worried about making amends for the embarrassment of the previous year, they found out it was nothing compared to what was about to occur. The Best New Artist Grammy would be given to Milli Vanilli, who would be exposed as a fraud. After the lip-sync scandal came to light, the award was revoked.
In 1991, Metallica again won the award for Best Metal Performance for their cover of Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy.” Once again, the band was not in attendance, and the award was presented during the pre-televised portion of the show. In 1992, Metallica was again nominated. This time they were asked to perform “Enter Sandman,” so they were in the building when their category was announced. Thus, it was televised. Host Whoopi Goldberg introduced Little Steven Van Zandt and Robbie Robertson, who announced the nominees: Anthrax, Soundgarden, Megadeth (spelled onscreen “Megadeath”), Metallica, and Motorhead. Robertson joked when he opened the envelope that the winner was Roy Rogers. Metallica was announced the real winner, and the band accepted the award.
Drummer Lars Ulrich spoke first: “We gotta thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year, right? And also, obviously, we gotta thank the academy for giving Jethro Tull the award in 1989. Read between the lines, know what I mean? So, um, I wanna thank the… Oh, you guys figured it out.”
Metallica would go on to win Grammys in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, and 2009. Through the years, the Grammys have created many highlights and many controversies. But make no mistake, the events of 1989 did nothing but help both Jethro Tull and Metallica. In 2017, Entertainment Weekly named the incident the biggest Grammy upset of all time.
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