Stedman Tabiri | Contributor
Featured Image: A diverse group of eight nominees all hope to walk away with this miniature golden gramophone. | Joe Klamar, Getty Images
For over 60 years, The Grammys has been valued in American mainstream pop culture as the most coveted prize in music, with the tagline of “Music’s Biggest Night.” Despite this, the award show has always found itself in some sort of controversy with its selection of nominees and winners.
The Grammys are a transparent look into what the music industry values in popular music for the year. The voting pool tends to raise some eyebrows as a handful of critically-acclaimed, and well-deserved albums disregarded each year in favour of more commercial or industry-approved albums. The voters are members of The Recording Academy—an organization that consists of a number of veteran musicians, producers, record engineers, and other recording professionals.
There has been more of a push for women to be nominated after last year’s heavily-criticized outing. Lorde was the only female of the five nominees for ‘Album of the Year’, an award that she did not win. While she was in attendance for the event, the Academy didn’t even want her to perform on the telecast, despite nominated artists consistently being invited to perform during the event. Afterwards, Neil Portnow, president of The Recording Academy, made a controversial comment on the lack of female representation, stating women “need to step up.”
After this perplexing remark, the Academy has made an effort to expand the number of nominations for major categories from five to eight, in hopes it will bring more diversity to the ballot. In addition, they announced a revamping of its requirements for new voting members—which they claim will broaden the academy’s demographics.
This year is certainly an improvement with five women being nominated out of the eight spots for the top album honour. Yet, there still seems to be traces of the Recording Academy’s agenda setting tendencies.
For instance, a good display of how industry-influenced the award panel can be is the inclusion of H.E.R. for ‘Album of the Year’. The emerging artist was certainly one of those unexpected picks the Academy likes to tack on as she’s neither a household name nor a famous Internet sensation.
Jason Emsallem, a fourth-year communications student and PR executive for the York University Musicians Society is intrigued by the idea of H.E.R. taking the top prize. “H.E.R. would also be a very interesting pick, I would like to see her win because she is a new artist. She is kind of like the R&B, slow groove kind of underdog.”
Although H.E.R. is a promising new artist, and these major nominations will get her a lot of well-earned attention, there were women with much better albums such as Rosalia, Mitski, or even Ariana Grande. Grande’s absence from the list is probably the biggest surprise, being an individual of global pop star stature releasing a well-received album, after a year surrounded by personal, and greater world tragedies. But, the function of the Grammys isn’t to be a blatant critics poll that rewards and favours the most culturally relevant, or imposing albums such as the Village Voice’s annual Pazz & Jop critics poll.
From a traditional standpoint, Janelle Monae would have a good chance of winning ‘Album of the Year’. The Grammys have favoured eclectic black artists in the past, such as OutKast and Lauryn Hill. The only uncertainty is if she will be able to rally behind enough votes, as there are other black artists on the ballot that may decrease her chances of winning. It’s really a matter of how diverse and equalized the Grammy committee truly is. They claim to be making efforts to having a voting pool that’s more diverse, but we’ll see this year if that’s really the case.
Cardi B’s ‘Invasion of Privacy‘ will be at the centre of attention. This will certainly be an album social media will rally behind. It has all the ingredients for earning the top prize: number one hit singles (‘Bodak Yellow’, ‘I Like It’), heavy critical acclaim, and because, well, she’s Cardi B.
Communications Professor Lewis Kaye teaches the fourth-year course “Popular Music as Communication and Culture,”and thinks the New York rapper may end up taking home the award after having a meteoric ascension over the last year and a half. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Cardi B wins, just simply because of who she is,” explains Kaye. “Is that the factor that’s involved? Is that who’s important? Is that what is important these days? Is who is it, and whether that person is capturing the moment?”
Kiem Pauline, a fourth-year crime and sociology major is also aware of the cultural zeitgeist Cardi B has manifested and seems skeptical about the Recording Academy. “If the world is voting, Cardi B will win, but if it’s the Recording Academy, I don’t know man.”
The only problem is, as with other black artists nominated such as Drake, Kendrick, and Janelle Monae, there’s a chance there may be a split in votes. This year will mark 21 years since Lauryn Hill’s historic ‘Album of the Year’ win for her album ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’. This would make Cardi B’s win that much more significant.
A surprising, but logical nominee is the Kendrick Lamar and Various Artists soundtrack compilation, ‘Black Panther: The Album’. Kendrick Lamar leads with the most award nominations this year, but as with any award show, that doesn’t guarantee a win. The ‘Black Panther’ movie gained a lot of notoriety within the last year, and the album debuted number one on the Billboard Charts. It also had a hit single called ‘All the Stars’, a collaboration with Kendrick and SZA, make it to the charts and become nominated in major categories.
“I say the ‘Black Panther’ album will win within the context of the film itself, really, because it was the biggest film of 2018. It was a predominantly black cast, black director; everyone involved in the direction of the film was black. Kendrick did a lot of great collaborations with people on that album; The Weeknd, Schoolboy Q,” says Michael Woube, a fourth-year history student. If Kendrick & Co win, it will be similar to another Grammy-faux of giving an artist a significant award for an album that’s far from their best work.
Drake’s ‘Scorpion’ is far from the Toronto artist’s best work as a whole. If you strictly assess it from his singles, it’s certainly his best run in terms of album singles. Undoubtedly, it was his most dominant run on the Billboard charts with the biggest hit of the year ‘God’s Plan’, the song of the summer, ‘In My Feelings’, along with the smash hit Lauryn Hill sampling ‘Nice for What’.
“How is ‘Scorpion’ not going to win? How can it not? Scorpion has to win,” says Befii Saro-Wiwa, a third-year communications student.
Post Malone has also had a dominant commercial showing, finishing ahead of Drake for the highest album sales of 2018. The Grammys tend to acknowledge a couple of albums with the most commercial success each year with a nomination, but it doesn’t necessarily mean an easy victory. With the prominence of streaming platforms such as Spotify or Soundcloud, the Recording Academy may want to reward an artist that has been at the forefront of this movement such as Post Malone, Drake, or Cardi B.
Kacey Musgraves’ ‘Golden Hour’ embodied its title. It was one of those special albums that extended beyond the boundaries of its genre. A lot of music aficionados, trendy bloggers, and critics praised this album heavily, or put it high on their year-end lists. Despite receiving little airplay on country radio, Musgraves still managed to win ‘Album of the Year’ at the American Country Music Awards. She has a strong chance of taking home the accolade, as the Recording Academy usually likes to favour a more traditional musician, or give attention to an artist that isn’t as widespread as a pop artist or rapper.
Brandi Carlile’s Album ‘By the Way, I Forgive You’ is probably the most low profile entry on the list. The critical scores for this Americana album have been solid but there will be those that feel it doesn’t have the aura that is necessary to be helmed ‘Album of the Year’. This is definitely a pick that relies on whether recording professionals feel this album is superior over the pop juggernauts in this category.
Professor Kaye seems unsure of what the Recording Academy values to determine winners. “I’m not really up on how the academy makes its decisions anymore. Is it about record sales? Is it about aesthetic value? Is it some weird combination of the two?”
We will have to find out on Sunday, February 10 to see what the Recording Academy truly values in music this year. We’ll also see whether the academy’s methods to expand the category to be more diverse, will truly work.
We will certainly hear about it from the masses.
