China Daily (Hong Kong)

Grammy Awards embrace online voting

- Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn

NEW YORK — The Grammy Awards are transition­ing to online voting and have updated rules for its top category, album of the year.

The Recording Academy announced changes on Wednesday, including its official switch to online voting for its 13,000 members. Voting for the 2018 Grammy Awards will take place in the fall and will include songs and albums released between Oct 1, 2016, and Sept 30, 2017.

Bill Freimuth, the academy’s senior vice-president of awards, says the academy expects to attract younger voters and touring musicians who are away from home during voting season.

“It is something that has been long-desired, long-talked about and long-investigat­ed,” he says of online voting, which comes a year after the Latin Grammys made the switch.

Freimuth says there were concerns about security issues, but adds that organizers have “done everything we can to make sure the integrity of the system will be preserved”.

Another major change is the addition of songwriter­s to the nominees for album of the year, which was previously reserved for artists, producers and engineers. However, all participan­ts in the album, including featured artists, songwriter­s, producers and engineers, must now be credited with at least 33 percent or more playing time on the album to be female roles, including the best-known in Michael Haneke’s 2001 film, The Piano Teacher, which won her the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Her latest, Elle by Paul Verhoeven, won her the Golden Globe Award for best actress and a nomination for the Academy Award for best actress.

“Films enable me to experience the lives of women. Most of them are suffering, struggling and vulnerable, however, they pursue who they are and fight against their destiny,” Huppert says.

“Nowadays, women are aware of fighting for their rights. They realize their value and beauty,” she adds. “Women’s voices also need to be heard more clearly in the film world.”

In June 2009, Huppert came to Beijing for the first eligible for nomination. Before the new rule, all participan­ts on an album would earn a nomination for album of the year even if they worked on one song.

The album of the year rule change would mainly affect pop, rap and contempora­ry R&B albums where producers typically vary throughout the project, as opposed to country and rock albums, where fewer producers are present.

Beyonce’s Lemonade, Drake’s Views and Justin Bieber’s Purpose — all nominees this year for album of the year — each had at least 20 producers credited. Adele’s 25, which won the top prize in February, had 11 producers. The fifth nominee was country singer Sturgill Simpson,

as part of that year’s Croisement­s Festival, which was held at Ullens Center for Contempora­ry Art.

The photo exhibition, initiated by the Museum of Modern Art / P. S. 1, New York, gathered about 100 photo and video portraits of the French actress created by a multigener­ational, internatio­nal group of leading photograph­ers.

The Chinese show included works by young Chinese artists, including Yang Fudong, Wen Fang and Shi Xiaofan.

As an actress, Huppert says, she never prepares herself, given her passion for the characters.

“I am lazy. I didn’t even read the original novel before acting in The Piano Teacher. I enjoy acting in the moment. The sensitivit­y and freshness are important,” she says.

“I am not afraid of aging. Like every one, actors age. It’s natural,” she adds. who produced his album by himself.

“Does participat­ion on a single track on a 12- or 15-track album really signify that they really worked on the album? When it was put that way most people were saying, ‘No, not really,’ “Freimuth says.

If the new rule had been implemente­d at this year’s show, Bruno Mars and Ryan Tedder wouldn’t have earned Grammys for their production work on Adele’s album.

The Grammy Awards have 83 categories. Nominees will be announced Nov 28, and the 60th awards show will take place at Madison Square Garden in New York on Jan 28, 2018.

announces in Beijing that he will start in September.

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 ?? ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY ?? Wang Feng
ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY Wang Feng
 ?? PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY ?? Huppert on the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival in May.
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY Huppert on the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival in May.
 ?? REUTERS ?? Beyonce performs at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb 12.
REUTERS Beyonce performs at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb 12.

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