Fiona Apple Floats A Boycott Of The Grammys Over ‘Bullshit’ Dr. Luke Nomination

In a new interview with the Guardian, Fiona Apple has criticised the Grammys for nominating Dr. Luke under a pseudonym this year, and floated the idea of organising a boycott.

Chatting to Guardian music deputy editor Laura Snapes, Apple chats about her 2020 album Fetch The Bolt Cutters, the site’s #1 album of the year, as well as her infamous 1997 VMAs acceptance speech where she called the awards and world “bullshit”.

Snapes also asked Apple about the #FreeBritney movement and Taylor Swift’s masters being sold off without her consent, as part of a wider question about the music industry granting autonomy to women.

She used the opportunity to criticise the Grammys for having it both ways by nominating Dr. Luke for his production work on Doja Cat’s album Say So under the pseudonym Tyson Trax, after previously the awards platformed Kesha to perform ‘Praying’, a song about her alleged experiences of abuse by Dr. Luke.

“Also, I’m bringing up the Grammys and that’s really something that I shouldn’t be doing, but really, Dr Luke is nominated [under pseudonym Tyson Trax]?,” she says. “They had [Kesha] up there singing Praying and now they’re gonna go: “Oh but it’s Tyson Trax!”.”

Since Kesha accused Dr. Luke — real name Lukasz Gottwald — of emotional and sexual abuse in 2014, the two have been embroiled in a seven-year legal battle. Despite demanding to be freed from her contract, Kesha remains signed to his Sony imprint Kemosabe records, though has released two albums without his involvement.

In February, a  judge ruled in favour of Gottwald’s counter-suit of defamation against Kesha. The case itself didn’t assess the validity of Kesha’s claims — an explainer of the legal proceedings can be found on Pitchfork.

A series of artists who have previously worked with Gottwald, including Pink, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson and Imagine Dragons, have pledged to never collaborate with him again. A variety of newer artists have worked with the famed producer, including Kim Petras, Saweeetie, Tyga, DaBaby and Doja Cat.

In their chat, Snapes mentions that the Grammys only nominating women, including Apple, for Best Rock Performance this year feels like a ‘PR win’, to which the singer expresses her mixed feelings.

“I immediately had this feeling: I wish I was in a room with these ladies and we could celebrate,” she said. “I felt really nice for a second. Every week I send a selfie to Simon, who runs the Tumblr site on me. I thought, for that week’s selfie, I’m gonna make a T-shirt with everybody’s names in little hearts…. But then I threw it away. I felt like this is exactly what they want me to do: ‘It’s better now! I got nominated! And it’s all women this year and the Grammys are great!'”

“I keep going back to them putting Kesha on stage like, “We believe you” – and I believe her – then two years later, fucking Tyson Trax. Not to go back to that word, but it’s bullshit.”

She then suggests taking a ‘sledgehammer’ to the award if she won, inviting all nominees up to receive a piece, a la Mean Girls — or, alternatively, start a boycott.

“My vision was that I would just get up there with a sledgehammer and I wouldn’t say anything, I would take the Grammy and smash it into enough pieces to share and I would invite all the ladies up. My second thought was I wonder if I can get all these ladies to boycott this shit because of Dr Luke.”

Apple’s criticisms of the Grammys come after The Weeknd called the body “corrupt”, after his smash hit album was snubbed from nominations. He inferred that he was being punished for choosing to perform at the SuperBowl next year instead of the awards. The Grammys has a long history overlooking BIPOC artists in favour of their white counterparts.

Read the Fiona Apple interview here. Find her music video for ‘Shameika’ below.

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Feature image of Fiona Apple by Sachyn Mital via WikiMedia, under CC BY-SA 3.0.