The Grammys have a long and ignominious history of leaving heavy-music stars out of the "In Memoriam" video segment during the Recording Academy's annual awards ceremony. In 2014, late Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman was excluded, and last year, Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul was snubbed.
As reported by Billboard, this year's slideshow — which aired during the televised portion of the pop-dominated trophy toss last night, January 26th — had its fair share of omissions, as well. Not making the tribute reel were the Prodigy wild man Keith Flint, Geto Boys rapper and horrorcore pioneer Bushwick Bill, and singer-songwriter and Sunn O))) collaborator Scott Walker.
Outside of the heavy-music world, Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, Talk Talk frontman Mark Hollis, English Beat vocalist Ranking Roger and Silver Jews' David Berman were also missing. And that wasn't the extent of the errors: The first names of the Cars' Ric Ocasek and Spanish singer Camilo Sesto were both misspelled, as "Rick" and "Camile," respectively.
The official Grammy site did include all the above omitted names in a more comprehensive list of recently deceased musical stars — but much like Tool or any other metal band, they apparently didn't merit TV time. Shame.
