Will Linkin Park ever win 'Best Rock Album' at The Grammys

Too true

 

They won "Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"; were it not for the involvement of another artist (in this case, Jay-Z), they wouldn't have been nominated for that category at all. Add to that, "Numb/Encore" was a successful single that received immensely wide exposure.

Beyond that, it was significant, along with the rest of the EP, for being the first instance of two major-label artists getting together to combine and recontextualise their respective songs in that particular way. No-one else has tried it since, which tells you how high a bar it set.

 

I think a lot of the answers have been covered. What the Grammy Awards committees define as 'Rock' has drastically changed (as has the scene). Keep in mind, Linkin Park won awards for particular songs. "Crawling" was awarded as the best Hard Rock song of its year, and as Tony explained, "Numb/Encore" was a group/duo performance award and was incredibly deserving at the time it was received (no one had done anything like it before, and like Tony said, no one has really tried since). There was one year at the Grammy's recently (Last year? Two years ago?) where they did live mash-up performances that were wildly successful, so it goes to show you how that market is still out there but no one, not even MTV, took advantage of it. Linkin Park has thrived off of that collaboration ever since.

Anyway, back to the point - it's tough. Linkin Park is by no means a band in the mainstream. They are still very well known - no one in this day and age doesn't know who they are really (unless they're really young or were too old to ever like them). They're still one of the top-selling bands of this century (if not the top-selling band? Not sure if they've been surpassed by Coldplay or Foo Fighters or whomever), and that says something considering how much album sales have declined since the early 2000s. That is at least part of why they don't seem to get nods. Mainstream here is a bit different, because Linkin Park's music by and large hasn't been accessible. This is by design of course - Linkin Park could follow the path of Daft Punk and make an album that literally everyone knew would take everything it was nominated for (no one was surprised, in fact, they were pleased). Linkin Park doesn't do that.

Linkin Park makes different albums - they tap into more unconventional song structures and make music that really is for a particular audience (themselves and their fans). Granted, The Hunting Party has opened up the audience again - taking in a lot of hard rockheads that the band did not have before. Who knew Linkin Park would play at a festival like 'Rock on the Range'? I sure didn't. But, the music still isn't accessible. Linkin Park is hard to get into these days, sincerely. What hurts the band is what people remember them to be more than what they are right now, though.

But again, it only hurts the band if the priority is winning awards. Keep in mind that some really great bands have come along that didn't get anything. I think the last time Radiohead won a Grammy was for 'Karma Police', and guess when that was? Before some of you were even born. But Radiohead isn't making music for anyone but themselves, and all they need is perhaps the world's best and most committed fan base to keep them going. With that said, I don't think Linkin Park necessarily cares about it. A Grammy says more about how many records you sold and how many people liked your music versus how 'much' people liked it. The more people who say, 'Yeah I like this song," the more people will say it earns a Grammy. Everyone loved Random Access Memories because generally speaking there wasn't a song on the album that people hated, and everyone fucking loved "Get Lucky" and "Lose Yourself to Dance". That's all Daft Punk needed.

Again, can't say that about Linkin Park. Too many people don't dig what the band does (or don't care) and that's fine. It's just not accessible to everyone, but I think part of why we like the band so much is that we like that their music is not accessible. I think there's something good or neat or something about the fact that Linkin Park's music is hard to get into now. It's great for us, but it just means they won't get awarded for it.