The Grammys: Are they still relevant?

The Grammys seem to cause more disappointment than recognition to artists.

Yajaira Gonzalez and Julia Costa

Many people are still upset after the Grammys winners were announced last week. With the night ending up with some controversies happening around the Grammys, there were still lots of highlights.

The biggest highlight would be around the American singer-songwriter Beyoncé. She ended the night with 4 Grammy wins, the most Grammy wins in history with 32 Grammys in total.

“The singer’s haul of latest nods makes her the most nominated artist ever, tying with husband Jay-Z, both scoring 88 nominations throughout their careers,” wrote The Guardian.

While now the most decorated artist at the Grammys, many people think that Beyoncé was beaten out for multiple different categories where she should have won.

“And then there is the matter of Beyoncé, now the most decorated artist in Grammy history while still feeling like something of an outsider.” wrote The New York Times. “Claiming that record didn’t quite overshadow her losses in the three major categories she was nominated in,”

But Beyoncé was not the only star of the night, Bad Bunny made history as well. He became the first-all Spanish opening act.

“The global sensation opened the show by paying tribute to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean, placing the culture in the spotlight during the prestigious music industry event.” GMA wrote.

Performing and accepting his award for Best Musica Urbana Album, many people were disappointed with the closed captions on his performance and his speech.

“The words “singing in non-English” were displayed on the screens for those who had captions turned on during the performance,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter. “Later, during his acceptance speech for best música urbana album, the words “speaking in non-English” were displayed in parts of his speech that were in Spanish,”

Many were disappointed due to a highly respected artist not getting that respect of closed captions for speaking Spanish for those who don’t speak the language. CBS head George Cheeks has fixed the mistake for later showings and on Paramount +.

What keeps happening – and apparently getting progressively worse each year – is that award shows have been making more mistakes than succeeding at all lately. Not only due to a problem of audience – like the Oscars, which according to NBC left from nearly 60 million viewers during the 1980’s to less than 20 mi last year – but also due to the fact that award shows have been showing themselves to be traditional, petty, corrupt and somewhat discriminative when it comes to who they choose to award/nominate.

The whole The Weeknd controversy regarding his Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2021, and the “spoiled child” behavior from The Recording Academy once they realized they would not have him all to themselves, brought massive criticism to the academy and gathered an entire legion of people against them.

“When The Weeknd—who shattered records in 2020 with his hit album, After Hours—is snubbed of any recognition from the Academy, both creators and the public have grounds to question what happens in the adjudication room,” wrote Harvard Political Review.

Eminem, who is one of the many celebrities who has boycotted the Grammys every year since 2011, also expressed his opinion during The Kamikaze Interview.

“I’m just tired of seeing it […] they’re always pitching this hint that you might win Album of the Year which used to be a big deal – I don’t think it’s a big deal now – you know, set it home this year for the Grammys and watched [JAY-Z] and [Kendrick Lamar] not get it and I felt like one of them should have got it” Eminem said.

The hallways of Thomas Worthington would be really quiet if the subject was the Grammys. “I don’t watch it” seemed to be the standard response when we’d ask what they thought about the Grammys.

“I like it when they award albums and songs that I believe that deserved it, like when Folklore (Taylor Swift’s 2020 studio album) won Album of the Year,” Senior Kate Wiselogel said. She also firmly believes that moral issues seem to get clearer and clearer to the public eye each year and that artists, who should have been recognized a long time ago, still struggle to achieve anything when it comes to this big, chaotic awarding system.