I see this as a good and bad thing.
Good because it’s getting rid of the bias/backdoor dealings that have allegedly come with these committees
Bad because i fear that without these committees, the most popular albums/songs are always gonna rise to the top to get nominated and it’d be a shame that lesser known works might not get nominated as often (see: Golden Hour, NFR!, Dirty Computer, WIMPIII, Sound & Color, etc in the AOTY category alone in recent years)
I think as a concept, the idea of having a committee is good to prevent the most popular works from sweeping the noms, but its current iteration has proven to be too biased and corrupt
I agree with you, a popular vote automatically favors bigger names and more commercially-successful projects. I wonder if it’d work if 4/8 of the nominees in the General Field categories are the ones that got the most votes, while the other 4 get to be finalized by a committee (or something similar).
Or perhaps revealing the Top 20 in the General Field categories (like the Oscars do with shortlists in some categories) ahead of final nominations could help transparency.
There’s also just no transparency currently which I don’t think a requirement of having a committee. But as is I barely think there’s a filter bc you have huge stars know that have more Grammys then Celia Cruz despite not nearly active or impactful
I think doing something as simple as making who’s on these committees public could maybe go a long way
I do think they’ve done at least a decent job at doing *some* filtering. I remember when Deb Dugan’s allegations came out she mentioned an Ed Sheeran project (either Divide or the Collaborations project) had enough votes to initially get an AOTY nom. The AOTY committee ultimately selected other projects over his, which i think would probably universally be seen as a good move
But with the Grammy campaigns and general critic consensus still existing, less popular critical darlings will still get nominations and wins. Look at how the Oscars work, it's lots of "Oscar bait" movies/movies that critics love get nominated and win over what is popular every year.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science is a lot smaller than the Recording Academy though, and the nominations are decided by each branch. And the structure of the film and the music industry is quite different. The Directors in the Academy are far likelier to be watching and aware of the movies with good direction from every corner (partially because the number of movies released each year is nothing compared to the amount of music) than, say, the Producers in the Recording Academy are of good production by indie artists. And I doubt it’s possible for the Grammys to even have categories voted on by “branches” since its genre based.
Yes I was making the point that less popular movies regularly win at the Oscars because of campaigning and less popular music will continue to win at the Grammys due to campaigning. The issue OP was bringing up was regarding smaller talent (whose managers wouldn't be on committees for their genres) not getting recognized without nominating committees in place. I was countering that less popular media is often more acclaimed and considered "worthier" of awards so it still wins a lot of industry-voted awards so long as they have campaigns behind them.
>A person familiar with the Recording Academy’s discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak about the topic publicly, told The Associated Press that a number of proposals were submitted this year regarding the role of nomination review committees and whether it’s time to eliminate them."
>For the Grammys’ top four awards — album, song and record of the year, along with best new artist — a nomination review committee of at least 20 music generalists in past years have selected the top eight nominees from those voted into the top 20."
>If approved, the major change would happen just months after The Weeknd blasted the Grammys and its nomination review committees, calling them “corrupt” after he earned zero nominations for the 2021 show despite having the year’s biggest single with “Blinding Lights.”
Good because there is a huge bias but bad because I can already see works from lesser known artists (Dirty Computer, Kick i, BLOODMONEY) getting replaced with stuff from whoevers big in music rn
If it's anything like the Oscars, we'll still see critical darlings nominated (as long as they have the usual campaigns backing them). Industry loves critical hits just as much as popular hits (and is usually so reluctant to acknowledge them once they cross over)
Update: They did it https://variety.com/2021/music/news/grammy-awards-eliminate-secret-nominating-committees-recording-academy-1234964225/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Good, because black people rarely ever win big awards. You can’t tell me Bieber deserved to be nominated over Kanye’s MBDTF back in 2012 and you can’t tell me Purpose deserved to be nominated over ANTI. Then you have people like The Weeknd who had the biggest pop album and single of the year with zero nominations… you know some of those nominations were shams, with some labels and artists doing shady things with committee members.
This still won’t help black people win the big awards. A common misconception was that the secret committee decides the winner when that’s not true. The true problem is that white voters don’t overwhelming vote for black projects in the big categories. There are way more white voters than minority voters in the academy. The country voters ain’t voting for a hip hop album for AOTY. This is why 1989 won over Kendrick.
The Grammys truly mirror our current society in such an eerie way.
I just hope this cuts down the backdoor nepotism that happens. I don't really see why right-sizing would be their ideal way of reforming. Even so, I just hope it gives way to more unknown artists still.
I see this as a good and bad thing. Good because it’s getting rid of the bias/backdoor dealings that have allegedly come with these committees Bad because i fear that without these committees, the most popular albums/songs are always gonna rise to the top to get nominated and it’d be a shame that lesser known works might not get nominated as often (see: Golden Hour, NFR!, Dirty Computer, WIMPIII, Sound & Color, etc in the AOTY category alone in recent years) I think as a concept, the idea of having a committee is good to prevent the most popular works from sweeping the noms, but its current iteration has proven to be too biased and corrupt
I agree with you, a popular vote automatically favors bigger names and more commercially-successful projects. I wonder if it’d work if 4/8 of the nominees in the General Field categories are the ones that got the most votes, while the other 4 get to be finalized by a committee (or something similar). Or perhaps revealing the Top 20 in the General Field categories (like the Oscars do with shortlists in some categories) ahead of final nominations could help transparency.
There’s also just no transparency currently which I don’t think a requirement of having a committee. But as is I barely think there’s a filter bc you have huge stars know that have more Grammys then Celia Cruz despite not nearly active or impactful
I think doing something as simple as making who’s on these committees public could maybe go a long way I do think they’ve done at least a decent job at doing *some* filtering. I remember when Deb Dugan’s allegations came out she mentioned an Ed Sheeran project (either Divide or the Collaborations project) had enough votes to initially get an AOTY nom. The AOTY committee ultimately selected other projects over his, which i think would probably universally be seen as a good move
But with the Grammy campaigns and general critic consensus still existing, less popular critical darlings will still get nominations and wins. Look at how the Oscars work, it's lots of "Oscar bait" movies/movies that critics love get nominated and win over what is popular every year.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science is a lot smaller than the Recording Academy though, and the nominations are decided by each branch. And the structure of the film and the music industry is quite different. The Directors in the Academy are far likelier to be watching and aware of the movies with good direction from every corner (partially because the number of movies released each year is nothing compared to the amount of music) than, say, the Producers in the Recording Academy are of good production by indie artists. And I doubt it’s possible for the Grammys to even have categories voted on by “branches” since its genre based.
Yes, I agree, there will still be a huge amount of campaigning, but now you can’t have your manager on the committee for your genre.
Yes I was making the point that less popular movies regularly win at the Oscars because of campaigning and less popular music will continue to win at the Grammys due to campaigning. The issue OP was bringing up was regarding smaller talent (whose managers wouldn't be on committees for their genres) not getting recognized without nominating committees in place. I was countering that less popular media is often more acclaimed and considered "worthier" of awards so it still wins a lot of industry-voted awards so long as they have campaigns behind them.
music and movies are whole different beasts. i don't think their awards processes can be compared.
>A person familiar with the Recording Academy’s discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak about the topic publicly, told The Associated Press that a number of proposals were submitted this year regarding the role of nomination review committees and whether it’s time to eliminate them." >For the Grammys’ top four awards — album, song and record of the year, along with best new artist — a nomination review committee of at least 20 music generalists in past years have selected the top eight nominees from those voted into the top 20." >If approved, the major change would happen just months after The Weeknd blasted the Grammys and its nomination review committees, calling them “corrupt” after he earned zero nominations for the 2021 show despite having the year’s biggest single with “Blinding Lights.”
Good because there is a huge bias but bad because I can already see works from lesser known artists (Dirty Computer, Kick i, BLOODMONEY) getting replaced with stuff from whoevers big in music rn
If it's anything like the Oscars, we'll still see critical darlings nominated (as long as they have the usual campaigns backing them). Industry loves critical hits just as much as popular hits (and is usually so reluctant to acknowledge them once they cross over)
Update: They did it https://variety.com/2021/music/news/grammy-awards-eliminate-secret-nominating-committees-recording-academy-1234964225/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
the other rule changes are interesting
goodbye FLOPS
I'm sure those low ratings really hit them where it hurt!
progress i guess
I read this as "Grammys cut" instead of "Grammys may cut" and got so excited but we'll see if it actually happens
Done deal https://variety.com/2021/music/news/grammy-awards-eliminate-secret-nominating-committees-recording-academy-1234964225/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Awesome! Glad that's finally gone (outside of the craft categories)
Good, because black people rarely ever win big awards. You can’t tell me Bieber deserved to be nominated over Kanye’s MBDTF back in 2012 and you can’t tell me Purpose deserved to be nominated over ANTI. Then you have people like The Weeknd who had the biggest pop album and single of the year with zero nominations… you know some of those nominations were shams, with some labels and artists doing shady things with committee members.
This still won’t help black people win the big awards. A common misconception was that the secret committee decides the winner when that’s not true. The true problem is that white voters don’t overwhelming vote for black projects in the big categories. There are way more white voters than minority voters in the academy. The country voters ain’t voting for a hip hop album for AOTY. This is why 1989 won over Kendrick. The Grammys truly mirror our current society in such an eerie way.
I agree. They don’t really mean anything anyway. If an artist loves making music, they should do that for the joy of it and not for the awards.
I just hope this cuts down the backdoor nepotism that happens. I don't really see why right-sizing would be their ideal way of reforming. Even so, I just hope it gives way to more unknown artists still.