Country-rock crooner Sturgill Simpson might’ve surprised a few music enthusiasts this morning when his album, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, was nominated alongside slightly more mainstream artists — Beyoncé! Adele! — for the Grammy Awards’ revered Album of the Year. One of those people, amusingly enough, happens to be the ever-modest Simpson himself, who told the New York Times in a new interview that he would’ve liked to see his fellow music contemporary Frank Ocean take his Album of the Year spot instead. “I loved Lemonade. I thought it was genius. I love the Adele record,” he said of his fellow nominees. “I really, really wish, honestly, and no [expletive] — I would’ve liked to see Frank Ocean’s name where mine is. But that’s not my place to say. I totally understand [his protest]. I just thought that record [Blonde] was really groundbreaking. I listen to just about everything except country music, so it’s strange.” Ocean intentionally chose to miss the deadline to submit Blonde into Grammy consideration, later saying that his boycott was his own “Colin Kaepernick moment.” In non-Ocean news, Simpson also outlined how he chose to celebrate his Grammy nom: “I went downstairs and made pancakes and watched Sesame Street with my son. That was pretty much it.” Aw!

Sources

New York Times Simpson Wishes His Grammy Nom Went to Ocean