ARE THE GRAMMY NOMINATIONS RIGGED?

Holy fucking shit, Grammy nerds!

We’ve been saying for years that the nominations committees are the ultimate gatekeepers in the Grammy voting scenario. But now even the Grammy people openly admit that this is the case.

The secret nominating committees, which are subject to no transparency requirements whatsoever regarding their membership or operation, can do whatever they wish in the vast majority of categories.

Just under three years ago, Recording Academy Neil Portnow spilled the beans to us that the Secret Nominating Committee stepped in to winnow lists of 20 or so top vote-getters down to the official nominees in the Big Four categories.

Many people in the biz refused to believe that the committees took such a heavy hand. Now we can show you an official Grammy graphic, straight from the Grammy.com site, that lays bare the whole thing, soup to nuts—“The Road to Grammy Gold”—mapping out how the committees INTERFERE with the nominating process. Notice that only a few categories are not stepped on by the secret nominating committees: alternative, comedy, musical theater, pop, reggae, spoken word, traditional pop and visual media.