The highly anticipated Grammy nominations have once again caused deep discontent, this year most loudly voiced by The Weeknd, who received zero nods for his chart-topping album After Hours. Is the hatred for the Grammys and the accusations of award shows being unjust starting to overshadow their purpose of honouring music? Is there any hope that the Grammys can change – and do we even still need them?
After last year’s award show, the Recording Academy, the selected musical professionals who vote for the nominations and winners of the award, was heavily criticised in the media. The critique mostly revolved around allegations of corruption, irregularities and a lack of transparency in the voting process, and how the Academy’s members were disproportionately homogenous in their representation. In the wake of this, the Recording Academy tried to improve by tightening its voting regulations and spending significant resources on diversity efforts. They introduced its first-ever Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, as well as establishing a new class of 2,300 voting members, with many being women and people from underrepresented racial groups.
It may not be as a direct result of these modest measures, but the 2021 nominations have seen relief from some of the long-living issues with gender inequality. For the first time in the award’s history, the nominations for Best Rock Performance and Best Country Album are all women. Moreover, the four general categories are all led by women, as well as Beyoncé leading the nods with her nine nominations, followed closely by Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa who both have six nominations each.
Yet despite the efforts in inclusivity, the resentment for the Recording Academy and its process is still alive and kicking. The Weeknd has headlined the criticism of the Grammys for remaining corrupt and lacking transparency in how it selects its nominations. The Canadian artist received no nominations, despite his new album After Hours being the best-selling album of 2020 in the USA and having well over three billion streams on Spotify. However, this commercial success was lost in the great mystery of the Grammy nomination process.
The award show is often criticised for undermining black artists. They only, as recently as last year, dropped the widely resented term ‘urban’ from its categories, and are still heavily criticised for not having enough categories that celebrate black music. It seems despite its grand promises of change, the Grammys, like most conventional award shows, still has a long way to go before it can call itself a fair and progressive assessor of music.
The question is then – do we really need these big-tent award shows? Just as it is impossible to agree on what is excellent music, it is just as challenging to decide how to honour it. The music industry is in constant change, both artistically, commercially and technologically; the Grammys are given the impossible task of recording history as it happens.
In 2020 we are all music critics, with access to countless media platforms where we share our thoughts and opinions on who should and shouldn’t be nominated. For this reason, we still need award shows, where musical talent can be evaluated by the experts, in addition to the committed fans. It brings artists prestigious recognition, as well as commercial value. Even the artists who are not nominated, despite being anticipated to, receive a lot of media attention, resulting in a whole world having Blinding Lights on repeat ever since the disappointing news. For the public following it closely, it lays the foundation for feisty discussions for what brilliant music sounds like.
In troublesome times for the industry, it is worth the quest of finding a fairer and more equal way to celebrate the best within contemporary music, and honour the excellence of striving artists. For this to happen, the Record Academy must recoup and review, and stop behaving like a broken record, repeating the scratched and skipping track of its past mistakes.
Image: “File:The Weeknd at Bumbershoot 2015 (21367628469).jpg” by Kayla Johnson from Seattle, United States is licensed under CC BY 2.0
