The Grammys, The Weeknd & the Voting Saga
Pop Star The Weeknd still won't submit music to The Grammy's, despite The Recording Academy abolishing the controversial secret nomination committees
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Hi Everyone,
Over the weekend, The Weeknd (couldn’t resist), announced that he would not be submitting music to The Grammy’s anymore, citing an ongoing lack of trust in the award show's process despite a recent change to rules that inspired his boycott.
The organizers of Grammy Awards on Friday announced an end to the so-called “secret” committees that have led to allegations that the highest honors in the industry are open to rigging.
The Recording Academy said that nominations for the next Grammy Awards in January 2022 will be selected by all of its more than 11,000 voting members, instead of by committees of 15-30 industry experts whose names are not revealed.
The Academy was slammed last year, when The Weeknd got zero Grammy nominations, even though his critically acclaimed album "After Hours" was one of the biggest sellers of 2020.
The Weeknd tweeted the following in response to this shock news for music fans worldwide:
While Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (The Weeknd’s real name) is not the first one to complain about the unfair practices carried out by the Grammy’s, with renowned pop stars such as Halsey and Zayn Malik documenting their grievances against The Grammy’s in public as well, the fact that “After Hours” received zero nominations from the Recording Academy seemed the most absurd thing ever.
Both the album and its hit single: ‘Blinding Lights’ were the top streamed album and single respectively for 2020 across major streaming platforms; and the album was critically acclaimed as well; it just did not make any sense whatsoever to not receive even a single nomination.
Responding to the changes made by the Recording Academy last week, Abel said:
"The trust has been broken for so long between the Grammy organization and artists that it would be unwise to raise a victory flag, I think the industry and public alike need to see the transparent system truly at play for the win to be celebrated, but it's an important start, I remain uninterested in being a part of the Grammys, especially with their own admission of corruption for all these decades. I will not be submitting in the future."
While there have been claims for many years, that the Grammy’s have largely ignored the Hip-Hop and R&B genres for mainstream nominations of Best Artist/Song/Album; with a majority of coloured people making up the chunk of this genre; some part of this particular snub of The Weeknd might have to do with the scheduling of The Grammy’s.
The Weeknd headlined the halftime show at the Super Bowl LV, earlier this year, and originally, the dates for The Grammy’s and the Super Bowl were clashing. With Abel invested heavily in the Super Bowl performance himself, having invested $7 Million of his own money into making sure the production was as per his vision; questions have been raised whether it was simply a case of The Grammy’s snubbing him.
His manager, Wassim "Sal" Slaiby said:
"They engaged with us very heavily and at length to be a part of their show and then everything stopped," adding that interim Grammy’s CEO Harvey Mason "claimed that he'd look into it and get back to us. Never heard a word back on that one."
Whatever might have been the true version of the story there, one thing is for sure, that The Weeknd’s snub has kicked on a massive shift in the process of The Grammy’s legacy voting system.
Will it actually end up ensuring that independent artists and alternative genres get their fair share of recognition from the Recording Academy?
Only time will tell.
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