Tag: grammys

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Music

The Grammy book of world records 2023

This year saw it’s fair share of new records

I wonder what goes through people’s minds when they say, “Oh I really want to watch the Grammys, it sounds like fun.” No it doesn’t. You proceed to sit on your couch for three-and-a-half hours and watch artists get award after award for their accomplishments. Most of the time the voters from NARAS (the academy responsible for the Grammy Awards) get things wrong (objectively speaking), but this time they were able to get some award/artist pairings right.   

So let’s start things off with American singer, rapper and flutist Lizzo. She just became the first Black woman in the 21st century to win Record of the Year. Her predecessor in the 20th century was none other than Whitney Houston for “I Will Always Love You.” When announced, Adele was the first to give her one of those big “I wrote 4 studio albums that are my age but you go Lizzo sister!” hugs and it was sweet.  

Actress Viola Davis, who starred in phenomenal movies such as Hidden Figures and The Help, got the EGOT status. What that means is, she is one of the few artists to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony award. This is no mean feat, I assure you, as only 17 other people have achieved this status. She won a Grammy for the audiobook of her memoir “Finding Me” (how is that music? Anyways, every day we stray further from the light of God).  


Harry Styles beat Beyonce, Kendrick, Adele, and Lizzo, among others, for Album of the Year. This is now the fourth time that an artist has nabbed the “Album of the Year” award from the Renaissance artist. Clearly, Beyonce’s album did not get in formation last year just like how she was late for the award ceremony. 

But fret not, for Beyonce achieved a record for the most Grammy wins in history. This totals her collection to 34 awards! 

For those of you who don’t know, Questlove is an accomplished musician and producer, most known for being part of the group the Roots (they actually performed at JazzFest MTL last year). This year for the Grammys, he organized a performance that involved all of the legends from RnB and hip-hop. Artists like Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Ice T, and many others graced the stage with their presence and MC skills that would make trap artists’ bones quiver. 

Also, shoutout to Randy Rainbow the comedian, who mispronounced the word “Valhalla” as “Valaha” in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. 

Graphic by Carleen Loney @shloneys

Categories
Music

Some premature Grammy predictions

The Grammys are predictable, and here’s what’s likely to happen

Love or hate them, the Grammys are the music industry’s biggest night. This ceremony rewards artists for their releases throughout the year by nominating them into separate categories where they have a chance to win a trophy for their accomplishments.

On Sept. 30, 2021, the 13-month eligibility window closed, meaning albums released after this date won’t be eligible to be nominated for the 64th annual Grammy Awards.

That being said, despite the Grammys happening in late January, here are some way-too-early nomination predictions for the Album of the Year category. As predictable as the Recording Academy can get, (I’m looking at you H.E.R. nominations in at least two of the four biggest categories), there are rarely any surprises when it comes to the nominees in this category. Before beginning, there are a couple of different groups of candidates that I’d like to classify when it comes to nominations done by the jury: The Grammy Darlings, The Newcomers, Rap Albums That Have No Chance of Winning, Even if It Was the Greatest Album Ever Made, and The Wildcards.

 

The Grammy Darlings

This group includes albums from artists who have won in the past or that are often nominated in this category. Whenever these artists drop a project, they are almost always guaranteed at least a nomination (unless you’re The Weeknd and you decide to perform at the Super Bowl instead).

Billie Eilish – Happier Than Ever

Despite not being as popular as her debut album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? (for which she won five Grammys, including Album of the Year), Happier Than Ever is still a solid record and could have been talked about a bit more over the summer. This album is an automatic lock in the category because of her last album winning the award.

Taylor Swift – evermore

Swift is the current holder of the Album of the Year award. She first won the award in 2009 with Fearless, then went on to rob the award from Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly back in 2015. She won again in 2020 with her more folk-oriented folklore. Swift’s change of style had a little less commercial success than her more pop-oriented records, but received more critical success instead. Now she’s looking to go back-to-back in the same category.

Ariana Grande – Positions

Ariana Grande has a strong advantage over other artists in this category, by being one of the largest pop stars in the world, (pop albums have been favoured by the jury over the years). The sex-infused Positions saw the Florida singer top the charts in the tail end of 2020. Her last album, thank u, next, was nominated in the Album of the Year category two years ago.

Others in this group include: Justin Bieber’s Justice, Megan Thee Stallion’s Good News, and H.E.R.’s Back of My Mind.

 

The Newcomers

This group includes artists that have been bursting onto the scene with their first studio albums, gaining massive commercial success in doing so. The Recording Academy particularly likes this group of artists since they have a higher chance at becoming supernovas.

This list includes albums such as: Olivia Rodrigo – SOUR,  Lil Nas X – MONTERO

Both albums had chart topping singles. Rodrigo even had two No. 1 hits with “drivers license” and “good 4 u,” while Lil Nas X only had “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” Both records also received commercial and critical success, showcasing the massive talent and potential of both artists. Both of these entries are also guaranteed locks at being nominated.

 

Rap Albums That Have No Chance of Winning, Even if It Was the Greatest Album Ever Made

This group brings together some amazing rap albums that should be considered as potential winners, but are only on the list because it looks good for the jury to have multiple genres in the category. The same goes for country music, where they’ll often put an album in the mix just to look versatile. After all, artists have made it clear in the past that they’re not happy with how the Grammys categorize them.

This list includes albums such as: Tyler, The Creator – CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST,  Kanye West – Donda, Drake – Certified Lover Boy

Despite how underwhelming and flavourless Certified Lover Boy was, I’ll still include it here for the sole reason that it’s Drake: he does numbers and the jurors usually like him.

As for the two others, they both deserve a nod in the category for being outstanding albums that are in the conversation for the best albums of 2021. Though they each have a good chance of winning in the rap categories, it’s just sad that the Grammys won’t acknowledge them even further because they deserve to have a real shot instead of only serving as placeholders in the category in an attempt for the awards to seem diverse.

 

The Wildcards

These albums could very well compete for the award but all for different reasons. Whether it’s Bad Bunny’s EL ÚLTIMO TOUR DEL MUNDO for its commercial success, while also being a nod to Spanish music, or even Kacey Musgraves’ divorce-themed star-crossed, it wouldn’t be surprising to see one of these albums being nominated.

Honorable mention : Doja Cat’s Planet Her

 

The Verdict

While all of these have a shot at the title, on Jan. 31, 2022, at the 64th annual Grammy Awards, the host will read, “and the winner for the Album of the Year is… SOUR by Olivia Rodrigo.” Mark my words.

 

Graphic by James Fay

Categories
Music

Is this the end of the Grammys?

This year’s nominations reveal an industry struggling to reflect the pulse of contemporary music.

Whenever award show nominations are announced you can expect controversy. Especially in recent years as the general public (i.e. white people) have become more aware of systemic racism in the music industry, which manifests itself at award shows. Think Beyoncé losing album of the year to both Adele and Beck, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly losing to Taylor Swift’s 1989, or Frank Ocean’s channel ORANGE losing to Mumford & Sons.

But the nominations for the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards are outright confusing.

In the general category, which holds the most prestigious awards, there were the expected nominees: Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, Post Malone, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, but nominees also included Black Pumas, Coldplay, Jacob Collier, and Noah Cyrus. While Coldplay is a recognizable and successful group, it’s safe to say their relevance has diminished in recent years and their 2019 album Everyday Life flew a bit under the radar. Noah Cyrus is also a name many might recognize, albeit perhaps due to nepotism more than her actual music. Black Pumas has a, “relatively low commercial profile” and “negligible critical profile” as Jon Caramanica put in in The New York Times. You’ve probably never heard of Jacob Collier but he’s already won four Grammys for arranging.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to throw in some more unconventional or unknown nominees, of course. However, these kinds of choices become more questionable when you realize who wasn’t nominated: The Weeknd.

Despite having one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed albums of the year, and a massively successful single, he didn’t get a single nomination. This makes The Weeknd the most snubbed artist of the year.

For some perspective, Justin Bieber’s “Yummy” got a nomination. Bieber actually scored four nominations despite his album Changes being met with negative reviews from critics. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, it received a score of 57 compared to The Weeknd’s 2020 album After Hours’ 80.

Many have theorized that The Weeknd might have been snubbed because of his Superbowl performance, which will air on the same network a week after the Grammys. Another theory is that After Hours was snubbed because it is a distinctly pop album and the Grammys prefer to put Black artists in R&B, urban, and hip hop categories. Notably, in 2020, Tyler, the Creator criticized the Grammys for placing “guys that look like me” in rap and urban categories.

After the nominations were announced, The Weeknd spoke out on Twitter saying, “The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency…”

Halsey, who received 0 nominations for her album Manic, said in an Instagram story, “The Grammys are an elusive process. It can often be about behind the scenes private performances, knowing the right people, campaigning through the grapevine — with the right handshakes and ‘bribes’ that can be just ambiguous enough to pass as ‘not-bribes.'”

Nicki Minaj also took to Twitter saying, “Never forget the Grammys didn’t give me my best new artist award when I had seven songs simultaneously charting on billboard & bigger first week than any female rapper in the last decade- went on to inspire a generation. They gave it to the white man Bon Iver.”

Though the Chairman and Interim President/CEO of the Recording Academy claimed that the nominees would “reflect diversity of race, gender, age, region, and musical genre,” during the nominee announcement, it seems like the Grammys just decided to nominate Korean band BTS and call it a day.

Though this makes BTS the first South Korean act to be nominated for their music (after they were nominated for Best Recording Package in 2018), BTS was only nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for their song “Dynamite” which was coincidentally their first all-English song. Their album Map of the Soul: 7, which received a score of 82 from Metacritic, was named by Rolling Stone as one of the best albums of 2020, and had over four million pre-orders, received 0 nominations.

It seems the Recording Academy thought nominating one Korean group, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, DaBaby, and Beyoncé would be enough to appease their growing list of critics, but the tokenism and performative diversity fell flat on its face.

The Recording Academy has repeatedly failed to be as “diverse” and “inclusive” as it claims to be, and to recognize music that is actually, by all measures, good and popular. This is hurting their credibility and relevance. If things don’t change I think the Grammys will be totally obsolete in the next few years.

Why should I even care about the Grammys? Are these awards really necessary? How does this contribute value to the lives and careers of musicians or to our culture?

These are questions the Recording Academy might want to consider.

 

Graphic by Taylor Reddam

Categories
Music

It’s time to burn award shows

Graphic by @sundaeghost

The Grammys, AMAs, Soul Train Awards, among others have proved they know nothing about music. It’s time we stopped caring

The past couple of weeks have been messy for music award ceremonies. The Grammys saw immediate backlash after they announced a hip hop lineup that only featured men in the “Rap Album of the Year” category, and white men, specifically, in the “Producer of the Year” category.

The 2019 American Music Awards (AMAs) continued to prove that they don’t understand what “genre” means either. Apparently, Taylor Swift’s Lover is a rock album. Apparently, Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding is a hip hop album. Both of them are definitely pop.

The 2019 Soul Train Awards gave Lizzo the “Album/Mixtape of the Year” award for her debut, Cuz I Love You, an album that could barely be described as “soul.” Dreamville artist Ari Lennox penned a lengthy essay in tweet-form that singled out these awards for not choosing her, despite making an album deeply rooted in soul, in favour of an album that simply dominated the charts.

Award shows are notorious for getting things wrong. Lest we forget the infamous 2014 Grammys where Macklemore took home the “Best Rap Album” over Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 masterpiece, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. It’s no secret that those who choose the winners are out-of-touch with society.

More artists have figured out that a Grammy nomination really means nothing. Drake’s victory speech for “God’s Plan” winning “Best Rap Song” was a direct attack on how the Grammy winners are selected; a speech that was cut early.

Drake’s right, too. The Grammys are meaningless, as is every other award show.  It’s a political game that benefits only those who seem appropriate to win according to its obtuse voters. 

The hip hop section of the Grammys continues to suffer the most. Cardi B is the only woman in the “Best Rap” performance category, and it’s for a song that isn’t even her own (Offset’s “Clout”). There isn’t a single woman in the “Best Rap/Sung Performance,” “Best Rap Song,” or “Best Rap Album” categories.

Of course, including women for the sole purpose of including women is wrong, but when you have albums like Megan Thee Stallion’s Fever, Rapsody’s Eve, and Rico Nasty’s Anger Management, all released within the same year, it becomes harder to imagine why they would choose Meek Mill’s Championships or Dreamville’s Revenge of the Dreamers III compilation.

Sure, those albums were fine and this isn’t to discredit them, but those albums only appear on the list out of respect for the artists. If J. Cole wasn’t attached to the Dreamville compilation, it would have been largely ignored. If Meek Mill hadn’t been through his messy legal troubles, Championships would have been ignored too.

The Grammys have been getting it wrong for years and they still continue to prove that they’ll choose the safe choice over anyone who rightly deserves it. They have taken a few steps forward in terms of diversity, especially when looking at Lizzo’s lead in the nominations, but she is nothing if not a safe choice as her vanilla pop music has taken the radio by storm. The same could be said with Lil Nas X as well. 

Until the Grammys become more daring with their choices, it’s time to stop caring. Burn the Grammys.

 

Graphic by @sundaeghost

Categories
Music

Adulation over accolades

Graphic by Ana Bilokin

Award shows like the Grammys are not what matters—the people are

While music award shows like the Grammys are capable of creating great, memorable moments for artists, it is not the Recording Academy—the council that selects the winning artists—that truly distinguishes artists and their impact on the music world. It’s the everyday Jane and John Doe who listen to their music and pay to see them perform.

The Recording Academy’s voting membership includes music creators, such as artists, engineers, producers and songwriters. “To be qualified for membership, however, voting members must have creative or technical credits on at least six commercially released music releases on a physical album, or 12 on a digital project,” according to The Balance Careers. Voting members are then allowed to vote online during the two balloting periods.

As Drake said in his acceptance speech for Best Rap Song for “God’s Plan,” “My point is, you’ve already won if you have people singing your songs word for word, if you’re a hero in your hometown. Look, If there’s people who have regular jobs who are coming out in the rain, in the snow, spending their hard-earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows, you don’t need [a Grammy]. I promise you, you already won.”

That really got me thinking. Do we even need the Grammys anymore?

Whether it be paying for a monthly subscription to Spotify, or scraping up leftover money for a ticket to a show, many “regular” people help fund artists’ careers, as well as increase their popularity. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know one of the things I look forward to most is attending one of my favourite artists’ concerts, no matter how expensive the ticket is. Escaping reality, even if only for a few hours, is all that really matters.

With increasing access to endless amounts of music, both technologically and financially, the listener’s ability to impact an artist’s career is greater than ever. Buying vinyls and cassettes has been replaced by online streaming—a substantially faster, easier, more efficient system of musical sales.

According to Nielsen, a research firm, Canadians streamed over 59 billion songs in 2018, a 47 per cent increase from 2017. In the United States, streaming numbers in the first half of 2018 reached close to 403 billion songs. Though the topic of the low streaming-to-money conversion is frequently discussed, I don’t think anyone would argue the power of streaming numbers. They more often than not have a significant impact on an artist’s success, including things like ticket and merchandise sales.

As the people continue to play a huge role in artists’ careers, award ceremonies like the Grammys have seemingly lost their notability. As I tuned in to watch the performances, curious as to who the council would choose to award, I couldn’t help but notice the many empty seats throughout the arena. I wondered if it had anything to do with the unexplained absences of major artists like Childish Gambino, Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Ariana Grande—all of whom won a Grammy that night. Maybe not, but I couldn’t help but wonder.

In recent years, the Grammys have come under fire for critiquing female artists, its low number of female nominations, as well as for failing to recognize the success and popularity of many significant hip hop artists. This is the suspected reason for Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino declining to perform at the show’s 61st edition.

Music award shows will undoubtedly always have their place as star-studded events with high-budget performances and a long legacy. Though, I think that the importance and notability of their awards will continue to lose value. More people will begin to recognize the immense power that regular people have over the select few of an elected council.

Categories
Opinions

Shining a spotlight on gender inequality

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

Female artists in the music industry need to be recognized by their peers

The music industry celebrated its most important night of the year for the 60th time on Jan. 28—the Grammy Awards. There has been a lot of backlash, with Bruno Mars dominating the awards alongside Kendrick Lamar. The trending hashtag #GrammySoMale is a testament to how frustrated music enthusiasts are. The day before, singer Janelle Monáe tweeted: “A total of 90.7 per cent of [Grammy] nominees between 2013 and 2018 were male, meaning just 9.3 per cent were women.”

Singers, both male and female, supported the #MeToo movement by wearing a white rose on their outfits at the Grammys this year. Despite the recent amplification of female voices in the media, however, it seems women in music still aren’t being heard. Alessia Cara was the only woman to win a major televised award this year.

Honestly, this lack of representation of female musicians makes me feel exhausted. It’s awful that inequality is still so strong and visible, and it’s frustrating to see so little progress in an industry that claims to support women.

According to CNN, Recording Academy president Neil Portnow said women who want to be musicians need “to step up because I think they would be welcome.” Portnow received a lot of backlash for his comment, and rightfully so. I believe the fact that so many women went unrecognized during the Grammys is a step backwards.

Gender inequality affects the music industry in many ways, including through double standards. In a Rolling Stone interview, singer Taylor Swift said: “A man writing about his feelings from a vulnerable place is brave; a woman writing about her feelings from a vulnerable place is oversharing or whining.” People also react very differently when men sing about sexual topics. Women receive constant backlash when their videos or music is sexual, but when men do it, no one seems to be bothered.

As a woman, I truly want to believe there is something we can do to bring equality to the music industry—but is there really? As fans, all we can do is listen to women’s music, go to their concerts, follow them on social media and support them. But change is slow—especially in the entertainment industries—and the issue is an ancient one. Women have always been in the background of any creative industry. Even in the 1800s, the women who wrote classics like Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights hid behind pen names to get their works published. Although there has been progress in terms of female recognition, some might assume everything has been fixed—clearly there’s still a lot of work to be done.

In my opinion, women’s voices can make a huge difference in our society as well as in the music industry. The #MeToo movement is just one example of women’s voices being heard. However, the 2018 Grammy Awards highlighted that not all creative industries have been so drastically affected by this powerful conversation. The Grammy Awards showed that gender equality in creative industries is still far away—but not impossible. As consumers, I believe we can help make a difference when we choose to support female artists and their messages.

The way I see it, we are still far from gender equality in every part of society. The inequality is simply more obvious when those affected are celebrities in the spotlight. However, I do believe we are on the right path. These movements, and the men and women who stand up for gender equality, make it possible to believe the message is being conveyed. And this makes me believe that things will change for the better, someday, in all creative industries.

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

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