(Credits: The Recording Academy)
Sun 4 January 2026 21:45, UK
“Life goes in cycles,” Frank Sinatra once sang. So, he shouldn’t have been all that surprised when his swinging style was replaced by rock ‘n’ roll once Elvis Presley burst onto the scene.
All the same, he wasn’t all that fond of this “ugly” transition. “His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid-smelling aphrodisiac,” Sinatra once said regarding Presley’s hip-snaking revolution. “It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people”.
While that might seem vaguely ludicrous in retrospect, ‘retrospect’ happens to be the key word. Sinatra’s opinion reflected what a fair chunk of the population was thinking. That’s one of the problems with mainstream awards. By the dawn of the 1960s, it was obvious to anyone paying due attention that rock ‘n’ roll was the future, but the Grammys were never independent enough to champion the advancing avant-garde.
So, remaining aligned with the populist vote, it took a while to break away from swing following its inaugural ceremony in 1959. For instance, in 1963, it gave the plaudit to ‘What Kind of Fool am I?’, but was Sammy Davis Jr’s typical jazzy record really more worthy than the cutting edge vitality of something like Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’?
So, when was classic rock finally recognised on the big stage at music’s so-called Oscars? When was the rise of rock ‘n’ roll so unmistakable that the mainstream couldn’t ignore it?
What was the first classic rock track to win ‘Song of the Year’?
Well, while The Beatles might have finally been recognised for their singles when they won the award for ‘Michelle’ in 1967, it was still clear that the powers that be were favouring the softer side of things amid the alternative world. Hell, the undeniable masterpiece ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ wasn’t even nominated.
That feels fairly indicative of the pickle that the Grammys have placed itself in. The history books will decree that classic rock was the dominant cultural force of the 20th century, but a look at the ‘Song of the Year’ list completely fails to reflect that.
In fact, the only track that truly resembles anything approaching the genre is ‘What a Fool Believes’ by the Doobie Brothers. And that was in 1980.
The years of grunge were similarly overlooked, as was punk, obviously, and indie, in turn, although U2 did win it twice in the 2000s. In fact, aside from the Doobie Brothers’ barely eligible classic rock entry in 1980, you only have ‘Every Breath You Take’ by The Police, ‘Tears in Heaven’ and ‘Change the World’ by Eric Clapton, ‘Streets of Philidelphia’ by Bruce Springsteen, and ‘Beautiful Day’ and ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own’ by U2, that even come remotely close to classic rock victors in the history of the Grammys.
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