GRAMMY PRIMER: BACK TO BASICS
Everyone’s going to be arguing about who deserves to win the big Grammy Awards (aka the Big 4, Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year) and even some of the more obscure ones. But let’s go back to square one to decipher what the awards actually mean.
It seems every year brings a debate about who qualifies as Best New Artist. Island’s Sabrina Carpenter, for instance, is six albums into her career—not exactly "new"—but she qualifies because her eligibility-year releases were the first to break through to public consciousness ("to achieve prominence" in Grammy parlance) and have an impact on the musical landscape—something that could certainly be said about “Please, Please, Please,” “Espresso” and Short n' Sweet.
And what about the distinction between Record of the Year and Song of the Year? Well, Grammy 101 tells us that ROTY is an award for a recording, bestowed upon the artist who made that recording (as well as the producer, recording engineer, mixer and mastering engineer who contributed to the recording). SOTY, on the other hand, is a songwriter's award; it goes to everyone who had a hand in writing the song. Of course, lots of artists are also songwriters or co-songwriters.
As for who gets to vote, the nominees are judged by a jury of their peers. And since you asked:
- 66% of this year's Grammy voters are new since 2019.
- 3,000 women voting members have joined the Recording Academy since 2019.
- Recording Academy voting membership is now 38% people of color, a 65% increase since 2019.
Clearly, 2019 was a watershed year.
The 67th annual Grammy Awards will air 2/2 at 8pm ET on CBS live from Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
For the record, we have plenty of room on our trophy shelf... As if.
