Where Music Awards Fail

The Lack of Diversity in Nominees and Winners

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

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

THE GRAMMYS WERE CREATED IN 1959 TO "CLEAN UP AND GENTRIFY POP"

years since its 2019 release. While The Weeknd already has three Grammys under his belt, they “mean nothing” to him now, tweeting “The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency…” after the Recording Academy announced nominations in November 2020. This is sadly not the first time a Black charting artist has been snubbed. In 2011, the Recording Academy failed to award Nicki Minaj with Best New Artist, even when she had seven songs simultaneously charting on Billboard.

Female musicians tend to be more overlooked than males when it comes to musical accolades, with only 8% of 2018 Grammy nominees being women. That same year, former CEO of the Recording Academy, Neil Portnow, said women should “step up” if they wanted recognition. In such a male dominated industry, it’s virtually impossible for women to do so. USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative found that only 21.7% of artists, 12.5% of songwriters and 2.6% of producers are women. These statistics only worsen with BIPOC women. The initiative also reports that a mere eight out of 1,093 producing credits for pop songs went to women of color between 2012 and 2019.

The lack of diversity doesn’t end there. Take the Grammy voting process for instance: when it comes to who can vote, only Recording Academy voting members can vote on the winners. These members are only qualified to vote if they have creative or technical credits on six or more commercially released tracks on a physical music release or at least twelve on a digital release. While the voting members’

contact information isn’t publicly available, one can assume the demographic makeup of the board. Success in the music industry is far more accessible to those with financial privilege according to Willa Koerner and Rene Kladzyk’s “The Music Industry Investigation Report.” The Census states that the 2019 median household income for white people was $76,057, while it was only $46,073 for Black people, and DataUSA reports only 13% of professional musicians are Black. The voting members are most likely majority white and male, especially considering the demographics of the music industry. The Grammys’ voting process has more of a chance for bias than does Billboard’s, for example, which bases award finalists on album and digital song sales, streaming, touring, and more. Music award winners will remain homogenous until there’s more diversity on voting boards, yet unfortunately, the ugly cycle in place prevents that from happening for a long time.

It’s clear that music awards were based in gentrification and continuously highlighted white male work. However, this gentrification has not ceased to exist as the accolades continue to be whitewashed. BIPOC artists have influenced many genres of music over generations, but this has yet to be consistently highlighted through esteemed music awards even today. Music awards, supposedly an honor of the highest caliber, should now be questioned for their lack of diversity and representation. These awards are virtually worthless if the competition puts BIPOC artists at a disadvantage to begin with.

• Rachel Cerato (International Affairs & Environmental Studies) and Lacie Foreht (Communication & Media and Screen Studies)