THE GRAMMY AWARDS Why some songs stand out
Winners may hit a cultural touchstone or showcase an artist — or are just plain catchy
What makes a song THE song in the eyes of the Recording Academy? In the history of the 59 record of the year winners at tonight’s Grammy Awards, sometimes those songs captured the mood or sentiment of a universal emotion, or showcased a singer’s supreme talent. Sometimes the Grammy-winning song benefited from being featured in a hit film, or became a cultural touchstone for a year. And often these songs are just insatiably catchy and fun.
Many of these records of the year become pop music standards, still widely beloved and influential today, from Tony Bennett’s I Left My Heart in San Francisco, to the Eagles’ Hotel California and Michael Jackson’s Beat It. Still other songs quickly lose their popularity as trends change or the artists who made them popular grow tired of repeating them.
Just ask Art Garfunkel why Mrs. Robinson, the hit song that was the first of two record of the year wins for Simon & Garfunkel, is still a great song today.
“It really swung,” Garfunkel said of the tune, which won in 1969. “It was infectious. It made you get up out of your seat and get on the dance floor. You can’t ignore that the rhythm cooked. That’s why it was a hit. Paul Simon plays great acoustic Martin guitar.”
The song wasn’t complete when it appeared in the hit film The Graduate, so the film version just has the two singers vocalizing a missing verse with “do-do-do-dodo.” And it’s widely considered the first rock ’n’ roll song to be named record of the year.
“I give the credit to Mike Nichols,” Garfunkel said of the film’s director, who had the folk rockers help him with the soundtrack. “It was Mike as a film director who was open to rock ’n’ roll and started looking at what we rockers were doing in our world and how it might sync into the film world.”
For singer Roberta Flack, she benefited from the right timing. Flack, one of only two artists who have won the category two years in a row, had released her song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face years before it won in 1973.
“Clint Eastwood called, wanting to have it as a part of his film, Play Misty for Me,” Flack wrote in an email. “The record label wanted to have it re-recorded with a faster tempo, but he said he wanted it exactly as it was. With the song as a theme song for his movie, it gained a lot of popularity and then took off.”
Flack won again the next year for the song Killing Me Softly With His Song, which also became a hit when it was re-imagined as a hiphop song by the Fugees in 1996.
Country vocal trio Lady Antebellum were just as surprised as anyone else when their name was called on that Grammy stage for record of the year for their hit Need You Now in 2011. Going up against artists including Jay-Z and Eminem, they figured they were the underdogs.
“We were shocked,” said singer Charles Kelley. “I think we were just the little engine that could and it sounded like nothing else that had come out that year.”
Ann Powers, music critic and correspondent for NPR Music, said that Grammy voters, who have to be directly involved with recording to be eligible to vote, love artists like songwriter Carole King who are considered “insiders” within the musical community. But that doesn’t mean voters aren’t swayed by other factors.
“The Grammys are not a popularity contest,” said Powers. “They are not just about numbers, but they are heavily influenced by commercial success.”
Jackson had a record-breaking Grammy sweep in 1984 with eight wins thanks to his groundbreaking album Thriller, which remains the bestselling album of all time.
“He had incredible, unrivaled commercial success,” Powers said. “He was a great dancer. He was an amazing singer. He had the best producers. And he was innovative in this new art form, the music video.”
But the popularity of a song after winning a Grammy can sometimes become a burden. Bobby McFerrin’s hit a capella song Don’t Worry, Be Happy introduced the acclaimed jazz vocalist to a much wider audience and even George H.W. Bush started using it as a presidential campaign theme. But it also suffered a backlash, and McFerrin said in 2013 that he hadn’t played the song in its entirety since 1988. It won in 1989. Eric Clapton wrote his Grammy-winning song Tears in Heaven after the death of his four-year-old son in 1991, but the guitar legend said in 2004 he had decided to stop playing the song.
Even the artists can’t always predict a hit. Garfunkel was initially unsure about their second record of the year win, Bridge Over Troubled Water, when they were in the studio recording it. He thought the song started too slow, but their label head Clive Davis loved the unconventional style.
“I thought it was a dark horse with an outside chance,” Garfunkel said of the song, which won in 1971.
The Grammy Awards are being held today in New York City. The event is on CBS from 4:30 p.m. Pacific.