A veteran music producer has launched a blistering attack on the current state of pop music, just weeks before the 2026 Grammy Awards ceremony is set to take place.
Beato's Blunt Assessment Goes Viral
Rick Beato, a respected record producer turned YouTube music analyst with over 5.4 million subscribers, delivered a brutal takedown of this year's Song of the Year contenders in a recent video. He directly contrasted the 2026 nominees with the legendary line-up from the 1984 Grammys, a ceremony dominated by Michael Jackson's Thriller and The Police's win for 'Every Breath You Take'.
The 1984 nominees also included timeless tracks like Lionel Richie's 'All Night Long', Irene Cara's 'Flashdance... What a Feeling', and Michael Sembello's 'Maniac'. Beato first highlighted a key difference: many of those classic hits were credited to a single songwriter, unlike today's chart-toppers which often feature lengthy writing credits and heavy use of samples.
Dissecting the 2026 Nominees
Turning his focus to the current crop, Beato began with Doechii's 'Anxiety'. He noted it samples Gotye's 2011 hit 'Somebody That I Used to Know', which itself samples a 1967 song by Luiz Bonfá. "So I guess Doechii just took the Gotye song, removed the vocals, and then sang her own song over it?" he questioned.
He then targeted Kendrick Lamar and SZA's chart-dominating track 'Luther', which is based on Luther Vandross's 1982 song 'If This World Were Mine'. "And this song has ten songwriters," Beato stated, playing a snippet. "So it took ten people to write that song. Am I gonna hear this song in forty years like those other songs? I don't think so."
Lady Gaga's 'Abracadabra' was dismissed as a "very run-of-the-mill dance song" with "nothing memorable about it", further criticised for interpolating Siouxsie and the Banshees' 'Spellbound', bringing its total writers to seven. Bruno Mars and K-pop star Rosé's hit 'APT' also drew fire for using a melody from Toni Basil's 'Mickey'.
"I don't mean to keep harping on this, but this song took eleven people to write an incredible lightweight song," Beato said of 'APT'. "When I hear this, this is like the most unserious song. It sounds like a song for five-year-olds!"
Sabrina Carpenter's 'Manchild' was the final nominee in his sights, labelled "such a generic sounding song", with Beato adding the singer has "way better songs than this".
A Few Rays of Hope and a Stark Prediction
It wasn't all criticism. Beato praised Bad Bunny's 'DTMF' for its "unique production" and the K-pop soundtrack hit 'Golden' as "interesting and melodic". His highest praise was reserved for Billie Eilish's ballad 'Wildflower', which he called "the best song on the entire list" and applauded for its great melody and understated production.
He specifically highlighted that Eilish and her brother Finneas O'Connell wrote and produced the song entirely by themselves. This stood in stark contrast to his overall verdict on the other nominated tracks.
Beato concluded with a damning prediction about the legacy of modern hits reliant on multiple writers and interpolations: "No one's gonna remember these songs that were written by three, four, seven, ten, eleven people, forty years from now." He pointed out that 1984 Grammy hits like 'Beat It' are still streamed and discovered by new listeners today, a fate he doubts awaits the 2026 nominees. "Nobody will remember these songs from today three years from now. They won't," he added.
