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ATTENTIONSince Grammy's Season is coming up, I'm putting together some facts about some categories so that at least when stans fight over them, they do it with knowledge of reality. Please support this tweet so that I make more informative posts like these.
Album Of The Year : Awarded to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales, chart position, or critical reception".
History shows that critical acclaim matters the most. Also being white helps
History shows that critical acclaim matters the most. Also being white helps
With reference to this year's political climate, I think it will be given to some black artist in order to please the American Public. But there is every chance it can go to multi-genre infusing albums like folklore, or universally acclaimed and praised album like ftbc.
Record Of The Year : This again like AOTY claims to exclude sales and charts, but history tells this always goes to the song that has the most "impact" on public. A song that is very different, not just in the musical sense, but in the sense of uniqueness.
Winners include political songs, songs that reference important issues and reflect on necessary topics. Songs that took the public by storm and songs that are projected to be remembered even after 100 years. Of course this still has exceptions.
Song Of The Year : Awarded to Songwriters alone. Aims at the melody, composition and lyrical content of the song. Note that this has nothing to do with catchy-ness of a song. The song has to be critically acclaimed and unconventional. Surprisingly, Grammy's have been awarding -
- ROTY and SOTY to the same song frequently. So it's possible that the song winning ROTY will win SOTY as well. Still, the song has to be a unique, genius and capable of changing the musical landscape.
Best Pop Vocal Album : This has nothing to do with Vocals! Please stop making up false facts. It was named as such to differentiate from instrumental albums category (removed now) which doesn't have any vocals. If vocals had a say, Billie wouldn't win over Ariana last year.
Apart from that, this category is the same as AOTY, only for pop albums. Everything considered in AOTY is considered here as well.
Important to note: Using metacritic score can be misleading because that score is determined by the votes of around 20-30 critics only, while Grammy's are voted by hundreds of music critics. So in reality, the album might be more well received or badly received in the industry.
If your fav album/song doesn't get nominated, it doesn't mean no one has voted for it. It means that it did not have enough votes to clear the nomination cutoff. Don't assume Grammy's paid your artist dust because "Grammy's" are a committee of 1000 people, not a single person.
In brief, to get a Grammy, you need to have acclaim, public/genre impact, better don't have any feuds in the industry and the song/album shouldn't be dissing sensitive topics. I will now be listing examples of how some songs/albums won previously to make it clear.
2019 Grammy's Album Of The Year went to Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves. It did not even hit #1 on the charts, did not sell hundreds of thousands of copies either, but it did have universal critical acclaim. Golden Hour created a new sound in Country Music which gave it the AOTY
2016 Grammys Album Of The Year : 1989. This album had moderate acclaim but what gave it the advantage was other nominees. Being the only pop album nominated that year, it had complete support from pop voters, while other genre votes were split between the other nominees.
2019 Grammy's ROTY : This is America. This song was not a huge hit compared to other nominees. For examples, God's Plan was already diamond by that time. Still this song won because of the political and cultural impact it had. It was a defining moment for American Culture.
2020 Grammys AOTY : WWAFAWDWG. Acclaim wise, NFR was expected to win. The reason this won is because it created a new sound landscape in a way never done before. It was new, surprising & yet was backed up by billions of streams. This album also had support from multi-genre voters
2016 Grammys ROTY : Uptown Funk. Everyone knew this was going to win. Even Bruno himself knew it. And rightly so. This song was a moment in pop culture. To put it in brief, everyone knew 2014 wouldn't be the same without this song. That's what makes this the ROTY.
2014 Grammys SOTY : Royals. This song changed the entire pop/alt climate. During a time when high tempo songs by Gaga, Katy, Bruno, Imagine Dragons were dominating the industry, Lorde showed you just need a tempo of 85 to make a classic and started the Wave of slow tempo songs.
I will keep adding examples as I research more but before that keep in mind that no song/album can be nominated unless the artist/label submits it to the Grammys. So if a song/album is not submitted for consideration, it won't be nominated however acclaimed/successful it might be
Regarding the inclusion of non english music. Grammys have always been controversial about this. The reason they don't dictate over non western music is because it's not morally right for a commitee of rich americans to judge non western music. -
This was a reason to seperately award Latin Grammys. Critics very well know that two albums from different languages, cultures and styles cannot be compared unless the entire committee comparing is well versed in both the languages and cultures.
For example, an american may claim Pride and Prejudice to be the best written book. I would say as an Indian, it's Gitanjali. But in reality both cannot be compared and judged because they come from different people with entirely different cultural scenarios and ethnicity.
For this reason, I'm happy the Grammy's keep their judgement restricted to the west. As far as their claim as "Global Awards" goes, it's false because they do not cover the entire musical landscape of the globe. So I request non western stans to take Grammys lightly
Importantly, stans claim Grammys to be a proof of talent. Which I accept most of the times, but don't mistake the absence of Grammys to be the absence of talent. Many beautiful and impactful songs come out every year, but only one can win ROTY/SOTY.
Having a Grammy may mean the artist is talented, but NOT having a Grammy does NOT mean the artist is untalented. Artists like Katy and Nicki are yet to win a Grammy but their impact and success is surely greater than some Grammy winning artists! So do not discredit such artists!
In spite of all this, it is true that a part of the Grammy Committee is racist and sexist. But that does not mean the entire Committee is wrong. Similar to how many wanted Trump to lose but stubborn republicans made him win. Does not mean entire America is supportive of Trump!
This year was very important in enlightening everyone about the struggles of the black community. So I really wish the Grammy's diversify their panel, include more poc members in the committee so that every community is represented in the industry and nominations are justified.
