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Everyone knows the Grammys are a joke, from the Simpsons writers to Katy Perry fans. Mostly, it's because music is a subjective experience, and very rarely can you actually say "this song is actually bad", especially if millions of people like it. However, one of the reasons is that the rules are inconsistent: while everyone is allowed to vote in the general categories (listed below), you are still allowed to vote in
9 of the 30 additional fields. And then on top of that, the nominations are filtered for quality in some categories-- in includes the much contented Rap Category. But another reason people don't respect the grammys is that
they don't even televise the award presentation for some of the best categories & music they nominate.
So let's dive into this mess, shall we?
General Categories: All Can Vote-Album of the Year
-Record of the Year
-Song of the Year
-Best New Artist
There are a total of
81 Categories at the Grammys. In contrast,
the Oscars have a total of 24 categories. Only about 10 to 12 are actually awarded in the Grammy Presentation ceremony. So which categories make it to air?
In 2013, the following awards were presented during the telecast:
— Album of the year
— Record of the year
— Song of the year
— New artist
— Pop solo performance
— Pop vocal album
— Rock performance
— Urban contemporary album
— Rap/sung collaboration
— Country solo performance
— Country album
4 General categories, 2 pop categories, 1 rock, 1 "urban", 1 rap, 2 country
I can't seem to find specific info on what aired in 2014, but let's assume it's pretty similar. That's 11 awards. This year so far, they have announced
23 performances. That's over double the amount of awards they give out.
I figure they can afford to cram in a few more statue presentations, don't you?
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IMO the most important awards to add to the television broadcast are:
1.
THE BIG RAP CATEGORIES: Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song, Best Rap PerformanceIt is honestly ridiculous the bad rep that rap gets at the Grammys. It's why "fuck the Grammys" is basically the motto of established rappers. It's why Kanye doesn't bother to go. It's why the rap category is fucking tragic.
If you didn't know, rap is actually a category that goes through a screening process:
“In screening, we’re looking solely at the music, 100%. We look at things like vocal performance, the songwriting, lyrics, the body of work. We explicitly ask the committee not to take things like popularity, chart position or sales into account. It’s not the committee’s responsibility or right to judge for quality or artistic merit; that’s up to voters. From the committee’s view, everything has a home and it’s our job to find that home. That’s why the first ballots we send out are so dense because we don’t eliminate. We include everything and leave it for the voters to pick the nominees and, eventually, the winners.” --Jeriel Johnson, Project Manager, Urban Music, for the Recording Academy
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So the issue, as much as it seems like it, isn't that everybody influences the rap category with shitty music, it's that the committee deems the music as worthy of nomination and then idiots think they understand rap because every once in a while there's a crossover hit on pop radio that they think it "real" rap and those 3-5 songs a year make them rap experts. Iggy Azalea is very likely to gain a grammaphone this year because of it.
A little bit of the sting of that ridiculousness would be taken away by at least showing us more of the rap awards, so that we get more than a short glimpse of the less-mainstream, likely more-talented rap artists who get repeated nominated but don't necessarily win. Rappers are hugely popular, have massive fan bases, and skew largely away from being represented by white people, whcih means the disrespect the category gets seems both foolish AND racist. ADD THESE AWARDS, GRAMMYS.
2.
Best Alternative Album![]()
You know who's nominated this year for Best Alternative Album? St. Vincent. Who won last year? Vampire Weekend. Gotye, Bon Iver, Radiohead, Gnarles Barkley-- they've all won in this category, and are considered some of the best musicians out there. With the rise of Spotify and other listening services that expose us to more and more alternative music, this category will only gain more importance as time goes on. ADD THIS AWARD, GRAMMYS.
3.
Best Rock Album![]()
Rock Music consistently comprises some of the best quality music of any given year. Rock musicians are some of the best live acts out there, and many of them have huge festival draw and influence in the industry. There is some difficulty about the crossover nature of the best alternative & best rock albums (many artists are nominated in both on alternating years), but recognizing artists like U2, The Foo Fighters, The Foo Fighters again, and Bruce Springsteen would make the old rocker dads who are suffering through all the pop performances really happy and boost ratings. ADD THIS AWARD, GRAMMYS.
4.
Producer of the Year![]()
What do Dr. Dre, Max Martin and DJ Mustard have in common? They are all hugely influential music producers who are recognized in the industry as acting as the foundation of the careers of some of the biggest hit makers of the past 25 years. Dr. Dre & Eminem; Max Martin and the Backstreet Boys, and Kelly Clarkson, and Taylor Swift. Dr Luke and Katy Perry or Ke$ha. DJ Mustard has Beyonce, YG, Tyga. TheDream has Rihanna. Danja has Britney. RedOne has Lady Gaga. The list of the producers behind the pop faces is literally endless, and as the internet has exposed more and more of the music process, music listeners have become more and more aware of the producers behind many of their favourite songs. This category would not only be great to see, but it would showcase a area of music largely unrecognized by the general public-- but it's one that needs more respect. Imagine a world where the next Kanye west got his start by making a scene at the producer's award presentation! We nee
d this category. ADD THIS AWARD, GRAMMYS.
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How would you fix the Grammys, ONTD?
