Aaliyah Pollard Grammys Article
The 2024 Grammys have simultaneously made and repeated history. Though the award show received its highest ratings after a record low in 2020, there were still many upsets throughout the night. This has been an occurrence for years, despite the purpose of the Grammys being to celebrate achievements in music. What happened to the Recording Academy’s credibility and popularity over the years?
This year’s Grammy Award Ceremony received 16.9 million viewers, a twofold increase in comparison to 2021’s record low 8.8 million viewers but less than half of 2012’s 39 million viewers. For an award deemed so prestigious, why is it that viewership has dropped so dramatically over the years? The general consensus believes that the new generation’s interest in streaming over cable TV as well as the lack of transparency from the Grammy committee about their nominations both play roles. Another reason is the access to quick recaps online reducing the interest in watching the full 3 hour ceremony. People are able to watch whatever performances they want, see the full list of winners, and even moments that shook the audience.
Aside from the fluctuating viewership, the Grammys has received criticism for lack of transparency about nominations and what artists were awarded. At the 2016 60th Grammy Awards, Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic won over Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN,” Jay Z’s “4:44,” Lorde’s “Melodrama,” and Childish Gambino’s “Awaken, My Love!” While Mars’ project was very successful, this was viewed as the Grammys awarding the safest choice out of the groundbreaking projects from that year. This was a situation that has made people question whether or not the award holds the amount of value it used to. The Grammys made it clear that the board holds little to no respect for Hip Hop, despite it being one of the most popular and innovative genres of music. This was also apparent at this year’s ceremony, with none of the hip hop categories being televised following its 50th year anniversary.
Furthermore, the Grammys showed their racial and cultural exclusivity with the consecutive snubs towards BTS. The boy group broke countless records and was deemed a cultural phenomenon with numbers to back it, but had their work ignored by the Recording Academy. Several other big artists like Drake, The Weeknd, and Frank Ocean have publicly expressed distaste towards the Recording Academy for this exclusion and lack of awareness. Both of these aspects have made the Grammys seem out of touch with the ever changing culture of music which has caused a loss of interest and questions about their credibility.
One of the most discussed moments of the 2024 Grammys was Jay Z’s speech, which has brought up some of the aforementioned points. The rapper and mogul expressed the importance of showing up in life, but also called out the Recording Academy for their faulty metrics. In one part of the speech, he brought up how Beyonce has won the most Grammys but never won Album of the Year. This point is very telling, considering how revolutionary of an impact that “Lemonade” had on audiences around the world along with “Renaissance” years later. Jay Z then addressed the artists who may go home feeling robbed and the ones who shouldn’t even be in certain categories but are. The Bruno Mars situation is a prime example of this portion of the speech in terms of the Recording Academy’s tendency to overlook works that were less commercially acceptable. All of these points contribute to the Academy being questioned about how they decide who receives nominations and what projects deserve to win. Jay Z’s speech became one of the most notable moments of the night because of how it reflected the general public’s current view of the Grammys.
Though there’s a lot of changes that need to be made to the Recording Academy’s metrics to restore their respect and credibility, there’s hope that the overall interest in the award show is rising back to where it used to be. Hopefully, the Recording Academy will take into consideration the critiques in order to properly reflect the current, diverse culture of music.
– Sources
- – https://www.statista.com/statistics/466534/grammy-awards-number-viewers/
- – https://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2023/11/13/are-the-grammys-still-relevant/ text=Viewership%20for%20awards%20shows%20%2D%2D,relevancy%20a nd%20importance%20into%20question..
- – https://stuyspec.com/ae/music/why-no-one-cares-about-the-grammys-anymore