Criticism
Because thousands of recordings appear each year and very few voting members have heard more than a relatively small number of them as a whole, it is likely that many individual votes will be cast by voters who are unfamiliar with all the recordings nominated in that category. Additionally, because of the small number of votes cast in many of the categories, a lobbying campaign for a particular recording may need only a few dozen votes for success. Large choruses have achieved Grammy awards after persuading many of their members to join
NARAS.
Certain musical artists have voiced personal issues with the nature of the Grammys.
When his band
Pearl Jam won a Grammy in the category
Best Hard Rock Performance in 1996, singer
Eddie Vedder commented on stage: "I don't know what this means. I don't think it means anything."
[13]
Glen Hansard, leader of the Irish rock group
The Frames, stated in 2008 that the Grammys represent something outside of the real world of music "that's fully industry based." He said he wasn't that interested in attending that years ceremony, even though he had been nominated for two different awards.
[13]
Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of
metal band
Tool, did not attend the Grammy Awards ceremony to receive one of their awards. He explained his reasons:
| “ | I think the Grammys are nothing more than some gigantic promotional machine for the music industry. They cater to a low intellect and they feed the masses. They don't honor the arts or the artist for what he created. It's the music business celebrating itself. That's basically what it's all about.[14] | ” |
Bono, lead singer of the rock band
U2 was critical of the Grammys early in his career,[
citation needed] but later
[15] he began to appreciate their inclusiveness:
| “ | It was all there: anger, love, forgiveness, family, community and the deepest sense of history... Here was the full power of American music challenging my arrogance. I watched the rest of the show with new eyes. The Grammys invited jazz, country, rock, soul and classical into the same hall. No regard for demographic studies of what would deliver ratings, no radio call-out research – a mad amalgam of the profound and the absurd and the creeping realisation that one man's Mozart is another man's Vegas.[16] | ” |
The Grammy Awards has also been criticized for generally awarding or nominating more commercially successful albums rather than critically successful albums.
[17][18] In a 2011 article,
Los Angeles Times writer Randall Roberts was critical of the nominations for the
54th Grammy Awards, particularly for the Album of the Year category, noting the exclusion of
Kanye West's
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, "the most critically acclaimed album of the year, a career-defining record", as a snub in favor of nominating less substantial albums.
[19] Roberts went on to criticize the Grammy Awards for being "mired in the past" and out of touch with "new media" and trends amongs music listeners such as
music sharing, stating:
| “ | The major nominations for the 54th annual awards clearly show that the recording academy has been working overtime to be all-inclusive, but more significantly, they also reveal a deep chasm between its goals and the listening habits of the general population. [...] And if one were to measure the vitality of American music through the filter of the Grammy nominations for song of the year and record of the year, one might think the economy wasn't the only thing that was sluggish. [...] [T]he focus is still on the old music industry model of cash-cow hits, major label investments and commercial radio. [...] Falling behind the times is nothing new for the Grammys, but once they've lost sight of the artistry that makes music soar, they'll not just be irrelevant, they'll be out of business.[19] | ” |
In an article for
Time, journalist
Touré also responded to the snub and expressed his general displeasure with the awards, stating "I don’t pretend to understand the Grammys. I have never been able to discern a consistent logic around who gets nominated or who gets statues. I comprehend the particular logic of the Oscars, but not the big awards for music. My normal state of confusion around what drives Grammy decisions was exponentialized this week when, to the shock of many, Kanye’s masterpiece
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was not nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year."
[20] He went on to compare understanding the Grammy Awards to
Kremlinology and commented on The Recording Academy's exclusion of more "mature" hip hop albums as Album of the Year nominees, noting that it occasionaly opts to nominate "pop-friendly" hip hop albums instead.
[20]
In a 2011 profile for
The New York Times following the
53rd Grammy Awards,
Justin Vernon of indie band
Bon Iver was asked his opinion of the Grammys and how he would react to a nomination for his group, to which he responded, "You know I was thinking about that a couple of months ago, someone asked me that, and I was like 'I would go and I would' – and I don’t think the Bon Iver record is the kind of record that would get nominated for a Grammy – 'I would get up there and be like, ‘This is for my parents, because they supported me,’' because I know they would think it would be stupid of me not to go up there. But I kinda felt like going up there and being like: 'Everyone should go home, this is ridiculous. You should not be doing this. We should not be gathering in a big room and looking at each other and pretending that this is important.' That’s what I would say."
[21] Bon Iver subsequently received four nominations in November for the 54th Grammy Awards.
[21]
