The Grammy Awards (originally known as the Gramophone Awards) are presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States for outstanding achievement in the record industry, and is considered by many to be the most prestigious award available in music.
The award ceremony sees performances from prominent artists and the presentations of major awards being broadcast to millions of television viewers. A series of taped annual specials broadcast in the 1960s called “The Best on Record” were the precursor to the first live Grammys telecast in 1971. Since then the award ceremony has been regularly held in Los Angeles during February, with the 50th ceremony having recently taken place.
The process through which artists are nominated for a Grammy is entirely orchestrated by The Recording Academy and the record companies. They are responsible for entering the musical works they deem most deserving into nomination. Once a work is entered, 150 experts from the recording industry preside over reviewing sessions, held to determine whether or not a work is eligible or entered in the right category. After this, the voting takes places with the 150 experts only being able to vote in their fields of expertise, as well as in the general categories of Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist.
There has been much debate about whether or not this sort of nominating and voting process is the result of commercial or industry bias. Some critics have suggested that the event is nothing more than an exercise in self promotion and corporate back slapping, as well as an opportunity for the record companies to advertise their ideas and products through the use of selection bias in the nomination process.
Renowned and respected musicians such as Maynard James Keenan and Trent Reznor (front men of the bands Tool and Nine Inch Nails respectively) have voiced their concern over the awards, arguing that major award shows such as the Grammys do not adequately represent the views of the public and that much of the ceremony itself is “filler” with too many awards being handed out.
Despite this, evidence seems to suggest that winning a Grammy is highly beneficial to many artists’ careers, with Billboard magazine regularly observing a spike in sales of winning artists’ albums after achieving success at the ceremony.
Having just celebrated its 50th successful year, with the streets and luxury hotels of L.A once again packed with stars, it’s safe to say that, despite the naysayers, the Grammy awards will continue to be considered the benchmark for excellence in the music industry for some time to come.
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