A Grammy Award (originally called Gramophone Award) –
or Grammy – is an accolade by the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the
United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the
music industry. The annual presentation ceremony features
performances by prominent artists, and some of the awards of more
popular interest are presented in a widely viewed televised ceremony. It
is the music equivalent to the
Emmy Awards for television, the
Tony Awards for stage performances, and the
Academy Awards for
motion pictures.
The
first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4, 1959, and it was set
up to honor musical accomplishments by performers for the year 1958.
Following the 2011 ceremony, NARAS overhauled many Grammy Award
categories for 2012. The
55th Grammy Awards were held on February 10, 2013, at the
Staples Center in
Los Angeles, California.
History
The Grammy Awards had their origin in the
Hollywood Walk of Fame project in the 1950s.[1][2]
As the recording executives chosen for the Walk of Fame (Tabinda Walk)
committee worked at compiling a list of important recording industry
people who might qualify for a Walk of Fame star, they realized there
were many more people who were leaders in their business who would never
earn a star on
Hollywood Boulevard. The music executives decided to rectify this by
creating an award given by their industry similar to the
Oscars and the
Emmys. This was the beginning of the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. After it was
decided to create such an award, there was still a question of what to
call it; one working title was the Eddie, to honor the inventor of the
phonograph,
Thomas Edison. They finally settled on using the name of the
invention of
Emile Berliner, the gramophone, for the awards, which were first
given for the year 1958.[3][4][5]
Gramophone trophy
The gold-plated trophies, each depicting a gilded
gramophone, are made and assembled by hand by Billings Artworks in
Ridgway, Colorado. In 1990 the original Grammy design was revamped,
changing the traditional soft lead for a stronger alloy less prone to
damage, made of slumped and reformed pre-war Gibson flat head banjo tone
rings, making the trophy bigger and grander.[6]
The trophies with the recipient's name engraved on them are not
available until after the award announcements, so "stunt" trophies are
re-used each year for the broadcast.[7]
As of February 2009, 7,578 Grammy trophies had been awarded.[8]
Categories
The "General Field" are four awards which are not restricted by
genre.
-
Album of the Year is awarded to the performer and the production
team of a full album.
-
Record of the Year is awarded to the performer and the
production team of a single song.
-
Song of the Year is awarded to the writer(s)/composer(s) of a
single song.
-
Best New Artist is awarded to a promising breakthrough performer
who releases, during the Eligibility Year, the first recording that
establishes the public identity of that artist (which is not
necessarily their first proper release).
Other awards are given for performance and production in specific
genres, as well as for other contributions such as artwork and video.
Special awards are given for longer-lasting contributions to the music
industry.
Because of the large number of award categories (78 in 2012), and the
desire to feature several performances by various artists, only the ones
with the most popular interest - typically about 10 to 12, including the
four General Field categories and one or two categories in the most
popular music genres (i.e. pop, rock, country, rap) - are presented
directly at the televised award ceremony. Other awards are presented in
a pre-telecast ceremony earlier in the afternoon of the Grammy awards
ceremony.
2012
category restructuring
On April 6, 2011, The Recording Academy announced a drastic overhaul
of many Grammy Award categories for 2012.[9]
The number of categories were diminished from 109 to 78. The most
important change is the elimination of the distinction between male and
female soloists and between collaborations and duo/groups in various
genre fields (pop, rock, R&B, country, and rap). Also, several
categories for instrumental soloists were discontinued. Recordings in
these categories now fall under the general categories for best solo
performances.
In the
rock field, the separate categories for hard rock and metal albums
have been combined and the
Best Rock Instrumental Performance category was eliminated due to a
waning number of entries.
In
R&B, the distinction between best contemporary R&B album and other
R&B albums has been eliminated. They now feature in one, general
Best R&B Album category.
In
rap, the categories for best rap soloist and best rap duo or group
have been merged into the new
Best Rap Performance category.
The most eliminations occurred in the
roots category. Up to and including 2011, there were separate
categories for various regional American music forms, such as Hawaiian
music, Native American music and Zydeco/Cajun music. Due to the
consistently low number of entries for these categories, The Recording
Academy decided to combine all these music variations into the new
Best Regional Roots Music Album, including
polka,
which lost its own separate category in 2009.[10][11]
In the same genre field, the traditional and contemporary blues
categories and the traditional and contemporary folk categories each
were consolidated into one per genre, due to the number of entries and
given the challenges in distinguishing between contemporary folk and
Americana, and contemporary and traditional blues. In the world music
genre field, the traditional and contemporary categories have also been
merged.
In the
classical genre field, its main category
Best Classical Album has been discontinued because most recipients
in this category had also won in one of the other classical categories
for the same album. Classical recordings are now eligible for the main
Album of the Year category.
There are also a few minor name changes to better reflect the nature
of the separate categories. It was determined by the Recording Academy
that the word "gospel" in the
gospel genre field tends to conjure up the images and sounds of
traditional soul gospel and leaves out the current contemporary
Christian music (CCM). Therefore the genre field and some categories
have been renamed as Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music.[citation
needed]
Nomination process
Record companies and individuals may submit recordings to be
nominated. Nominations are made online and a physical copy of the work
is sent to the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Once a
work is entered, reviewing sessions are held, by more than 150 experts
from the recording industry, to determine whether the work is eligible
and entered in the correct category for official nomination.
The resulting list is circulated to all NARAS members, each of whom
may vote to nominate in the general field (Record
of the Year,
Album of the Year,
Song of the Year, and
Best New Artist) and in no more than nine out of 30 other fields on
their ballots. The five recordings that earn the most votes in each
category become the nominees. There may be more than five nominees if
there is a tie in the nomination process.
Whereas members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
are generally invited to screenings or are sent DVDs of movies nominated
for Oscars, NARAS members do not receive nominated recordings.
After nominees have been determined, final voting ballots are sent to
Recording Academy members, who may then vote in the general fields and
in no more than eight of the 30 fields. NARAS members are encouraged,
but not required, to vote only in their fields of expertise. Ballots are
tabulated secretly by the major independent accounting firm
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.[12]
Following the tabulation of votes the winners are announced at the
Grammy Awards. The recording with the most votes in a category wins and
it is possible to have a tie. Winners are presented with the Grammy
Award and those who do not win are given a medal for their nomination.
In both voting rounds, Academy members are required to vote based
upon quality alone, and not to be influenced by sales, chart
performance, personal friendships, regional preferences or company
loyalty. The acceptance of gifts is prohibited. Members are urged to
vote in a manner that preserves the integrity of the academy.
The eligibility period for the 2012 Grammy Awards was October 1, 2010
to September 30, 2011.
Venue
Prior to 1971, the Grammy Award ceremonies were held in different
locations on the same day. Originally
New York City and
Los Angeles were the host cities.
Chicago
joined being a host city in 1962, and then
Nashville became the fourth location in 1965.
The 1971 ceremony, held at the
Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, was the first to take place in
one location. The ceremony was then moved to
Madison Square Garden's
Felt Forum in New York City, and then Nashville's Tennessee Theatre
in the following two years. Then from 1974 to 2003, the Grammys were
held in various venues in New York City and Los Angeles. Notable
locations included New York City's Madison Square Garden and
Radio City Music Hall; and Los Angeles'
Shrine Auditorium, the
Staples Center and the Hollywood Palladium.
In 2004, the Staples Center became the permanent home of the award
ceremonies.
The Grammy Museum was built across the street from Staples Center in
LA Live to preserve the history of the Grammy Awards. Embedded on
the sidewalks at the museum streets are bronze disks, similar to the
Hollywood Walk of Fame, honoring each year's top winners, Record of
the Year, Best New Artist, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year.
Leading winners
With 31 Grammy Awards, Sir
Georg Solti is the artist with the most Grammy wins.[13]
Alison Krauss is the biggest winner among female artists with 27 awards.[14]
U2, with 22
Grammy Awards, holds the record for most awards won by a group.[citation
needed]
Criticism
The Grammy Awards has received criticism from various recording
artists and music journalists.
When his band
Pearl
Jam won a Grammy in the category
Best Hard Rock Performance in 1996, singer
Eddie Vedder commented on stage: "I don't know what this means. I
don't think it means anything."[15]
Glen Hansard, leader of the Irish rock group
The
Frames, stated in 2008 that the Grammys represent something outside
of the real world of music "that's fully industry based." He said he
wasn't that interested in attending that year's ceremony, even though he
had been nominated for two different awards.[15]
Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of
metal band
Tool, did not attend the Grammy Awards ceremony to receive one of
their awards. He explained his reasons:
I think the Grammys are nothing more than some gigantic
promotional machine for the music industry. They cater to a low
intellect and they feed the masses. They don't honor the arts or
the artist for what he created. It's the music business
celebrating itself. That's basically what it's all about.
[16]
It has also been criticized for generally awarding or nominating more
commercially successful albums rather than critically successful albums.[17][18]
In a 2011 article,
Los Angeles Times writer Randall Roberts was critical of the
nominations for the
54th Grammy Awards, particularly for the Album of the Year category,
noting the exclusion of
Kanye West's
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, "the most critically
acclaimed album of the year, a career-defining record", as a snub in
favor of nominating less substantial albums.[19]
Roberts went on to criticize the Grammy Awards for being "mired in the
past" and out of touch with "new media" and trends amongs music
listeners such as
music sharing, stating:
The major nominations for the 54th annual awards clearly show
that the recording academy has been working overtime to be
all-inclusive, but more significantly, they also reveal a deep
chasm between its goals and the listening habits of the general
population. [...] And if one were to measure the vitality of
American music through the filter of the Grammy nominations for
song of the year and record of the year, one might think the
economy wasn't the only thing that was sluggish. [...] [T]he
focus is still on the old music industry model of
cash-cow hits, major label investments and commercial radio.
[...] Falling behind the times is nothing new for the Grammys,
but once they've lost sight of the artistry that makes music
soar, they'll not just be irrelevant, they'll be out of
business.
[19]
—Randall Roberts
In an article for
Time, journalist
Touré
also responded to the snub and expressed his general displeasure with
the awards, stating "I don’t pretend to understand the Grammys. I have
never been able to discern a consistent logic around who gets nominated
or who gets statues. I comprehend the particular logic of the Oscars,
but not the big awards for music. My normal state of confusion around
what drives Grammy decisions was exponentialized this week when, to the
shock of many, Kanye’s masterpiece My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
was not nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year."[20]
He went on to compare understanding the Grammy Awards to
Kremlinology and commented on The Recording Academy's exclusion of
more "mature" hip hop albums as Album of the Year nominees, noting that
it occasionally opts to nominate "pop-friendly" hip hop albums instead.[20]
In a 2011 profile for
The New York Times following the
53rd Grammy Awards, frontman
Justin Vernon of indie band
Bon
Iver was asked his opinion of the Grammys and how he would react to
a nomination for his group, to which he responded,
You know I was thinking about that a couple of months ago,
someone asked me that, and I was like "I would go and I would" – and
I don’t think the Bon Iver record is the kind of record that would
get nominated for a Grammy – "I would get up there and be like,
'This is for my parents, because they supported me,' because I know
they would think it would be stupid of me not to go up there. But I
kinda felt like going up there and being like: "Everyone should go
home, this is ridiculous. You should not be doing this. We should
not be gathering in a big room and looking at each other and
pretending that this is important." That's what I would say.[21]
He reaffirmed this sentiment and felt the Grammys are held in too,
saying:
[Ninety-eight] percent of the people in that room, their art is
compromised by the fact that they’re thinking that, and that
they’re hoping to get that award. And who is that award given
by? It’s like they think it’s literally handed down by the
musical-history gods. And I don’t know who the voters are. Like,
I have a friend who’s a voter who was like, “I had to be a voter
because I don’t trust the other voters.” And I was like, “Me
either!” And it’s just not important and people spend too much
time thinking about it.
[21]
—Justin Vernon
Bon Iver subsequently received four nominations in November for the
54th Grammy Awards.[21]
After winning the award, Vernon said in his acceptance, "It's really
hard to accept this award. There's so much talent out here [...] and
there's a lot of talent that's not here tonight. It's also hard to
accept because you know, when I started to make songs I did it for the
inherent reward of making songs, so I'm a little bit uncomfortable up
here."[22]
In his article "Everything Is Praised Again", Jon Caramanica of
The New York Times criticized Grammy voters for being
"conservative" and disregarding more "forward-looking" music, and wrote
in response to the 54th Grammy Awards, "for the umpteenth time, the
Grammys went with familiarity over risk, bestowing album of the year
honors (and several more) on an album that reinforced the values of an
older generation suspicious of change."[23]
He cited the Grammy successes of
Lauryn Hill's
The Miseducation (1999),
Norah Jones'
Come Away with Me (2003), and
Adele's
21 (2011) as examples of "the Grammys dropp[ing] a boatload of
awards on a young female singer-songwriter and her breakthrough album."
Of Kanye West's absence from the ceremony, Caramanica stated, "He didn’t
even bother to show up for the broadcast, which was well enough, because
hip-hop was almost completely marginalized".[23]
In an article for
The Huffington Post, music executive and author
Steve Stoute criticized the Recording Academy and the Grammy Awards
for having "lost touch with contemporary popular culture" and noted "two
key sources" for it: "(1) over-zealousness to produce a popular show
that is at odds with its own system of voting and (2) fundamental
disrespect of cultural shifts as being viable and artistic."[24]
Stoute accused them of snubbing artists with more cultural impact,
citing respective losses by the critical and commercial successes in
Eminem's
The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) and Kanye West's
Graduation (2007) in the Album of the Year category, and stated:
As an institution that celebrates artistic works of musicians,
singers, songwriters, producers and technical specialists, we
have come to expect that the Grammys upholds all of the values
that reflect the very best in music that is born from our
culture. Unfortunately, the awards show has become a series of
hypocrisies and contradictions, leaving me to question why any
contemporary popular artist would even participate. [...] While
there is no doubt in my mind of the artistic talents of
Steely Dan or
Herbie Hancock, we must acknowledge the massive cultural
impact of Eminem and Kanye West and how their music is shaping,
influencing and defining the voice of a generation. It is this
same cultural impact that acknowledged the commercial and
critical success of
Michael Jackson's
Thriller in 1984.
[24]
—Steve Stoute
TV
broadcasts and ratings
Prior to the first live Grammys telecast in 1971 on
American Broadcasting Company (ABC), a series of taped annual
specials in the 1960s called The Best on Record were broadcast on
National Broadcasting Company (NBC).
The first Grammy Award telecast took place on the night of November 29,
1959, as an episode of the NBC anthology series Sunday Showcase,
which was normally devoted to plays, original TV dramas, and variety
shows. Until 1971, awards ceremonies were held in both New York and Los
Angeles, with winners accepting at one of the two.
Pierre Cossette bought the rights to broadcast the ceremony from the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and organized the first
live telecast.[25]
CBS
Broadcasting bought the rights in 1973 after moving the ceremony to
Nashville,
Tennessee; the
American Music Awards were created for ABC (by
Dick Clark) as a result.
The Recording Academy announced on June 21, 2011 that it had reached
a new deal with CBS to keep the awards show on the network for another
10 years. CBS also broadcasted the annual nominations concert special on
November 30, 2011 from Los Angeles. The Grammys aired on February 12,
2012. The 2011 Grammy Award show had 26.6 million viewers.
See also