Why do the Grammys, the music industry’s Emmys or the Oscars, even exist? I watched them last Sunday — against my better judgment — and I have no answer. The Grammys continue to baffle me. Maybe they baffle a lot of people. Ratings for the music industry’s biggest event plummeted compared to previous years, reining in only 25.3 million viewers compared to the 2014 Oscars’ 43 million. This is understandable. Music is perhaps the most subjectively interpreted medium we have and awarding specific artists really makes no sense. But the reason the Grammys are so fundamentally ridiculous is that they seek to bring together, for a time of well-mannered awards giving, a community that just doesn’t exist. In the wake of Kanye West’s harsh criticism of Beck’s Best Album win, we begin to ask ourselves, “Why are all these people here?”
The fact that the six degrees of Kevin Bacon exists as a game is testament to Hollywood’s interconnectedness. The movie industry is like a spider web of associations, with actors, directors and cinematographers working with each other on different projects. So it’s not hard to see why the Oscars and Golden Globes, Hollywood’s preeminent awards shows, are rife with good will: a lot of it is genuine happiness and appreciation for the achievements of others. And if Leonardo DiCaprio feels a bitter stab of anguish when Matthew McConaughey nabs Best Actor, it’s metered by the fact that DiCaprio worked with McConaughey in “Wolf of Wall Street.”
The point is, Hollywood is an actual community; the music industry is a business. What do Coldplay, Beck, Carrie Underwood and Kanye West have to do with each other? Why do all of these disparate characters gather every year? Most of these artists have never worked with each other, with the exception of the Frankenstein’s Monster-esque Grammys performance by Kanye, Rihanna and Paul McCartney. Most of these artists have probably never met. Their meeting is as meaningful as a large meeting of authors or painters. Maybe they respect each other, but they’re connected merely by profession. At the Grammys, all of these artists, from genres metal to country, gather together one night out of the year to insincerely clap for each other like wind-up toys. Where’s the connection? The music industry simply isn’t like Hollywood. Your pop stars and rockers may play on the same radio station. They may be in the same room. They may even sing a duet. But these musicians, as a collective, form nothing. A bunch of actors together are Hollywood; a bunch of musicians is simply a gaggle of musicians. The Grammys, as a consequence, are arbitrary, nonsensical and bizarre.
It’s no wonder then that Kanye lambasted the Grammys’ academy and Beck. Kanye touched upon a point when he said, “I just know that the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us.” Disregarding Kanye’s shot at rock music, the Grammys do need to stop playing with everyone. Those behind the Grammys believe they are on the same level as the Oscars or the Emmys, but they’re not. The Oscars, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards, yes, reward excellence in craft — along with pandering a bit to “awards-baiting” — but their primary function is to bring together the community. In last year’s Oscars, Ellen DeGeneres ordered pizza. George Clooney won a lifetime achievement award, to great applause, at this year’s Golden Globes. The Grammys’ “Top 5 Moments” are, in comparison, trite and overly produced. They are trying to make up what they lack in earnestness with pizazz and flash.
Maybe part of the reason the Grammys seem so contrived these days is that a music community, at one time, did exist. But with the rise of iTunes in the 2000s and the subsequent arrival of music-streaming apps like Pandora and Spotify, the importance of the individual artist is at an all-time low. We can pick and choose what songs we like. We don’t have to listen to entire albums. We can curate massive playlists. We’re not limited by what’s on the radio, what’s selling at the record store or what our friends listen to. Times once made you tap into a “scene” to find your music. Artists would band together for mutual protection and promotion. You had the disco scene. You had the folk scene. But in 2015, the individual dictates his playlist, and the popular artists are all islands.
That’s why the Grammys lack the meat that makes the Oscars bearable. I don’t know if this can be helped. The Grammys’ producers could sober it up and do away with all pretenses of community. They could ingloriously announce the prizes by webpage or notify winners by mail. They could split the show into several genre-specific ones. In the end, however, the Grammys are still undoubtedly popular — 25.3 million viewers is nothing to blow your nose at. People are still demanding it. I just don’t know why.
Brennan Edel is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.edel@cavalierdaily.com.
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