Rock and Metal 2020 Grammy Winners: Chris Cornell, Tool, Gary Clark Jr. + Cage the Elephant

2020-01-27

Chris Cornell – Story by Anne Erickson, photo by Ken Settle

Grammy Award winners in the heavy music categories for 2020 included Chris Cornell, Tool, Gary Clark Jr., Cage the Elephant and more

The 2020 Grammy Awards happened yesterday (Jan. 26), and when it comes to rock and metal acts, Tool, Gary Clark Jr., Cage the Elephant brought home trophies.

Tool took 13 years to follow-up their latest studio album, and that time paid off, as the band took home the Best Metal Performance Grammy for their epic song “7empest” off 2019’s “Fear Inoculum.” The band was also up for Best Rock Song for the title track off “Fear Inoculum,” but that honor went to Gary Clark Jr. for “The Land.” Gary Clark Jr. also took home the Best Rock Performance Grammy for “This Land”

Cage the Elephant took home the award for Best Rock Album for their set “Social Cues,” while the late, great Chris Cornell scored Best Recording Package for his self-titled posthumous career-spanning compilation that included artwork from Barry Ament, Pearl Jam’s Jeff Ament and Joe Spix. The Soundgarden frontman’s set featured 17 songs, including the two previously unreleased songs “When Bad Does Good” and Cornell’s cover of “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

View the nominees in the rock and metal categories below and the winners in bold. Find the full list of 2020 Grammy Award winners in all categories here.

Best Rock Performance

Bones UK, “Pretty Waste”
Gary Clark Jr., “This Land”
Brittany Howard, “History Repeats”
Karen O & Danger Mouse, “Woman”
Rival Sons, “Too Bad”

Best Metal Performance

Candlemass Featuring Tony Iommi, “Astorolus – The Great Octopus”
Death Angel, “Humanicide”
I Prevail, “Bow Down”
Killswitch Engage, “Unleashed”
Tool, “7empest”

Best Rock Song

Tool, songwriter (Tool), “Fear Inoculum”
George Daniel, Adam Hann, Matthew Healy & Ross MacDonald, songwriters (The 1975), “Give Yourself a Try”
Ezra Koenig, songwriter (Vampire Weekend), “Harmony Hall”
Brittany Howard, songwriter (Brittany Howard), “History Repeats”
Gary Clark Jr., songwriter (Gary Clark Jr.), “This Land”

Best Rock Album

Bring Me The Horizon, “AMO”
Cage The Elephant, “Social Cues”
The Cranberries, “The End”
I Prevail, “Trauma”
Rival Sons, “Feral Roots”

Best Recording Package

Anonimas & Resilentes, Luisa María Arango, Carlos Dussan, Manuel García-Orozco & Juliana Jaramillo-Buenaventura, art directors, “Voces Del Bullerengue”
Chris Cornell, Barry Ament, Jeff Ament, Jeff Fura & Joe Spix, art directors, “Chris Cornell”
Hold That Tiger, Andrew Wong & Fongming Yang, art directors, “The Muddy Basin Ramblers”
i,i , Aaron Anderson & Eric Timothy Carlson, art directors, “Bon Iver”
Intellexual, Irwan Awalludin, art director, “Intellexual”

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Anne Erickson

Meet the expert - Author, writer and editor Anne Erickson is a Detroit-based music reporter and radio host. She has written for the USA Today Network, Consequence.net, Blabbermouth.net, Loudwire.com and many more. Anne holds a master's degree from Michigan State University. Contact Anne at anne@audioinkradio.com.