The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards was held in Los Angeles on March 14, 2021. Although this award ceremony has been important to the music industry for decades, recent controversies have left many artists questioning its validity. Musicians and fans are doubting the relevance of the Grammys due to its continued lack of diversity and inability to be transparent about the nomination and voting processes. Artists such as The Weeknd, Halsey, and Zayn Malik have spoken out against what The Weeknd has dubbed a “corrupt” voting process, going as far as claiming racism and favoritism. Even the hashtag #scammys was trending on Twitter as members of the BTS “Army” expressed their discontent at BTS’s loss.
The Grammy Recording Academy has been facing scrutiny about their lack of diversity for the past few years. In 2018, the hashtag #GrammysSoMale went viral after only one major award went to a woman. In addition to this possible male favoritism, only ten Black artists have won the Album of the Year award since 1959. Even less representation has gone to other minority groups, spurring claims of sexism and racism by the Recording Academy.
The integrity of the Recording Academy is dubious as well, with artists concerned about the secrecy surrounding the voting process. Ex-One Direction Star Zayn Mailk tweeted about the lack of transparency, claiming it “creates and allows favoritism, racism, and networking politics to influence the voting process.” On Instagram, Halsey expanded this sentiment, writing that the Grammys “can often be about behind-the scenes private performances, knowing the right people, campaigning through the grapevine, with the right handshakes and ‘bribes’ that can be just ambiguous enough to pass as ‘not-bribes.’” The personal bias of each voting member must also be taken into account. Moreover, the voting base is large and semi-unregulated, which results in many of the voters lacking expertise to select specific genre winners or objectively choose the winners of the four main awards.
In addition to general speculation on the diversity of nominees and integrity of Recording Academy voters,, specific controversies have stirred up even more doubt about the relevance of the 2021 Grammy Awards. When his song “Blinding Lights” failed to receive even a single nomination this year, The Weeknd boycotted the Grammys and claimed that he would no longer allow his label to submit any of his music to the Recording Academy until the “secret committees” used to decide the nominations were eliminated. The fact that “Blinding Lights” was not nominated for even one award was a surprise to many in the music industry, as the song was dubbed #1 Song of the Year by The Official Big Top 40: Chart of the Year, and received massive attention throughout 2020, including being performed in the Superbowl Halftime Show. In early March, The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” even succeeded in becoming the first song to ever spend a full year in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. This alone is an incredible achievement, and the fact that “Blinding Lights” did not win Song of the Year, let alone get nominated for a single award at all, is astonishing to many and leaves them questioning if the Grammys have become irrelevant.
Discontent among many artists’ fans in wake of the Grammy Awards Ceremony has been common as well, notably among fans of the South Korean pop band BTS. This year, the boy band smashed records with their song “Dynamite,” including its music video breaking 100 million views on Youtube within the first 24 hours of its release, making it the biggest 24-hour Youtube debut of all time. The song was also Spotify’s biggest debut of 2020, with its 7,778,950 streams within a day breaking Taylor Swift’s previous record of 7.742 million streams for her song “Cardigan.” “Dynamite” secured BTS their first No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 songs chart, becoming the first all-South Korean act to do so. Despite the clear success of the song, BTS did not win their single nomination for “Best Pop Group/Duo Performance.” In the wake of this disappointment, the fans of the boy band, the BTS “Army,” trended the hashtag #scammys to express their discontent at the Recording Academy’s decision. The Army claimed this loss was due to the Grammys’ possible diversity and racism issues including the lack of Asian-American representation within the Recording Academy voting base. With Asian-Americans only constituting 3 percent of all voters, they are one of the most under-represented minorities within the Recording Academy. The BTS Army used this lack of diversity to speculate on the Grammys’ failure in recognizing these South Korean artists and the growing dominant force that is K-pop.
With Halsey, Zayn Malik, The Weeknd, and the BTS Army all rejecting the importance of the Grammys, it seems as though this prestigious award show has become less relevant in recent years, and especially the past few months. More artists have begun to distance themselves from the event as many are starting to prioritize connecting with their own fan bases on a more personal level rather than aspiring to win the industry recognition that the Grammys have to offer. Maybe diversity and the voting process for the Recording Academy will improve and the Grammys will gain back some of the credibility that they have lost this past year. But given the development of new, more inclusive music award ceremonies held by extremely popular streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, it seems more likely that 2021 is the first step towards a future in which the Grammys have dwindling power in the music industry and popular culture in general.