Decker

Grammy Awards get a major overhaul, including revamped categories, changes in voting procedures

April 6, 2011 | 10:41 am

The Grammys are getting a major face lift. The Recording Academy held a news conference Wednesday morning at its Santa Monica headquarters to announce a complete revamp of its musical categories,– reducing the number of categories from 109 at the last awards show to 78.

It is also changing the way academy members vote for nominees and reworking the way categories are added and eliminated from the ceremony. “All categories wil remain, they’ll just be found in different genres” said President and Chief Executive Neil Portnow. “The message isn’t about cutting, it’s about changing the way we present the awards. We welcome all artists who make music in the Grammy process, it’s just going to look a little different.”

The number of categories has expanded over the years from an original 28 in 1959, evolving one category at a time on a piecemeal basis and “without an overall vision” said Portnow. The result has been more of a “collage,” he said. To give the Grammys a more cohesive structure that better matches the current musical landscape, in 2009 the organization initiated a sweeping, comprehensive evaluation of both the award categories and voting process.

The result of that process is the reworking announced Wednesday morning. The awards and nominations committee spent more than a year reviewing the process, said five-time Grammy Award winner and songwriter/record producer Jimmy Jam. It then submitted its recommendations to the Recording Academy’s board of trustees “with the greater purpose of promoting unity in our music community,” Jam said. The results were approved by the board, which directs the vision of the organization.

Over time, the number of categories and genre distinctions had resulted in curious and at times confusing nominations. In 2009, comedy rap group Lonely Island received a nomination in the best rap song category, when the original version was a "Saturday Night Live" clip. That same year, Hall & Oates was nominated for best pop performance by a group or duo with vocals for a live version of a song that was a hit nearly 30 years earlier. And in one of the most notable instances of genre confusion, in 1989 progressive rock group Jethro Tull won the award for best heavy metal album. The restructuring of the voting process is intended to address these frustrations.

The official Grammy site has posted a "Category Mapper" with full category comparisons.

Decker

So basically, there will no longer be different awards for soloists of each gender, only one solo award per category. And they've done away with all those confusing collaboration awards, (you know Emenem f. Rhinana, Lada Gaga f. Beyonce, etc). Now it's solo or group. Looks like we'll never have a huge Santana-type award run again; where one artist can walk away with armfuls of awards by doing a bunch of collaborations with artists from different genres.
As disappointed as I am to see the hard-fought for Hawaiian Grammy go away after just a few years, I agree that this reform makes a lot of sense.



Say goodbye to these images in the future:



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And while I know that we'll soon have a discussion of how much the Grammys suck, may I just say that the actual awards show this year was REALLY good. A tight production full of good performances and very few awards to slow things down. The awards that were handed out were spread pretty evenly as well. It was FAR more watchable than the train wreck that the Motion Picture Academy put on a few weeks later.

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DGibFen

Looks like they condensed a number of categories into one award. Examples:

Then: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Now: Best Pop Solo Performance.

Then: Best Rock Solo Vocal Performance, Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals
Now: Best Rock Performance

Then: Best Hawaiian Music Album, Best Native American Music Album, and Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album
Now: Best Regional Roots Music Album

Drexl

They've combined hard rock and heavy metal again, which is a bit surprising because that's largely why there was a controversy over Jethro Tull's win.

Will metal fans complain if Foo Fighters win?

Jason

At least they finally dropped the Polka category that the Jimmy Sturr won 19 out of 24 times.

Decker

EVERYONE talks about that Tull win (Hell, it's even in the article I posted above), but that wrong has since been righted. Metallica has won the award six times since it was introduced in 1990, including the first three awards in the category. Can we please have a moratorium on that particular injustice now?

cdollaz

When are they going to overhaul the nomination of shitty music?

K&AJones

...they might as well expand the nominations. Like....

Most Overated Performer
Most Likely Never To Be Heard From Again

House13

Honestly the people responsible for nominating artists for the Metal Grammy were so far off base each year and consistently gave it to bands based on reputation and not based on best album, artist, or whatever the hell they base their shit on. I could of already cared less about the Grammys, but it was at least humorous to see them nominate people that had no business being nominated. Especially when Korn, Megadeth, and Slayer are nominated last year and although I enjoy parts of all their music there is no way they were the best metal had to offer last year. Just saying.

kstublen

Does part of the revamping include making it so the "Best New Artist" actually has to be a NEW artist and not someone who has been releasing albums for years?

PopcornTreeCt

Metal fans care about the Grammys?

They should really just do away with the Rock category altogether. Who are they kidding.

Drexl

Well, what people don't usually say is that in the first year, the category was hard rock and heavy metal combined. But all we hear (including in the article) is how ridiculous it was that Tull won "the metal Grammy." Granted, Tull isn't hard rock either, but surely they wouldn't have been nominated if the category was only metal.

It's really hard rock that they don't get. Nickelback has been nominated, of all groups.

Chaza

Damnit, I was going to move to Hawaii to win a Grammy, they've foiled my plans.

Supermallet

An image like that tells me exactly why I don't give a shit about the Grammys. I can't think of an album from 1999 that I disliked more than Supernatural.

koops

When boy bands ruled the earth?

Hokeyboy

^^Drawn by Quest for Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiire....

Supermallet

DaveWadding

People care about the Grammys?

Sean O'Hara

You know, I just started reading Kristin Hersh's memoir, and the very first paragraph contains the line, "If Americans thought music and art belonged together, they wouldn't have the Grammys."

Supermallet

I love Kristin Hersh.

Ropes Pierre

Personally I feel Stanky and the Coal Miners were robbed. Sturr is a sellout and his use of accordion synths is decried among real Polka aficionados.

rexinnih

That sounded like a waaaaaaaay too informed answer. But yes, Stanky was robbed.

Boba Fett

The only problem I see with the reduction of categories is lumping vocal performances with instrumental. You know very well no instrumental song will win, if they're lucky enough to even be nominated any more.

CRM114

Doesn't sound like a problem with the categories but the asshats making the nominations. They have zero clue.

Trout

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