The Grammys Are Sunday. Here’s What We’re Paying Attention To.
The standouts, snubs and stepping up. (Plus, Kurt Vile's Tiny Desk.)
Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images
Prepare accordingly: The Grammys, Music’s (self-declared) Biggest Night, take place this Sunday, February 10. Love them or hate them (remember that Arcade Fire surprise victory? Or Macklemore’s apologetic text to Kendrick Lamar? Bon Iver, Best New Artist?), there are a couple of storylines we’re watching in anticipation. Our colleague Stephen Thompson pulled out a few threads to get us started: the increased number of nominees for the four biggest categories, the possibility of on-stage activism and the inevitable game of sweep-or-be-snubbed.
We’re curious to see what’s happened in the year since outgoing Grammys president Neil Portnow concluded that “women need to step up” if they want to succeed in the music industry. Last year, Lorde was the only woman nominated for Album of the Year — but she wasn’t invited to perform solo at the awards show. And this year, Ariana Grande, who was slated to perform on the heels of releasing her new album thank u, next, won’t be performing. The show’s producers reportedly wanted to choose her setlist; she wanted to sing her latest single. (Grande is arguably the biggest pop star out there right now, and building steam — we tracked her rise in the lead-up to thank u, next this week.)
That’s just one sign of larger problems within the music industry, as our colleague Anastasia Tsioulcas reports, including an overall lack of representation of women, especially as engineers and producers. There’s also the Recording Academy’s struggle to keep pace with innovation. Take the case of Tierra Whack, as outlined by our colleague Rodney Carmichael. Last year, she made waves with Whack World, her groundbreaking collection of 15 60-second songs each accompanied by a music video. But that wasn’t what earned her a Grammy nomination: Instead, it was a one-off music video released in October 2017. The Academy recognized her work as worthy of commendation, but since her most acclaimed work doesn’t fit its pre-existing criteria, the committee chose something else.
One positive sign: The majority of Album of the Year and Best New Artist nominees this year are women, including Tiny Desk alumnae Brandi Carlile and Kacey Musgraves, whose empathetic By the Way, I Forgive You and exhilarating Golden Hour remain standouts. Plus, the Recording Academy recently announced a new program asking business or individuals who hire producers or engineers to consider at least two women for any project; Cardi B, Pharrell Williams and Ariana Grande have already signed on.
If you’re planning to watch, follow along with us! We’ll be live-blogging on our site and live-tweeting, and we’ll have a rundown of the night publishing on Monday. And as always, send us your thoughts!
(P.S.: If you’re looking for Tiny Desk news, we published an arresting medley from Cat Power and a laid-back set from Kurt Vile this week. This week also brought new candy-coated power pop from Charly Bliss and a “Super Cool” collaboration from Beck, Robyn and the Lonely Island from The Lego Movie 2 soundtrack.)
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