Despite the decline of record sales in the United States due to illegal online peer to peer music sharing, music remains a powerful industry in the US today and in a world that loves to give out awards and is enamored by tradition, the Grammys represent the biggest stage of them all for recognizing excellence in music recording each year. The Grammys should represent the very best in music in the classiest way possible right? Well, not exactly. We watch stars walk down the red carpet and into their seats while harshly judging what they wear, watch short clips of the each music video, and then sit through a painful acceptance speech by the year’s “big winner” who wins their 5th Grammy that night for the same song we grew tired of nine months ago.
The Grammys fall short of pretty much everything they should be. Here are just a few of the problems with the so-called “big night” for music.
1) The Nomination Process: Artists, albums, and songs are nominated by record companies. Does anyone see anything wrong with this?! This is a major conflict of interest. Of course the record companies would want to nominate the most popular music as it directly benefits them and gives their artists further publicity. These nominations are then sent to the National Academy of recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) who narrow the list down to five final nominees
2) Choosing the Winners: The winners are then chosen by the NARAS. The NARAS is an organization of professionals in the music industry who are not always educated in the many genres that the Grammys give out awards to, which brings me to my next point…
3) Too Many Awards: The NARAS handed out a whopping 109 Grammys this year. Really? 109?! Must we know what was the Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package was as well as the Best Album Notes? Should we also perhaps know what the Best Surround Sound Album is too? Oh wait, it was given to Britten’s Orchestra. And that doesn’t even count the Latin Grammy Awards, so if you’re in need of another Grammy fix, November is just nine months and counting…
4) The Hollywood Factor: The night is less of an honorable event celebrating music and more of, well, a glamorized show parading stars around for another great photo op. While the night should be only about music, a quick Google search the next day yields completely different search results such as a story about how teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber’s fly was unzipped during the awards ceremony and another one speculating the possibility that John Mayer and Miley Cyrus may have “hooked up” at the event.
While some loved the show (it posted its best ratings in a decade), I can’t seem to view the night seriously. When taking into consideration that the highlight of the night for many viewers was seeing star Cee Lo Green dressed up as a giant bird complete with colorful feathers, I can’t help but see the annual show as a complete joke of music. Moreover, music is very important to me as well as for others in America and when everyone seems to have different tastes in music how could we possibly label one album as the best one? Is it the one that sells the most records? Is it the one that MTV plays the most and tells us to like? Or is it the one almost no one's ever heard of? The idea that one is truly "the best" is ludicrous. It’s completely subjective. Nonetheless, the Grammys manage to make money out of it and are here to stay whether I like it or not.
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