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Thursday, December 6th, 2012
Awards
5

The Grammys Snub Tig Notaro and a Lot of Other Great Comedians

by | December 6th, 2012

Look, the Grammys have always been sort of out of touch when it comes to comedy, often choosing safe, unchallenging stand-up albums over cutting edge great ones. Occasionally, outstanding stuff seeps through (like Louis C.K.'s Hilarious, which won the prize last year), but it's pretty rare. The 2013 Grammy nominees were announced today, and in the category of Best Comedy Album, voters played it pretty safe and proved to be woefully ignorant of some amazing work done by comedians this past year. Here are this year's nominees for Best Comedy Album:

Lewis Black – In God We Rust

Margaret Cho – Cho Dependent (Live in Concert)

Jimmy Fallon – Blow Your Pants Off

Jim Gaffigan – Mr. Universe

Kathy Griffin – Seaman 1st Class

Tenacious D – Rize of the Fenix 

As The Comic's Comic points out, The Grammys already nominated Margaret Cho for an album called Cho Dependent (a  different album with the same name) two years ago, when she was also in competition with Lewis Black and Kathy Griffin. So, the Grammys are actually repeating themselves. All in all, it's just a bummer to see a lot of great stuff not get recognized by the only legitimate awards show that gives accolades to comedy albums. Tig Notaro's groundbreaking, wildly successful album Live, in which she was very honest and heartbreaking and funny about her recent cancer diagnosis and a series of other recent personal tragedies, seems like it would be a shoo-in for a nomination, but alas. John Mulaney's New in Town, Hannibal Buress's Animal Furnace, James Adomian's Low Hangin Fruit, Gabe Liedman's HIYEEE!!, Paul F. Tompkins's Laboring Under Delusions: Live in Brooklyn, Nate Bargatze's Yelled at by a Clown, and Patrice O'Neal's swan song Mr. P were also worthy of recognition.

UPDATE: Tig Notaro just posted the following message on Facebook: "everyone relax. i was not snubbed by the grammys. my album LIVE was released 6 days after the cut off. because of that, it was submitted for the following year. thanks for the messages of concern and support." So, let's all meet back here a year from now if Tig doesn't get nominated then?

Tags:

comedy albums, ellen degeneres, grammys, jimmy fallon, Kathy Griffin, lewis black, Margaret Cho, tenacious d

  • http://www.facebook.com/rob.moden.5 Rob Moden

    The eligibility period for the Grammy's went until September 30th; Tig Notaro's Live was released in October. Paul F. Tompkins's CD also just came out within the last few weeks (versus the DVD, which has been out for a while).

  • http://www.facebook.com/luke.henderson.988 Luke Henderson

    Yeah, sort of weird to not research the cut off date before you posted this anger.

  • gothamtommy

    Brad — did "shoo-in" come up on word-of-the-day toilet paper?

  • http://www.facebook.com/steve.austine.18 Steve Austine

    How did Patrice not get nominated? That was hands down one of the best comedy albums to come out in at least the last 5 years.

  • ellen paige

    Tig lies a lot . I bet she was eligible.

    She refers to herself in third person? This self promoting narcissist is getting on my nerves.

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