7. Elvis Costello Loses to Disco
The award for Best New Artist can often be tricky, especially in retrospect. It’s easy to overlook the first album of someone who turns into a megastar and kick yourselves afterwards, just as it’s easy to think an artist could be on the verge of making it huge, only for them to quickly fade away. However, some things are eminently clear, such as the fact disco was already dying in 1979, and a brash young man with the courage to steal the name Elvis used it to once again to revolutionize music.
For some reason, though, the Grammys instead chose to award Best New Artist to A Taste of Honey, whose only real hit was the disco single “Boogie Oogie Oogie,” which was extremely successful, if rapidly going out of style. The Cars were also nominated for the award, and though they wouldn’t become as important to musical history as Elvis Costello, their synth pop at least used the soul of disco to take pop into a new, wavy direction, while A Taste of Honey were both regressive and boring at the same time.
