The Grammys tend to honor albums that have sold
well and earned critical respect, which applies to
both Lemonade and 25. To be sure, 25 has dwarfed
Lemonade’s sales, crossing the 20 million mark
worldwide since its release in late 2015. However,
it’s not as if Lemonade has been a slouch on the
charts. It was the third best-selling album of 2016 in
the US. The second best-selling? You guessed it —
25. (It’s also a bit unfair to compare Adele’s
worldwide sales to Beyoncé’s US sales, but Adele
has outsold Beyoncé in the US as well — albeit by
not nearly as wide a margin.)
And when it comes to critical acclaim, Lemonade
was a year-end list mainstay and notched a
Metacritic score of 92. While 25 notched a
respectable performance in both measures, with a
75 on Metacritic, it didn’t measure up to Lemonade
at all.

So the traditional criteria are more or less a split,
with one side favoring 25 and one side favoring
Lemonade. Considering that the Grammys are often reticent to reward artists with the top prizes multiple times, and considering that Adele won the top three awards in 2012 for her previous album (21),Lemonade seemed like a somewhat safe bet. So what happened?

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Source: http://primebaze.com.ng/2017/02/13/why-adele-beat-beyonce-for-album-of-the-year-read-here/