Editorial
WHERE MUSIC AWARDS FAIL: The Lack of Diversity in Nominees and Winners
Spring 2021
28
If there’s one thing music listeners enjoy, it’s their favorite artists being recognized. Music awards offer an exciting opportunity for wellknown and up-and-coming artists alike to be praised for their work and offer valuable publicity and praise. With these decisions, there can often be contention and disagreement, and with the recent release of nominations, the class of 2021 is no exception. However, even though the public’s music taste is vast and varied, the widespread diversity of artists and within the music industry itself is continuously underrepresented. This acclaimed recognition is being questioned now more than ever as consumers and industry participants alike ponder whether these highly-held awards are, or have ever been, representative of the worthy winners. Music awards are often held in high esteem, but consistently don’t represent the true diversity of artists and popular music. The issue of underrepresentation and lack of diversity is not a new phenomenon, but rather a recently recognized one. John Vilanova, a professor at Lehigh University, spent his research analyzing the past 60 years of music awards in conjunction with U.S. history, and the results were less surprising than one would anticipate. It was found that BIPOC artists rarely won in the “general fields” of the Grammys such as Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist. When looking at the history of music awards, and specifically the Grammys, it is also clear that the lack of diversity was not unintentional. Grammy historian Henry Schnipper wrote that the Grammys were created in 1959 to “clean up and gentrify pop”. Furthermore, it wouldn’t be until Judy Garland won Album of the Year in 1961 that a woman was recognized for a general field award, and not until the 1970s that a woman would win Song of the Year. Yoko Ono would become one of the few Asian musicians to win in
the general field for her 1982 album, which was also the only time a woman would win Album of the Year in the entire decade. Finally, after Herbie Hancock’s Album of the Year win in 2008, it would be ten more years until any person of color would win this award. Even the 62nd annual Grammy Awards in 2020 would touch on this pattern of misrepresentation by placing the CEO Deborah Dugan
THE GRAMMYS WERE CREATED IN 1959 TO "CLEAN UP AND GENTRIFY POP" on administrative leave following allegations that the Recording Academy’s board “manipulates the nominations process”. Musicians today still face a lack of proper recognition from award academies. A prime example comes from the 2021 Grammys with The Weeknd, who didn’t receive any Grammy recognition for his critically acclaimed After Hours. The album boasts top 100 hits “Heartless” and “Blinding Lights,” the latter of which broke records by charting in the top five for 43 consecutive weeks as well as charting in three separate
