By: Mason Mattu, SFU Student
You may have seen those viral videos on Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts that claim that Beyoncé is an evil figure in the music industry, or that singers or songwriters who don’t acknowledge her contributions to the music industry should receive a punishment akin to death. While I believe that this is a bit silly, it serves as an important example of the role that the Recording Academy plays in determining what we label as “good music.” Our society’s reliance on big music awards such as the Grammys greatly influences and even impedes on what we the people consider to be the “best” music.
With roots going back to 1957, the Grammy Awards have acted as the greatest honour in the music industry, and is the only music award “in which nominees and winners are determined solely by the creators themselves.” The governing body that oversees the Grammys is called the Recording Academy, a body comprised of tens of thousands of “professional members” from across the US.
At first glance, the Recording Academy may seem like an institution with democratic values enshrined in their core — empowering those with the microphone. Heck, even the Grammys have boasted the fact that there has been an increase in diversity within the Recording Academy over the past years, with 66% of its voting bloc being either BIPOC or women in 2024. This does not, however, mean that the body has achieved full representation of artists. Up until 2021, the decisions of the Recording Academy could be vetoed by smaller governing bodies of “experts” who would be swayed to vote for certain artists after the giving of bribes or flattery. Think about that, up until 2021, the musical elite overtly dominated the provision of these awards without us even knowing.
However, this musical elite may still be running the Grammys behind the scenes. In order to be considered to join the Recording Academy, you need to have a career in the music industry and recommendation from two existing Academy members. Instead of supporting the appointment of grassroots musicians and music industry members, the Academy relies on their own internal network to define what “professional” means. Even after that, nominees run elaborate and expensive campaigns to sway the votes of judges toward them. The musical elite continues to flex their power in terms of determining who we appreciate, who we hate, and whose music becomes immortalized within time.
The Academy has also been notorious for rejecting artists based on their preconceived notions about them. One example of someone who has been “snubbed” by the Academy is Diana Ross, an artist who has never won a Grammy despite being nominated 13 times. Music icons Tupac Shakur, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Marley also never won Grammys. There is a historic bias against Black and women talents. From 2012 to 2020, Black performers represented 38% of the artists on the Billboard Top 100, but only made up 26.7% of total Grammy nominations in the same period.
It is clear that the Grammys is not a participatory system that uplifts musicians of all backgrounds and experiences. So how can we move forward? First, we need to move away from reducing the beauty of music to an “expert’s” opinion. This democratization of the award process for music should not be a complicated one, requiring complete transparency in the amount of votes being received by artists, transnational participation in the online voting process, and a media blackout by the nominated artists during the voting period to prevent bribery from the general public. Instead of scandalous internal decision-making processes, the buy-out of votes by artists, and the overall presence of “elite” in other awards shows, this new form of recognition would be refreshing and long overdue.
By putting the power in the hands of your average music listener, we can truly revolutionize the way that “good” music is rewarded. When the voting bloc is the general population, we have the most diversity, experience (because we are the ones who skip or save the song), and knowledge to give artists merit based on their work. So please join me in finally saying goodbye to the Grammys this coming February.
