Pop Quiz: Which AOTY Nominees Were Savagely Snubbed?

The TRL Pop Quiz works like this: our editors are posed a music-related question and have only 15 minutes and just 100 words to studies, pick and explain their answers. This week's quiz: Since the year 2000, what has been the ideal record nominated for Album of the Year that ultimately did not win?


I know this is going to be also obvious of an advice, however I was the most irritated and shocked once Beyoncé’s Lemonade lost. It's the pretty much the only album that has made my housemates and I scream countless times while watching it with each other. Although the songs in it weren’t as commercially successful as other artists that year, the album really changed the game. While there have been other visual albums before, Lemonade made the artform even more relevant; right now I feel like they're a thing artists do more routinely and fans can expect. - Landyn Pan





This question is also hard for me to narrow down on the basis of which album I would’ve admired most to be able to see win, so I’ll as a substitute pick decide on the album that stands out to me because the most egregious snub, which is Green Day’s American Idiot. There aren’t several albums in my life that are so closely joined with a particular calendar year as 2004 is with, for better or worse, American Idiot. Its music videos were on constant replay across MTV, MTV2, and VH1, its singles were mainstays on any radio rotation, and my older sister loved it and would play it in the vehicle while driving me to school every morning. - Gus Turner





Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange is the album that defined an entire generation of music listeners that are right now committed to any form of his artsy expression. I can visualize how he would lose while you look into the identities of the voters for these types of awards, however in retrospect, eventual winners Mumford & Sons did not hold the same legacy. Kudos to Frank for holding it down because the only black artists nominated for the category in 2013. - Sydney Gore





Hear me out: Evanescence’s Fallen deserved to win Album of the Year at the 2004 Grammys. Out all of the albums nominated, Fallen was the one my occasional Hot Topic shopping, fake emo, 14-year-old self listened to on repeat. That’s right, on my boom box. I knew every word to "Bring Me To Life" also it still remains in my karaoke rotation to this day. Amy Lee’s powerful vocals paired with piano and string backings from "My Immortal" still gives me chills. From "Going Under" to "Tourniquet," the songs on Fallen fueled my teen angst, and that deserves an award. - Kristen Maldonado





Believe it or not, the one year Taylor Swift lost Album of the Year was the year she should have won; Red is for now and above Fearless and 1989 as her best collective body of work. Although Swift has more than enough Grammys. You know who doesn’t? Beyoncé, whose genre-defying surprise self-titled album is the single most sonically forward-thinking project in contemporary pop and R&B since Thriller. Yes, I mentioned it and I meant it. It can might not directly have the accolades it deserves, nevertheless you’d be exceptionally hard-pressed to find a more impactful album in pop culture since. - Terron Moore


It’s an obvious answer, yet I still feel like Lemonade should have won Album of the Year. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Adele’s incredible 25, although Lemonade was a cultural moment and the most cohesive, fully-formed album of that year. From first to last track, Lemonade is a near brilliant album to me--defined in part by its visual counterpart, though the Grammys likely did not take visuals into consideration. It’s a full part of art, as is the album it accompanies. Beyoncé conveys pain, joy, forgiveness, anger, pride and incredible resilience on this album. - Leah Williams