The Grammys Appear To Be Finally Listening To Fans


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Few things are predictable in the music world anymore. Artists on all levels have done their best to destroy the traditional release date, it only takes one bad album to nuke the career of a one-time sure-bet megastar and we just learned yesterday that love might be dead.

But by the time the end of the year rolls around, there are a few things you can count on: Once-great Hall of Fame acts releasing boring album box sets that sell well in stores, end-of-year album lists that come out just in time to be made meaningless by incredible December drops and the general public railing about which artists were nominated for Grammys.

We already have this year’s list spoiler via Childish Gambino — and much like D’Angelo before him, he played the foil with an album of excellent freaked-out funk — but compared to years past, it seems like the reaction to the Grammy nominations has been downright tame — and there’s a very good reason for that. Contrary to the default opinion that the Academy is old and stodgy, it seems like the Grammy voters are actually listening to the concerns of the music-loving public and adjusting accordingly.

Of course, this shouldn’t be news. But we’re talking about the same people who gave Herbie Hancock their top honor in 2008 (over all-time classic releases by Kanye West and Amy Winehouse, no less.) Hancock is an incredibly talented and important musician, and his work in the bop days that helped move the genre beyond it is unassailable. But an album of Joni Mitchell covers was in no way representative of the sound or spirit of the late aughts. With their latest round of nominations, though, it looks like the Academy has learned its lesson. At least, partly.

The full list of nominations reads exactly like the sound of 2016: For better (Lemonade for Album of the Year) and for worse (Best New Artist…The Chainsmokers?) The Grammys are an industry award for an industry that’s notoriously slow at accepting change, but the Grammys took their first step toward acknowledging the streaming/independent artist reality of 2016, loosening up their rules to allow albums that were never technically “for sale” into the competition.

As is their way, this lead to more questioning among music fans. If Chance The Rapper gets in with Coloring Book, why didn’t [insert any mixtape with over 200,000 streams]? To which we say, it’s a process. Chano burst in waving his considerable influence and cultural cachet like a peace banner, allowing him to infiltrate the Grammys for all the Soundcloud rappers trying to come up behind him. Shining light on these corners of the rap world that previously had no chance of even a second glance from the awards will inevitably expand the definition of what sort of work should be eligible.

Progressive and odd rap is a huge blind spot at music’s biggest night — and any awards ceremony that doesn’t find time to show “Pick Up The Phone” love can not claim to be representative of rap in 2016 — but it looks like they’re at least trying to remedy that. Not only are they expanding their definitions of what constitutes an eligible album, they’re also opening up stodgy genre definitions to include unconventional picks.

As much hate as it got from the nation’s rockers and the dudes who love them, only a person who has never listened to Beyonce’s “Don’t Hurt Yourself” could classify it as anything other than a rock song. And surprisingly, the Grammys fell on the right side of this, throwing the scorched-Earth f*ck you of a track alongside acts like Disturbed and Alabama Shakes, regardless of the typical genre assigned to Bey.

That’s not to say that the Grammys have suddenly become cutting-edge tastemakers. They’re still prone to the “lifetime achievement” nomination, where they throw an artist an award to cover for past slights. I’m not going to hold my nose up and say that Blink-182 don’t deserve a nomination for Rock Album of the Year, they probably did for Dude Ranch or Enema of the State. But I will say that they definitely don’t deserve to get their first-ever nom for California.

And one year doesn’t make a trend. We got our hopes up before when OutKast won Album of the Year in 2004 and again when Arcade Fire won in 2011. But the Grammys could easily go right back and give next year’s top prize to a live U2 album. The difference between those former head-fakes and this year’s move is our ability to broadcast our feelings on the nominations more than ever. And when you see Chance The Rapper, Sturgill Simpson and Solange are all getting fitted for formalwear, it certainly seems like we might have their ear.

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