Grammys make awards changes, address conflicts of interest
NEW YORK (AP):
THE RECORDING Academy is making changes to several Grammy Awards categories, including the oftendebated best new artiste title, and having nomination review committee members sign disclosure forms to prevent conflicts of interest.
The new rules announced Wednesday will affect the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, which will air live on January 31, 2021.
The best new artiste award has been criticised for decades, and the academy has tried to evolve with the ever-changing music industry by continually updating the category’s rules. In recent years, the award has been scrutinised because the academy placed a song and album limit, disqualifying certain performers. But the new rules say, “there is no longer a specified maximum number of releases prohibiting artistes from entering” the category.
The change will benefit younger artistes, specifically rappers, who tend to release many singles and therefore did not qualify in recent years because they surpassed the 30-song limit. Whitney Houston and Lady Gaga missed out on being best new artiste nominees because of the category’s rules in the years they marked their breakthroughs.
The academy also said musicians invited to participate in a nomination review committee – in place to safeguard a specific genre’s integrity and to serve as additional checks and balances – will have to agree to the terms of a conflict of interest disclosure form. Committee participants will have to reveal if they would benefit from an artiste’s nomination for that category, whether the ties are financial, familial or creative.
If a conflict is discovered, that person would not be allowed to sit on that committee that year.
NEW LEVEL OF DOUBTS
Some of the new changes could be a response to former Recording Academy CEO Deborah Dugan, who was fired only months into her job and days before the 2020 Grammys, held in January. Dugan had said the awards show was rigged and muddled with conflicts of interest. Questions have loomed for years around the nominations process for the Grammys, but the doubts reached a new level following Dugan’s comments.
The academy has said that nominees are selected from contenders voted into the top 20 in each category. But critics have called the voting less than transparent, because the choice of finalists happens behind closed doors. That has stirred claims that members of key nominating committees promote projects they worked on or projects they favour based on personal relationships.
The academy’s board of trustees approved the new changes last month. The organisation also said it is making its 66-page rules and guidelines book public for the first time, at Grammys.com, starting Wednesday.
Songs and albums released between September 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020 will be eligible for nominations at the 2021 Grammys. There are 84 categories.