The winner of the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance has gone to Dream Theater for their song, “The Alien.”
Deftones, Dream Theater, Gojira, Mastodon and Rob Zombie were all nominated for tracks on new albums that were released last year and, again, it was a case of the Grammy committee delving into the heart of heavy metal, rather than nominating some live version of a song that was written 40 years ago or a cover track, as had been all too typical in decades past.
Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci accepted the award.
“Wow, this is absolutely insane,” Petrucci said while accepting the award. “On behalf of the entire band, I’d like to thank the Recording Academy and everybody who voted for us. You know, they used to tell us our songs were way too long, we used weird time signatures and there were too many guitar solos. In fact, this song is in 17/8, so try to tap your foot to it. But, we just won a Grammy, so I’m glad we didn’t listen… All the Dream Theater fans around the world, you guys rock! We love you. For fans of prog and prog metal, stay true to your art — it’s alive and well.”
The Best Metal Performance nominees represented a wide range of sounds in metal, from the genre-bending Deftones to the overt prog of Dream Theater to Gojira’s tribal heft to Mastodon’s heaving psychedelia to Rob Zombie’s industrial and otherworldly pomp.
And, if you’re wondering what on earth the difference is between a Best Performance category and a Best Song category, it comes down to a nuance that isn’t as significant or overwhelmingly prevalent in heavy music — the Best Performance is about the musicianship exhibited by the band members and the Best Song is oriented toward the songwriters. In the world of pop music, for example, the songwriters are often not the individuals who lay down the music in the recording studio.
Congratulations to Dream Theater on picking up a Grammy victory!
2022 Best Metal Performance Grammy Nominees:
Deftones, “Genesis”
WINNER – Dream Theater, “The Alien”
Gojira, “Amazonia”
Mastodon, “Pushing the Tides”
Rob Zombie, “The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition)”