In 1989 Ian Anderson's successful yet hated band of rotating musicians won the "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards and all hell broke loose. That Grammy was supposed to go to Metallica, for their album "..And Justice for All." And the only people more vocal in their displeasure over perceived abuse than rappers and the hip-hop community are metal and their diehard metalhead fans.
Something had to be done.
And Mike Greene did it. Ergo the so-called "secret committees."
Since the end of Greene's tenure atop the Grammy organization the outfit has been on autopilot, believing that appeasing major labels and CBS means it is on the right path. Meanwhile, the entire nation has been digitized and revolutionized, hip-hop embraced the internet and became dominant and right wing populism took hold. Talk about burying your head in the sand.
Not only do you have to take action to curb past inequities, you must look around the corner to assure you're on top in the coming years. This is how Mark Zuckerberg has won. Facebook purchased WhatsApp when most people in the U.S. had never heard of it, never mind used it, the citizens of the country having never been outside its borders, where WhatsApp was dominant. Zuckerberg also purchased a fledgling Instagram to cement Facebook's power in the social media sphere.
Greene's efforts were laudable. But since he's been gone they've been ripe for abuse.
Kind of like earmarks.
In today's "Wall Street Journal," Katie Porter lobbies for the continued halt of the utilization of earmarks: on.wsj.com/2Q0ivbo Which are notorious for allowing representatives to attach local benefits to broad bills. Porter, a woman, famously left-leaning and anti corporate corruption, went into the devil's den to make her case, the aforementioned "Wall Street Journal." Porter wants sunshine on the issue. The Grammys always want darkness.
The problem is, just like with earmarks, the Grammy secret committees have been abused by members for their own benefit. Come on, let's nominate our friend. If you know anything about musicians, it's all about quid pro quo, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. It's about relationships and favors owed. And in the down ballot categories the benefit of a Grammy nomination, never mind a victory, far exceeds the reward in the major categories, where the performers are usually household names and a Grammy is just a cherry on top. Actually, one could argue winning hurts you. Even Billie Eilish realized this when she mouthed that it not be her who won her umpteenth Grammy. There is backlash. When you're atop the heap there's nowhere to go but down. And sure, the hoi polloi suddenly knew who Eilish was, but her victories hurt her bond with her fans, she was no longer only theirs, and ultimately her credibility and even her career. Forget the chart numbers, if we go to the data of choice, the most accurate in the music business, i.e. Spotify streams, her recent singles have had nowhere near the impact of her previous hits. "My Future" has 179,746,629, "Therefore I Am" has 313,355,435 and "Lo Vas a Olvidar," only 46,456,148. Meanwhile, "Bad Guy" has 1,709,432 and "When the Party's Over" has 1,104,294,539 and "Lovely" has 1,333,036,817. In music you don't want to be too successful, people burn out on you, they hold you to a higher standard, you're a target for abuse.
So, with the continued use of secret committees, the Grammy organization has lost touch with the music landscape. It has become self-serving, contrary to its mission. And it refuses to air its laundry, provide any facts and figures, we must trust the organization to evaluate and potentially fix any irregularities. That's right, in Grammy court you don't even get a hearing! Which is why the Weeknd has pulled his music and possible future performances from the Grammys for all time: nyti.ms/30CUJnU Meanwhile, the Weeknd's "snub" and boycott have generated more ink than the awards show itself.
Deborah Dugan blew the whistle on these secret committees. As a result she got fired. Isn't it interesting that she was a woman. As for her replacement...they couldn't find another woman? Harvey Mason, Jr. is another old boy caretaker, taking control of the ship as it is listing. Sometimes radical change is necessary to survive, and stasis, even minor corrections, doom you.
We live in an era of data. You can see anybody's stream count on Spotify.
But the Grammys are opaque.
Then again, music is not like movies. There's no way anyone could possibly know all the music released in a year. As for the preponderance of categories...there's no other awards organization that compares. But you can't eliminate any of them because you're going to hurt the feelings of lifers without purchase in the national mind-set who need these awards to feel good about themselves. Marlon Brando refused to show up for the Oscars, Woody Allen too, when they were favored to win and did! They didn't need a phony victory lap to believe in the quality of their work and their mission as artists.
But we can't draw any lines. The Grammys are just like millennials. Everybody's entitled to a trophy. Unless you're an actual winner. Could it be that Grammy voters have contempt for the Weeknd because he is so successful and they are not?
The Brits, a successful enterprise of the BPI (British Phonograph Industry), whose show has been produced numerous times by Ben Winston, only has ten categories. It's comprehensible. Voters can familiarize themselves with the entrants. Then again, the U.K. has consistently punched above its weight in music, for decades. The only genre they missed out on, that was developed in the U.S., was hip-hop. Ironically the genre that is continually under-recognized by the Grammys.
Radical change is needed.
But the old boy network said Deborah Dugan wanted change too fast.
It's clear who was right.
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