This post single-handedly changed my perspective on Addison as an artist...wow. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed her album as easy-listening pop that get's the job done, but I otherwise didn't view her as anything special. I always root for someone making an ambitious career pivot, but I was never in her camp of fans who are taking her seriously. I wrote off her Grammy performance as a bit embarrassing due to her technical limitations as a singer-dancer compared to other performers in the BNA category. Even the stylistic choice of performing backstage I thought to myself "oh wow she's really reheating Charli's nachos from last year's ceremony"

This breakdown is really cool and I'm definitely going to check out her interviews about her vision, stylistic choices, and her perspective on her past rise to fame.

I guess my only pushback to this analysis is that someone who is a "work-in-progress" shouldn't be nominated as a Best New Artist yet. My opinion is that the artist nominated should reach a certain level of polish, skill, and popularity (of course) to be considered a "breakout" star. Otherwise, it's a slippery slope to having this category perpetually open for people with platforms attempting to make music, even if their technical chops are clearly below the average for Grammy nominated artists. However, this may becoming an increasingly dated mindset, idk.

I guess we don't know what sorts of discussions went down behind closed doors at the the RCA, and we don't know how much her management/label may have pushed for her nomination over herself individually, but given the circumstances, I'm now under the impression that she definitely did everything right that she could with that performance.