Make a Contribution to Remove NSFW Ads

2016 Grammy Award Discussion Thread...

playahaitian

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
http://live.grammy.com/

Everything You Need to Know About the 2016 Grammys

Ah, the Grammys: The year's best in music that ruled the charts and our Spotify playlists. We've got diss tracks, Hamilton (!), and tons of Kendrickup for awards next week — and it's all set to go down when you least expect it: a Monday. Thanks to a double-holiday weekend, this year, the Grammys have bucked the awards-season tradition of rounding up celebs on a Sunday night and instead opted for their first-ever Monday broadcast. The 58th Grammys will air live from the Staples Center — in all time zones now! — on February 15 on CBS at 8 p.m. EST. Here's your guide to music's biggest night.

New for 2o16
The West Coast often draws the short stick when it comes to watching live television, but this year, CBS is throwing Los Angeles (where the Grammys are actually presented) a bone: For the first time, the program will broadcast in the Pacific and Mountain time zones at the same time it airs in Eastern zones — finally catching up to what every other major awards show has been doing for years. Tape delay be gone! Set your alarms, West Coast: The Grammys will be coming to you live at 5 p.m. PST.

Taking another cue from the Oscars, this year's Grammys will use technology to improve the winners' onstage experiences. While the Oscars plan to give the orchestra a break by introducing scrolling acceptance speeches, the Grammys will livestream from inside its golden gramophones. The idea is to stick a GoPro camera inside the base of each statue so you, too, can know what it's like to watch Taylor Swift bust a move from the vantage point of someone onstage. It's called theGrammyCam, and will be livestreamed from the Grammy Live hubbeginning five hours before the show starts, all the way up until the last award is handed out.

Another first for this year's Grammys: TV's first-ever live music video. The YouTube Music Awards arguably originated the idea of the live music video three years ago (though Death Cab for Cutie claim to be the first), but that was a digital-only show. The Grammys say they'll be the first to air a live music video when Gwen Stefani acts in, films, and live-broadcasts a video for her new single "Make Me Like You" during a four-minute Target-sponsored segment (not to be confused for a Target ad, though you'll likely spot the product placement). Kicking that immersive experience up another notch, Lady Gaga's performance (which is now a David Bowie tribute) will be brought to you by Intel and has been described as a "ground-breaking collaboration that inspires to remind the world of the seed of innovation." Under pressure, indeed.

Showrunners
Perennial Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich (36 years and counting!) will be back behind the wheel for the 2016 edition. Ehrlich, who signed on two years ago to produce the Grammys through 2017, is also the man behind A Very Grammy Christmas, the Grammys holiday special that aired in December 2014. It was Ehrlich who handpicked Lady Gaga, who had already been booked to sing that night, to perform the Bowie tribute. He recently told EW that Gaga won't also perform the In Memoriam interlude, but another unannounced artist will, and that Ehrlich wants whoever does it to sing Natalie Cole's "Miss You Like Crazy," since the late singer died at the beginning of the year. Louis J. Horvitz will direct the show; Ehrlich and David Wild will write.

Host
Extending his seemingly exclusive Grammy hosting reign, LL Cool J will be back to host the Grammys for the fifth (!) consecutive (!) time. Given Grammy-hosting isn't really about sophisticated bits (no offense), you can expect more filler and dad-joke one-liners that all the ladies (and many men) will love despite the cheese. (If you'd like to see more of LL's hosting chops, catch him on Lip Sync Battle doing just that every week.)



Nominees
Two years after Macklemore shut him out, Kendrick Lamar enters the 2016 Grammys as the favorite — he leads this year's nominations with 11, just one short of tying Michael Jackson's record-setting 12 in one year. Both Taylor Swift and the Weeknd trail him with seven each. Up for Album of the Year are Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, Taylor Swift's1989, the Weeknd's Beauty Behind the Madness, Alabama Shakes' Sound & Color, and Chris Stapleton's Traveller.

Performers
Though there was originally some confusion over who will open this year's show, Taylor Swift will once again do the honors, performing a song off Album of the Year nominee 1989. Initially, some thought Hamilton would open the Grammys — but what Lin-Manuel Miranda meant was that the nominated cast will perform Hamilton's opening number, "Alexander Hamilton," at some point in the show. The cast won't actually be there, instead livestreaming their performance from the Richard Rodgers Theatre in front of an audience (a first for a Broadway musical at the Grammys) while the show is on a break on Monday. Another artist who won't be coming to you live from the Staples Center: Drake, who, despite being named in a Super Bowl Grammys promo as one of the many artists appearing in the show's first hour, later tweeted that he isn't performing.



Not that you'd notice, because also set to perform, in addition to Taylor Swift and Hamilton, are: Adele, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber with Diplo and Skrillex, Pitfall with Robin Thicke and Travis Barker, Chris Stapleton, Bonnie Raitt, Gary Clark Jr., James Bay, Andra Day, Ellie Goulding, Sam Hunt, Tori Kelly, Little Big Town, Carrie Underwood, the Weeknd, the Hollywood Vampires (Alice Cooper, Joe Perry, and Johnny Depp), John Legend, Demi Lovato, Luke Bryan, Meghan Trainor, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Joey Alexander, Miguel, and Alabama Shakes.



Tributes
2016 started out rough, with the deaths of David Bowie and Glenn Frey, coupled with last year's loss of Lemmy Kilmister and B.B. King — all four of whom will be honored at this year's Grammy ceremony. As previously noted, Lady Gaga will perform the Bowie tribute, covering at least three or four of his songs and paying homage to his fashion legacy. Chris Stapleton, Bonnie Raitt, and Gary Clark Jr. will honor King with a performance for the blues icon. Members of the Eagles — Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, Timothy B. Schmit, and Joe Walsh — are set to perform one of the band's songs for their late founder, Glenn Fry, along with the band's close collaborator Jackson Browne. And Hollywood Vampires, the supergroup of Johnny Depp, Alice Cooper, Duff McKagan, and Joe Perry, will make their TV debut to pay tribute to Lemmy with a Motörhead song. (They'll also debut a new song of their own.)

Billed as an homage, John Legend, Meghan Trainor, Demi Lovato, and Luke Bryan will perform a medley of Lionel Ritchie songs in honor of his 2016 MusiCares Person of the Year award. This year's Lifetime Achievement Awards will go to Run-DMC, Ruth Brown, Celia Cruz, Herbie Hancock, Linda Ronstadt, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Jefferson Airplane. No announcements have been made about tributes to EW&F's co-founder Maurice White or Jefferson Airplane's co-founder Paul Kanter and original singer Signe Anderson, who each recently passed away. However, EW&F have been announced as presenters for Record of the Year and are expected to "salute" Maurice White.

Lastly, Miguel has been tapped to perform Michael Jackson's "She's Out of My Life" to commemorate the upcoming reissue of Off the Wall and its Spike Lee documentary.

Presenters
Since the Grammys recognize most categories before the show, there aren't a whole lot of awards to actually hand out during the broadcast — and we don't yet know which ones will appear during the TV broadcast. But those that do will be presented by Ice Cube, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Cam, Common, Seth MacFarlane, Ed Sheeran, Stephen Colbert, James Corden, Kaley Cuoco, Anna Kendrick, Ryan Seacrest, and Sam Smith. Earth, Wind & Fire will present Record of the Year.

If it's the lesser-publicized categories you care about, tune into the Grammys livestreamed pre-telecast at 3:30 EST for the 70 awards you won't see handed out on the actual show.
 
looks like plenty of blacks are being honored and presented so I guess there won't be a show of solidarity and boycott of the grammys in sympathy for the oscars shut out huh..:rolleyes::rolleyes:

negroes GOTS to have the pat on shoulder from white daddy..the sun just don't set right without it:smh::smh::smh:
 
geechiedan said:
looks like plenty of blacks are being honored and presented so I guess there won't be a show of solidarity and boycott of the grammys in sympathy for the oscars shut out huh..:rolleyes::rolleyes:

negroes GOTS to have the pat on shoulder from white daddy..the sun just don't set right without it:smh::smh::smh:
Click to expand...

I'm SURE they are gonna play that up during the telecast...
 
Six Takeaways from the 2016 Grammy Award Nominations

It approaches again: the music industry’s annual memoriam of itself, in which thousands of music-industry luminaries (and just as many who’d like to think they are) lavish mucho pomp and drawn-out circumstance upon a set of artists basically nobody else agrees are the best of the year.

2016’s Grammy nominations stand more of a chance than usual of breaking this trend. (Representative headlines: "Surprise! The Grammy Nominations Don’t Totally Suck This Year"; "This Is Not the Year to Complain About the Grammys.") Critics’ favorites like Kendrick Lamar andCourtney Barnett share space with crowd pleasers like Taylor Swift and the Weeknd, with nary a Macklemore in sight. (Worth noting: The Grammy cutoff is September 30, which places, among others, one Adele Adkins on the other si-ide.) What could possibly go wrong? Well…

STANDBY FOR A MANUFACTURED WAR BETWEEN TAYLOR AND KENDRICK
Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift lead the nominations with 11 and 7 nods respectively, the formerthe most Grammy nods a rapper has gotten in one night; they compete in Album and Song of the Year. Equally pertinent: wherever Swift goes, awards show drama follows. Surely the producers will be looking play up a nonexistent rivalry. The potentiality for drummed up beef is exactly as silly as it sounds; Swift and Lamar have collaborated before and the Grammys are among the stodgier of ceremonies (though it seems they’d love to shed that stigma).

Alas, the world demands bad blood for the bad blood god (and the ratings god, a much stronger deity), and barring unlikely drama from Ed Sheeran or the Weeknd, this is the stone from which the Grammys will wrench it. The battle lines are just too clear: pop squad leader vs. rap visionary, timeless retro-pop vs. timely social commentary, celebrity and model pal vs. serious thinker, Grammy darling vs. Grammy snub (good kid, m.A.A.d city won zero out of its seven Grammy nominations, but it did win him a Macklemore wall-of-text!)

But speaking of snubs:

SNUBS ARE A LIE
Closely related to the tradition of complaining about the Grammys is the tradition of complaining about Grammy snubs. At the moment you read this, a million Directioners are furiously Tweeting vitriol about Justin Bieber’s moment as tween of the hour; meanwhile, the more critic-infested parts of the Internet mourned the omission of such cult favorites as Carly Rae Jepsen’sE•MO•TION, Lana Del Rey’s Honeymoon, and (inexplicably to some) Nick Jonas’s "Jealous".

In Internet Land, Carly Rae Jepsen is pop’s gurgling, blushing heart. In Grammy Land, Carly Rae Jepsen released "Call Me Maybe" and a succession of singles that floundered at radio. Honeymoonwas a midtempo album-album that produced no "Summertime Sadness" redux. Jonas is, well, a Jonas. (There can be only one tween of the hour.) The ideal Grammy pop darling looks more like Tori Kelly, whose sunny Natasha Bedingfieldisms earned her a Best New Artist nod over approximately 50 other rising-pop possibilities.

Chief among artists that might actually have been snubbed: the Foo Fighters, who’ve for years turned categories into, in effect, Best Dave Grohl; and former Grammy darlings Mumford & Sons, whose No. 1 album Wilder Mind received a scintillating zero noms. But even this isn’t a snub, on the minor technicality that the album was so undeniably not good even the Grammys couldn’t fake it.

THE GRAMMYS CONTINUE TO NOT GET DANCE MUSIC
A quick recap of the heyday of EDM, as told by the Grammys:

2012: A David Guetta/Chris Brown/Lil Wayne "tribute" to the genre that came off like a hostage situation.

2013: The humiliating nomination of Liechtensteinian grifter Al Walser and his execrable "I Can’t Live Without You", whose legacy consists of one Bandcamp power-pop cover, one beef with Zedd, and the continued inclusion in lists like this.

2014: A year in which the Grammys still called EDM "electronica." (Perhaps fittingly, actual electronica, the kind that peaked in the late '90s variety, get disproportionate love from the Grammys; this is an awards ceremony that nominated BT(!) in 2011(!!!)

2016’s slate, then, is as good as one can expect: an even split between critical favorites (Jamie xx,Caribou), populists (Disclosure, Jack Ü) and Chemical Brothers (Chemical Brothers) that may well go to unlikely safe choice Skrillex.

THE GRAMMYS ARE TRYING VERY, VERY HARD TO AVOID MACKLEMORE 2.0
Before pondering the Grammys’ takes on rap and R&B, let’s take a quick pan over the other genre categories: Rock remains an absolute mess. (Barnett, for one, isn’t in it, or its alternative counterpart. But hey, she won Australia’s ARIA Award!… for cover art.) Country sticks to its portfolio songwriters (Kacey Musgraves, Brandy Clark, Ashley Monroe) and an underdog of choice (Chris Stapleton, fresh off sweeping the CMAs) over fresher faces like teenage rebels Maddie & Tae or puppyish country bro Sam Hunt. The question of what to do with pop is neatly answered by the omnipresent Swift and the Weeknd riding two Grammy-bait singles: MJ tribute "Can’t Feel My Face" and orchestra-slinky "Earned It". The likes of Meghan Trainor and Jason Derulo go straight to Best New Artist and the song categories.

Meanwhile, in the rap and R&B categories, there’s no way but up to go from Kendrick Real. The rap categories are about as safe as possible, mixing award-bait (Common and John Legend’s "Glory") with rap-radio hits and even the occasional surprising hint of a pulse (the presence of "Trap Queen"). The incoherent gerrymandering of the R&B categories into R&B, Traditional R&B and "Urban Contemporary" remains exactly as stupid and respectability-politicking as it was from the beginning, but it at least broadens the field; by far the most surprising of the nominations was relative newcomer Kehlani, whose You Should Be Here was among the year’s quiet standouts and whose inclusion suggests that a critical mass of people might—behold!—actually be paying attention.

THERE ARE HEARTENING SUCCESS STORIES TO BE (HOPEFULLY) HAD
Kehlani is one of many inspired nominees that might even win; her biggest competition are two other people’s champs, the Internet’s Ego Death and Miguel’s Wildheart; Tame Impala’s Currentsand Björk’s Vulnicura received nods really the only place they could (Best Alternative Album); Lin-Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking musical Hamilton—ineligible for this year’s Tonys due to release date but riding a revolution’s worth of momentum (with Fun Home a distant second, and The King & I’s revival right out). But here’s another underdog, perhaps a little outre: "Thinking Out Loud".

Ed Sheeran is, of course, the opposite of an underdog; the record coated the radio in saccharine goo for months on end, nigh-ensuring its spot in both the Record and Song of the Year lists. But the latter goes to songwriters. One of the more useful functions of the Grammys is its staunch focus on honoring songwriters, continually overlooked and often financially beleaguered even as producers become celebrities. (Everybody has heard of Max Martin.) And despite Sheeran’s lone-troubadour-dude image, "Thinking Out Loud" is equally the work of someone actually unfamiliar to all but Sheeran diehards: Amy Wadge. The Welsh artist and solo singer-songwriter has worked with Sheeran for years—one of his early EPs was called Songs I Wrote With Amy—but her "Thinking Out Loud" only made the cut after she took her financial troubles to Sheeran, who cut the track almost on the spot, earning her a large pile of royalties. It’d smack of publicity stunt if Sheeran didn’t follow through with this, such as by paying off her mortgage; it almost makes the record’s reign of sap worth it.
 
10 Reasons The Grammys Are As White As You Think They Are

Update 12/13 7:29 p.m.: This article previously stated that Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200; while the album did debut on the chart at the #2 slot, it eventually took the top slot in its eleventh week on the chart. H/t to Nicki Minaj herself for pointing this out.

Back in October, long before awards season, Drake decided to liven up one weekend by hosting his own "Hood Grammys" on Instagram, handing out virtual gongs and the all-powerful Drake co-sign to the likes of Rae Sremmurd, Bobby Shmurda, and iLoveMakonnen. He prefaced his awards with a brief speech, in the form of a caption: "haaaaa Grammys need to have a rap year. Run it up." He's got a point: not that we need a gimmicky, one-off homage to hip-hop per se, but that the Grammys are still as out of touch as they've ever been—and just as white.

It's been 26 years since Chuck D rapped Who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy?, and those flickers of discontent have kept on simmering. Last week, the nominees for the 57th round of the awards were announced to a chorus of zzz. Sure, Drake and iLoveMakonnen bagged nominations for SoundCloud loosies "0 to 100" (Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song) and "Tuesday" (Best Rap/ Sung Collaboration). But elsewhere, the same old problems were glaringly obvious. Below, I've compiled what's essentially a list of factual observations about the Grammys' nominations: extrapolation is barely even necessary to see that these details add up to an annual event that's hopelessly out of date with both the music industry and the world. It's one glaring example of how hip-hop artists—and black artists in particular—are still excluded from an upper echelon of the industry, right there in front of you.

HISTORICALLY:
1. Fewer than 20 percent of Album of the Year awards have gone to black artists
Since the very first ceremony in 1959, only 10 of the 56 awards handed out for Album of the Year have gone black artists (and three of the 10 went to Stevie Wonder), a number that woefully under-represents the influence black artists have had on the music industry. While it might seem logical to assume that the rate would at least be increasing, the last of those was in 2008, for Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters.

2. It took them 10 years to recognize rap
The Best Rap Performance category was launched in 1989, 30 years after the ceremony first began and a decade after the genre first charted, and it's been missing the mark since the start. The first Rap Performance award was won by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, gaining criticism from fans who argued N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton and Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back were both more formative and ultimately influential albums.

Things haven't gotten much better. Earlier this year, when Macklemore won Best Rap Album over Kendrick Lamar, he was embarrassingly embarrassed, to the point where he texted Lamar an apology and infamously posted it for the world to see. As Drake subsequently pointed out, that was a questionable and pretty cowardly move, but it also provided an awkward glimpse into how artists in the genre's inner circle feel about what it means to win a Grammy today. "This is how the world works," Drake said, tacitly acknowledging the politics at play. "Whether people wanna say it's racial, or whether it's just the fact that [Macklemore] tapped into something we can't tap into."

3. Only three Album of the Year awards have ever been given to hip-hop records
Hip-hop albums often get stuck in the rap categories, and don't have the same chances when it comes to competing for the big titles. The last hip-hop record to win Album of the Year was OutKast'sSpeakerboxxx/The Love Below in 2004. In the years since, Kanye West's Late Registration lost out to U2; Lil Wayne's Tha Carter IIIlost out to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss; Frank Ocean's channel ORANGE lost out to Mumford and Sons, and Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city was skipped over for Daft Punk. This year, no hip-hop albums were nominated.

4. Kanye hasn't been up for Album of the Year since Graduation
Of all these snubs, Yeezy's feels the most prolonged. For a while, the Grammys treated West favorably: The College Dropout andGraduation were, like Late Registration, both nominated for Album of the Year, despite not winning. But 2008 marked West's last nomination for Album of the Year. 808s & Heartbreak didn't receive a nod for either Album of the Year or Best Rap Album; My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Watch The Throne and Yeezus—according to Metacritic, the three most critically acclaimed albums he has ever made—were only nominated for the latter category, not the more prestigious former. Metacritic also determined that Yeezus, despite suffering diminishing sales figures after its release, was overall the most critically acclaimed album of 2013. But Album of the Year that year went to inoffensive English folk group Mumford and Sons, whose Babel was the highest-selling debut album in the US in 2012, despite having a much lower critical score.

West, who has never stopped short of saying what's on his mind when it comes to sacred American institutions and their gatekeepers,offered a salient critique during a Yeezus concert in 2013. "Fuck those nominations!" he told the crowd, speaking of the Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song tips he had just received. "I'm 36 years old and I have 21 Grammys. That's the most Grammys of any 36-year-old. Out of all of those 21 Grammys, I've never won a Grammy against a white artist… What are they trying to say? Do they think that I wouldn't notice?"

5. The people picking the winners are out of touch
Last year, the journalist Rob Kenner shed light on what it's like to be a Grammy voter, and why the system has such a skewed perspective. There are two rounds of voting, of which Kenner takes part in the first, and which sees every voter in the Recording Academy being given the ability to vote in most categories, whether or not they know anything about them. "Bottom line: the vast majority of the nominations are chosen by people who have little real expertise in a given field. I refrained from voting in heavy metal and classical because I know very little about those genres. But I could have if I wanted to, and that strikes me as a problem."

This leads to bigger names amassing more votes purely because of their visibility. "Famous people tend to get more votes from clueless Academy members, regardless of the quality of their work," Kenner explained. "This is especially true in specialized categories like reggae and, to a lesser extent, hip-hop, where many voting members of the Recording Academy (who tend to skew older than the demographic for rap music) may not be well acquainted with the best releases in any given year." The final nominees and winners are then determined by a secret committee, who have the power to override the votes in the big four categories as well as those for Gospel, Country, R&B, Latin, Jazz, and Music Video (notably not Rap). Critics over the years have observed that this committee's choices seem to be more concerned with TV ratings than they are with fair representation of artists.

IN 2014:
6. Every Best New Artist nominee is white
Glancing back up at Drake's "Hood Grammys" nominees—all of whom have had massive years—it seems impossible to grasp that all the nominations for Best New Artist have gone to white artists. To give the Grammys the benefit of the doubt, their list aligns neatly with the Billboard list of the top breakthrough artists of the year(based on sales, airplay and streaming)—Iggy Azalea, Sam Smith and Bastille all feature prominently on both. In this case, their choices seem to be purely about algorithms rather than cultural innovation or impact—which is not ideal, but reveals the logic behind the all-white choices.

Across past years, though, a bias has revealed itself towards white artists, for example with Nicki Minaj losing to Bon Iver in 2012, and Frank Ocean losing out in 2013 to fun. Interestingly, Minaj's debut album opened at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, which was the same as Bon Iver's sophomore album released the same year (though she sold 375,000 copies in the first week after release, in comparison to Bon Iver's 104,000). Ocean's debut, channel ORANGE,peaked at two, with fun.'s 2012 sophomore album peaking at three (their previous album peaked at 71). Bon Iver and fun. were both on their second albums, and—in a purely economic sense—performing as well as, or worse than, their black competitors' debuts. So the decision can't be seen as a purely chart-driven one.

7. Every Record of the Year and Song of the Year nominee is white
Combined with Best New Artist and Album of the Year, these two categories make up the "Big Four" at the Grammys, aka the categories everyone cares about. There's no love for rap or R&B hits like Kendrick Lamar's "i" (which is nominated for Best Rap Performance), Chris Brown's "New Flame" (nominated for Best R&B Performance), Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" (Best Rap Song), Jeremih's "Don't Tell 'Em," or Usher's "She Came To Give It To You."

8. It's not a case of black artists not selling as much as white artists
We could be cynical and assume that the Academy only picks the music with the highest sales for the "big four" categories, but even more explicitly "pop" songs from black artists, which moved more units than "Chandelier" or "Fancy," have been ignored. Pharrell's ubiquitous "Happy" outsold everything in 2014, yet he gets a nod for Album of the Year and not Record or Song (Sam Smith, on the other hand, has nabbed nominations for Album, Record and Song). John Legend's huge tearjerker "All of Me," third on Billboard's Hot 100 songs of 2014, got a Best Pop Solo Performance nomination, but somehow didn't cut it for the primary categories. Meanwhile Katy Perry's trap-absorbing "Dark Horse," which featured a verse from Juicy J, gets a miss despite being the second biggest single of the year (again according to Billboard) and the most-watched YouTube video.

9. The Grammys are still using "urban" to denote "black"
In 2013, the Grammys introduced the "Urban Contemporary" category, ostensibly as an intermediary between the Pop and R&B categories (the R&B one, meanwhile, in the words of Grantland's Rembert Browne, had morphed into "this middle ground between pop and rap"). So far, the winners of that award have been Frank Ocean and Rihanna, both of whom could have swept the Album of the Year and Pop Vocal Album categories if the world was good and fair. In that same Grantland article last year, Browne went on to declare the 2013 nominations "a mess," adding that the annual event would probably continue to be so "until the word 'urban' no longer is used as a safe conduit to describe 'black' things… Don't hold your breath."

Really, don't hold it. So far, in its short lifespan, every nominee in the Urban Contemporary category has been black, with nods going to Beyoncé, Pharrell, Jhene Aiko, Chris Brown and Mali Music this year. Apart from race, what distinguishes them from the nominees for Best Pop Vocal Album (Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Sam Smith, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus) is unclear. Even the people on the judging panel don't seem to know exactly what Urban Contemporary is, having placed Beyoncé's "Drunk in Love" in the categories for Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song, despite not labeling Beyoncéan R&B album.

10. White artists making music influenced by black culture get treated differently
It's especially interesting to see Miley—an artist who built her whole album campaign and new sonic direction last year around thegrotesque appropriation of black culture—being labelled as Pop rather than Urban Contemporary.

Meanwhile, this year Iggy Azalea became the first ever rapper to be nominated for both Best Rap Album and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for her own song (as opposed to Best Rap/Sung Collaboration). Juicy J and Nicki Minaj also rear their heads in the Pop Duo category, but as featured artists on tracks by Katy Perry and Jessie J; Iggy is the first rapper whose own song, from her own album, is being treated as "Pop," while the album itself is "Rap." Apparently, if you're a white woman, you don't have to be confined to the Urban or Rap categories; and don't forget, Iggy is also the only rapper nominated this year in the Best New Artist and Record of the Year categories. Move over Macklemore. If our discomfort with this year's nominations could be personified in one performer, Iggy Azalea would be it.
 
Why I Hate the Grammys

The secret committee that alters the membership's nominations, for starters. But there are plenty of other reasons.

t's Grammy time again, as the world's most bizarre awards affair lurches toward its 53rdpresentation on Sunday night. There are tackier award-giving groups, to be sure—like the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Golden Globes. There are more corrupt ones, too—like, um, like the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Golden Globes. But no group matches the goofiness of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences and its annual Grammy awards: the arcane categories, the corrupt process, and the studied out-of-it-ness.


Sure, the Grammys can, once in a while, surprise. Who doesn't think the awards a few years ago to Amy Winehouse—a spectacular, if troubled, artist—were deserved? But such events occur with the frequency of Halley's Comet.

The biggest scandal about the Grammys is the ruling cadre's secret manipulation of its membership's nominations. This is almost never noted in reporting on the awards. The recording academy, like the motion picture academy, has a putative raison d'être that's secondary to the needs of presenting a worldwide TV broadcast. The awards show is an ATM of bovine proportions, funding the group's activities for the rest of the year.

The problem: What do you do when your membership is so out of touch with popular culture that it affects the ratings? Over in Hollywood, the troubles arrive because the academy's tastes have become too rarified. The membership is actually giving nominations and awards to the best movies of the year—even when they are fine films that don't make much money.

The Grammys' problem is that the membership is sentimental, schmaltzy, and stuffy. The Oscars dealt with the problem by upping the best-picture nominations to 10 from five. This way, audience-friendly blockbusters like Avatar and Inception get best-picture nominations—and their fans, presumably, tune in to the show, even if it's unlikely their favorite films will get a statuette.

The Grammys, back in the 1990s, took a different tack. To its credit, the group had spent a decade concertedly trying to create a more youthful and vibrant membership, this after Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down won record of the year over Born in the U.S.A. and Purple Rain. But that didn't work. In 1995, for example, Tony Bennett'sUnplugged album won record of the year over a markedly undistinguished slate that included a Three Tenors album, a novelty outing whose nomination enraged the academy's classical membership. The youthful reformers lost out—and the nefarious Michael Greene, secret committee members to talk about the group's duties off the record. But in the years since, this is almost never mentioned in coverage of the Grammys. This year, for example, I found one passing reference to the process in an L.A. Times blog. If the Oscars tried to pull off something like this, Hollywood would be up in arms.

But the members of the recording academy have been surprisingly compliant. Looking at recent nominations, its pretty easy to see the secret committee's hand at work: The Lil Wayne nomination for album of the year a couple of years ago, along with a record-of-the-year nod to M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes"; or the nomination for record of the year, this time, for Cee Lo's Internet sensation "Fuck You." Presumably, fans think the artists have a chance to win and will tune in. (As with the Oscars, since the voting membership didn't even nominate them, the chances of any of the interlopers' actually winning are fairly low.)

This process is toxic on many levels. No. 1, it shouldn't be forgotten that it's fundamentally dishonest. The manipulation is not discussed on the organization's Web site. NARAS president Neil Portnow will blather on about music piracy on TV Sunday night, but he won't mention that he and some unnamed pals fiddled with the membership's nominations.

While Grammy officials have talked with me about this in the past, it's not clear that the organization is always candid when asked directly about the procedure. I called one of the NARAS publicists for comment this week. She responded to my fairly simple questions about the process with enough vagueness and obfuscation that I couldn't tell if it was deliberate on her part.

"The nominations are the nominations," she said repeatedly, seemingly denying there was an interim step between the nominations and the voting. I asked her to confirm the answer with Grammy officials. She responded the next day with this e-mail:

The following Fields go through this process: General (top 4), Country, R&B, Latin, Gospel, Jazz, Classical, Music Video.

All appear on first ballot to general voting membership. Deloitte [the accounting firm] then informs The Recording Academy of the top 15-30 (depending on category) selections from the first ballot. We present these selections (in alphabetical order) to the Nominations Review Committees, who meet in person for 1-3 days to listen to all of the selections. The committee members then vote at the end of the meeting via secret ballot. The ballots are collected by Deloitte in the room.

Contrast that answer—which confirms that the membership's nominations are changed behind the scenes—with the Grammy Web site's account: "In craft and other specialized categories, final nominations are determined by national nomination review committees comprised of voting members from all of The Academy's Chapter cities." The official account doesn't reveal the thing most readers would be interested in: The fact that the four top categories are "reviewed."

The process is harmful in other ways, too. It induces cynicism in the membership and among the artists—or would, if the process weren't kept so under wraps. It's particularly unfair to those artists who, nominated by their fellows in the business, are unilaterally eliminated from the lineup by the committee.

And, finally, of course, the motivations for the procedure are plain: Sticking some controversial and megapopular names in the top categories to increase ratings for the group's annual TV show/cash cow.

1_123125_2218862_090529_pep_divider_568.gif.CROP.original-original.gif

There is one timeless, classic aspect of the Grammys. They are predictably unpredictable—in the sense that you never know in quite what way the membership is going to make a bad decision. In very broad terms, it should be noted that the academy has been quite good with black artists. Leaving aside, say, Public Enemy, stars like Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, Lauryn Hill, and Outkast have generally been appropriately recognized.

In the rock world, the precise opposite is the case. To cite one crude measure, the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll rarely coincides with the Grammy for album of the year, and in the vast majority of cases, the Grammy winner is barely mentioned. In other words, the Grammy designation of what a great record is has little to do with what an actual critic would say. But that's the membership's right, of course. So let's look at its track record.

Artists like the Rolling Stones, the Who, Elvis Costello, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, the Clash, the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, and Sly Stone never won a major award during their formative recording periods, and most weren't even nominated for one. (It should be noted that for a time in the mid-1970s, the awards opened a bit with acts like Elton John, the Eagles, and Paul McCartney garnering nominations. The Stones even got an 1978 album-of-the-year nomination for Some Girls.)

A few, like Steely Dan or Bob Dylan, were given awards late in their careers. And once in a while, when newfangled sounds are coming up, the organization covers its ass by sticking things like Nevermind in a "best alternative album" category. What Grammy likes best is a PR angle. Any hackneyed all-star collection—Santana's guest-heavySupernatural, Quincy Jones utterly forgettable Back on the Block, Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company—is practically guaranteed an album-of-the-year trophy. Just two years ago, Herbie Hancock—once a vibrant artist—won record of the year for a quickly forgotten collection of Joni Mitchell covers with a raft of guest stars.

Last year, of course, Taylor Swift, the speedboat-eyed, insubstantial country artist, was alleged to have recorded the album of the year. That's reminiscent of the best-new-artist category, in which Grammy invariably awards comely and pliant young female artists—19 in the last 30 years. (It helps if you have just one name, as recent nominees Ciara, Feist, Duffy, Adele, and Ledisi will testify.) Recently, this tendency has gotten worse: In 2008, four female artists were nominated, along with Paramore, a punk-lite outfit headed by a female lead singer. (Amy Winehouse, definitely not pliant, was again a major exception.) And, historically, of course, the best-new-artist awardees is strewn with novelty acts, industry roadkill, and mediocrities: The Starland Vocal Band and A Taste of Honey, Arrested Development and Shelby Lynne, Evanescence and Hootie & the Blowfish.

One thing NARAS has never been able to do is keep a lid on the number of categories. Right now there are about 110. This allows the members of more than 1,000 acts per decade to go around saying they're a Grammy-winning artist—and five times as many, or 10,000-plus people, to brag they were nominated.

This seems a bit much.

It is probably hugely unfair to the artists involved to say this, but do we need a "Hard Rock Performance" category and a "Metal Performance"? Are there really five great New Age, Hawaiian, or Native American albums a year? And then how about the bloat in the religious category (which, by the way, includes both white and black music): gospel performance; gospel song; rock or rap gospel album; pop/contemporary gospel album; Southern, country, or bluegrass gospel album; traditional gospel album; or contemporary R&B gospel album.

NARAS finally jettisoned the polka category a couple of years ago; there were less than two dozen qualifying albums, making the nomination chances for any guy armed with an accordion and a recording contract about one in four.

And the process for determining eligibility is bizarre as well. Dylan won a folk Grammy for World Gone Wrong, back in the 1990s. It was a collection of acoustic folk and blues songs, and the award seemed appropriate. Since then, his last three normal (by his standards) rock albums were nominated—and won—in the category of contemporary folk. This is unfair to actual practitioners of the genre, who will never win over such a big name in the category, which he doesn't belong in.


Finally, the Grammys have always had the most wrong of eligibility periods. Traditionally, the period ended at the end of September. This created a big disconnect, particularly since a lot of important albums generally get released to coincide with the Christmas season. It also allowed the record companies to game the system, releasing an album or advance single just before the eligibility period ended to qualify for one year and then going for a second round of awards the following year.

That's why when you look at this year's record of the year nominations you see 18-month-old songs like Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind." Folks have complained about the eligibility period for decades. Recently, the recording academy did something about it. In 2009, it pushed the eligibility period back another month, to Aug. 31. A year later, it reversed the decision, and now we're back to the Sept. 30 cutoff date. It could have pushed the period up to Dec. 1, catching most of the Christmas releases in that year's nominations and adding just a little bit of sanity and sense to the group's undertaking. But at the recording academy—where nominations aren't nominations, Bob Dylan is still a folk artist, and a cute young thing from Nashville is the artist of the year—moving ahead invariably puts you right back where you were before.



http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2011/02/why_i_hate_the_grammys.2.html
 
THE PERFORMERS

The Grammy Awards' unexpected collaborations often make more headlines than the winners do, and this year is no exception. Here's what to expect from the main event:

  • Seven-time nominee Swift will open the show with a track from her nominated album, "1989."
  • Four-time nominees Alabama Shakes, jazz artist and two-time nominee Joey Alexander and two-time nominee Miguel are also set to take the stage.
  • "Hello" songstress and 10-time Grammy winner Adele will return to the stage after four years, performing a track from her latest album, "25."
  • Lady Gaga will perform a tribute to the late David Bowie.
  • Lead nominee Kendrick Lamar, who has two Grammys already and 11 nods this year, will take the stage.
  • Country crooners and two-time nominees Little Big Town will perform.
  • The Weeknd will make his Grammy Awards stage debut.
  • A series of collaborations featuring Grammy newcomers will feature nominees James Bay and Tori Kelly; nominees Andra Day and Ellie Goulding; and nominee Sam Hunt with seven-time winner and current nominee Carrie Underwood.
  • Album of the year contender Stapleton will pay tribute to legendary blues artist B.B. King with Gary Clark Jr. and Bonnie Raitt.
  • Country singer Luke Bryan, R&B crooner John Legend and pop stars Demi Lovatoand Meghan Trainor will perform a tribute to Lionel Richie, MusiCares' person of the year.
  • Broadway will return to the Grammys after a five-year hiatus thanks to the cast of the Grammy-nominated musical "Hamilton." Lin-Manual and the cast will perform a number via satellite from the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York.
  • Justin Bieber will join collaborators Diplo and Skrillex as they perform their Grammy-nominated song, "Where Are Ü Now."
  • The late Glenn Frey will be honored with a special tribute by his Eagles bandmates Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh and close friend and collaborator Jackson Browne.
  • Nominee Pitbull will take the stage with Travis Barker, Robin Thicke and some surprise guests.
  • Alice Cooper will join Johnny Depp and Joe Perry as they make their TV debut as the Hollywood Vampires.
 
WHAT TIME DOES THE SHOW START? WHAT CHANNEL?

As usual,the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences holds two ceremonies: the pre-telecast ceremony, where approximately 70 of the some 80 awards are handed out and the main telecast ceremony where splashy performances take place and the winners in the major, more general categories are revealed.

grammy.com/live and CBS.com.

The main event, which takes place across the way at Staples Center, will air on CBS from 5 to 8:30 p.m. PST.
 
Anyone else with the GUTS to put their Grammy predictions on the record? These are predictions on who I think *WILL* win, not necessarily who I think *SHOULD* win:

R&B
Best R&B Performance
Best Traditional R&B Performance
Best R&B Song
Best Urban Contemporary Album
Best R&B Album
Rap
Best Rap Performance
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
Best Rap Song
Best Rap Album

General
Record of the Year
Album of the Year
Song of the Year
Best New Artist
 
Hotlantan said:
Anyone else with the GUTS to put their Grammy predictions on the record? These are predictions on who I think *WILL* win, not necessarily who I think *SHOULD* win:

R&B
Best R&B Performance
Best Traditional R&B Performance
Best R&B Song
Best Urban Contemporary Album
Best R&B Album
Rap
Best Rap Performance
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
Best Rap Song
Best Rap Album

General
Record of the Year
Album of the Year
Song of the Year
Best New Artist
Click to expand...


R&B
Best R&B Performance
Best Traditional R&B Performance
Best R&B Song
Best Urban Contemporary Album
Best R&B Album
Rap
Best Rap Performance
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
Best Rap Song
Best Rap Album

General
Record of the Year
Album of the Year
Song of the Year
Best New Artist

I couldnt decide between Song of the Year and Best Rap Colab
 
Adele
Kendrick Lamar
Lady Gaga (performing a tribute to David Bowie)
Justin Bieber with Diplo and Skrillex
Pitfall with Robin Thicke and Travis Barker
Chris Stapleton
Bonnie Raitt
James Bay
Andra Day
Ellie Goulding
The Broadway cast of Hamilton
Sam Hunt
Tori Kelly
Little Big Town
Carrie Underwood
The Weeknd
The Hollywood Vampires (Alice Cooper, Joe Perry, and Johnny Depp)

 
Tributes
2016 started out rough, with the deaths of David Bowie and Glenn Frey, coupled with last year's loss of Lemmy Kilmister and B.B. King — all four of whom will be honored at this year's Grammy ceremony. As previously noted, Lady Gaga will perform the Bowie tribute, covering at least three or four of his songs and paying homage to his fashion legacy. Chris Stapleton, Bonnie Raitt, and Gary Clark Jr. will honor King with a performance for the blues icon. Members of the Eagles — Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, Timothy B. Schmit, and Joe Walsh — are set to perform one of the band's songs for their late founder, Glenn Fry, along with the band's close collaborator Jackson Browne. And Hollywood Vampires, the supergroup of Johnny Depp, Alice Cooper, Duff McKagan, and Joe Perry, will make their TV debut to pay tribute to Lemmy with a Motörhead song. (They'll also debut a new song of their own.)
Click to expand...

No Maurice White tribute..?
 
I'm 6 for 8 so far - not bad. My heart said Lalah, but my head said white "Furious" fans who don't even listen to R&B would just pick the name Tyrese. And I was certain that John Lengend/Common would win something, but forgot that they were also up to (and did) win Best Song Written For Visual Media. Kendrick winning Best Rap Album on the air is an 110% absolute LOCK, but could his sweep carry over to the General Categories? Stay tuned...







*** spoiler alert just in case****







*** spoiler alert just in case****







***WINNERS ANNOUNCED EARLIER TODAY***


Best R&B Performance: The Weeknd - "Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Grey)"

Best Traditional R&B Performance: Lalah Hathaway, "Little Ghetto Boy"

Best R&B Song: D'Angelo, Kendra Foster, "Really Love"

Best Urban Contemporary Album: The Weeknd, Beauty Behind The Madness

Best R&B Album: D'Angelo, Black Messiah

Best Rap Performance: Kendrick Lamar, "Alright"

Best Rap/Sung Collaboration: Kendrick Lamar featuring Bilal, Anna Wise, Thundercat, 'These Walls'

Best Rap Song: Kendrick Lamar, Kawan Prather, Sounwave, Pharrell Williams, "Alright"

 
ThaBurgerPimp said:
No Maurice White tribute..?
Click to expand...
In fairness to the Grammy producers, Maurice died on Feb 4 and the show announced the other extended tributes last month. You can be certain that he will be mentioned in the "In Memoriam" - there just "might not" be a stand alone tribute performance. But who knows - they may surprise us all with a last minute addition, so let's not light torches just yet.
 
daking181 said:
Kendrick with four so far,........
Click to expand...
5. Best Music Video: Taylor Swift feat. Kendrick Lamar, "Bad Blood"

--
But why the fuck do they have all of these C-lister nobodys doing the Lionel Richie tribute??? Perfect opportunity to showcase other Soul/R&B legends and they give us this lazy fuck effort bullshit?
:pain:
 
Last edited:
That was dope by Stevie

His voice is amazing considering how old he is. It's timeless.
 
Why dont they let stevie wonder go bald? Man got like three or five dreads at the back of his head
 

Make a Contribution to Remove NSFW Ads
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

lightbright
TikTok Announces Inaugural U.S. Award Show with Alix Earle, Alex Warren and More Among Nominees
Replies
3
Views
62
darth frosty
darth frosty
lightbright
John Cena Reveals If His Retirement Match Will Main Event WWE SNME, Saturday 12/13/25 on Peacock
Replies
1
Views
42
lightbright
lightbright
lightbright
Beyoncé Is Now A Billionaire
Replies
10
Views
211
AtomAnt
AtomAnt
DASK
Babyface Red Carpet Interviewers Cut Him Off ...We Want Chappell Roan!!!
2 3
Replies
79
Views
2K
doug777
doug777
lightbright
‘Star Search’ Netflix Reboot Taps Anthony Anderson to Host, Sets January Release Date
Replies
5
Views
47
ThaBurgerPimp
T
Back
Top