The Grammys omitted Mastodon’s Brent Hinds from its ‘In Memoriam’ tribute at the 2026 ceremony.
This year’s awards show took place at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, last Sunday (February 1).
The event featured a lengthy montage honouring artists who had passed away over the past year, including the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, D’Angelo and Roberta Flack.
However, fans noticed that there was a big name missing from the section: Mastodon’s founding guitarist/vocalist Hinds. The musician died in a motorcycle accident last summer, aged 51.
In 2018, Mastodon won the Best Metal Performance Grammy for ‘Sultan’s Curse’ from their 2017 album ‘Emperor Of Sand’. The latter was also nominated for Best Rock Album that year. The group have earned six Grammy nominations overall.
Alice In Chains bassist Mike Inez was among those who picked up on Hinds’ omission last weekend. Writing on social media, he said: “BIG party foul Grammys for forgetting the MIGHTY Brent Hinds in the In Memoriam.”
Fans on Reddit were similarly disappointed. “The fact that he was a Grammy winner and nominated six times is more of a travesty that they omitted him,” one person wrote. A second posted: “There is just no excuse to omit him. Someone forgot.”
A third shared: “I kept looking for him and was shocked he wasn’t included. He won a fucking Grammy. Absolutely hated how the performances were taking attention away from the memorials as well.”
Elsewhere in the thread, a viewer said: “Honestly it’s pretty metal to be left out of the Grammys.” Someone else claimed that the Grammys has “never cared about metal”, adding: “This is no surprise to those of us who do.”
Another user agreed: “Metal generally gets shoved to the sidelines. That being said, Spiritbox performed on the same stage as Lady Gaga at these Grammys. That has to stand for something.”
A separate post read: “I’d like to think that most metal fans dont give a fuck about the Grammys.”
But some noted that the ‘In Memoriam’ section of the Grammys’ official website includes an entry about Hinds, despite him being missing from the live ceremony itself.
NME paid tribute to the late musician when “remembering the music legends we lost in 2025”, writing: “The Alabama-born guitarist’s preference for bluegrass and Zeppelin-inspired noodling – he famously hated metal – also became a crucial part of their DNA right up to this year, when Hinds would depart from the group in March.
“The split was disputed – the band stated it was a mutual decision, while Hinds claimed he was ‘kicked out’. The tragedy that would soon follow would quash any hope of reconciliation between some of modern metal’s most creative minds, as Hinds died aged 51 from injuries sustained by a traffic collision.”
In 2022, the Grammys apologised for several omissions in the ceremony’s ‘In Memoriam’ segment, such as former Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison.
“Anybody who feels left out or feels almost snubbed by an in memoriam, I think from the bottom of our hearts, there can only be apologies because we go into this show only wanting to bring joy and love to people with music,” said Grammys executive producer Ben Winston at the time.
The Grammys also attracted criticism in 2019, when Frightened Rabbit‘s Scott Hutchison, Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, Pegi Young and more were left out of the tribute.
The 2026 Grammys saw Post Malone, Slash, Chad Smith and Duff McKagan perform Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’ to honour the life and legacy of Ozzy Osbourne. Meanwhile, Yungblud dedicated his first-ever Grammy to the late icon.
Lauryn Hill took to the stage as well for a moving tribute performance to D’Angelo and Roberta Flack.
This year’s Best Metal Performance award went to Turnstile for ‘Birds’. The band were victorious in the Best Rock Album category, too, taking home the prize for 2025’s ‘Never Enough’. Kendrick Lamar won big at the Grammys 2026, with other winners including Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish and Olivia Dean – the latter of whom picked up the Best New Artist statue. See the full list of winners here.
The surviving members of Mastodon paid tribute to Hinds at a live show shortly after his death, saying they were “brothers to the end”. Around that time, it was revealed that the musician had been working on new music with Bam Margera before his fatal accident.