"Music’s biggest night" takes place this evening in LA and it will be a test of the resilience for the entertainment industry after the devastating wildfires that recently swept the city
As the old saying goes, there’s one for everyone in the audience.
The 67th Grammy Awards take place tonight in LA and as ever there are a head-spinning number of categories, from the thoroughly mainstream Album Of The Year to the more esoteric Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.
That’s 94 dinky little gold gramophones to be dished out in total by The Recording Academy, "a learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals", at the Crypto.com Arena later today. We should count ourselves lucky - there used to be 107.
So, the eggshell egos of pop stars will be well catered for and a myriad of genres covered but it will once again be all about the all-important Big Four - Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best New Artist.
Can the Grammys rebound from the LA wildfires?
More of which later because this is a key Grammys for entirely different reasons.
As well as being a night of backslapping and air kissing, tonight will also be a test of the resilience for the entertainment industry.
This year’s Grammys are the first major bash of the awards season following the apocalyptic wildfires that engulfed the city of dreams in recent weeks.
The shell-shocked entertainment capital is still reeling from the deadly blazes that razed entire neighbourhoods, leaving the music and film industries, which are vital to the city’s economy, grappling with how to navigate the upcoming award ceremonies.
Many annual Grammy Week functions were scrapped, including prominent parties organised by top labels and companies like Spotify.
But Harvey Mason Jr, the head of the Recording Academy behind the Grammys, said the gala would go on as planned.
As well as musicians, this year’s Grammys will also salute LA’s first responders and raise funds for wildfire relief efforts. There will also be tributes to "the spirit of Los Angeles".
It has been a truly horrific few weeks for the city and the music industry will be hoping it can be business as usual tonight.
Fontaines D.C. fly the flag for Ireland
Ireland has a long history at the Grammys (all hail U2 with their 22 awards) and this year, the mighty Fontaines D.C’s fly the flag in the Best Rock Album (that’s "albums containing greater than 75% playing time of new rock, hard rock or metal recordings") for their superb fourth album Romance.
They were nominated before for their second album A Hero’s Death in 2021 but were unlucky and this year they face stiff competition in the shape of Happiness Bastards by The Black Crowes, Saviors by Green Day, TANGK by Idles, Dark Matter by Pearl Jam, Hackney Diamonds by The Rolling Stones and No Name by Jack White.
The band are also in the running for Best Alternative Music Performance for their single Starburster and they face off with Neon Pill by Cage The Elephant, Song Of The Lake by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, BYE BYE by Kim Gordon, and Flea by St. Vincent.
However, Fontaines may be deserved critical darlings but they have not quite made the kind of commercial inroads in America that impresses the Recording Academy.
"The Beyoncé paradox"
It wouldn’t be the Grammys if there wasn’t controversy. In recent years, acts such as Zayn Malik and The Weeknd have accused the Recording Academy of snubs, while the on-going debate about why so many artists of colour go home empty-handed will continue to rage.
Kanye West, Frank Ocean, and Drake have all asked that question in recent years, while the likes of Eddie Vedder and Glen Hansard have all complained that the Grammys are too industry-centric.
It was ever so with the disconnect between art and commerce and this year more than ever, the Academy the buzzwords are "integrity" and "inclusivity". Let’s hope Musk and Trump aren’t watching.
However, the biggest talking point around the Grammys in recent years has been what they are now calling "the Beyoncé paradox".
The Texan megastar leads the charge at this year’s Grammys with 11 nominations for her groundbreaking and stake-claiming album Cowboy Carter.
With 32 wins, Beyoncé is already the most Grammy garlanded artist of all time but she is also the most conspicuously snubbed. Incredibly, she has never won the prestigious Album and Record of the Year trophies.
Cowboy Carter is her fifth studio album vying for the top prize and it begs the question once again of how one of the most significant and, indeed, best-selling music acts of the past two decades has yet to be honoured with the biggest prizes of the night.
Her husband Jay-Z has previously made his feelings very clear on the matter and "the Beyoncé paradox" has revived frequent criticism that the Recording Academy sidelines the work of black artists.
Speaking last week to the AFP news agency, musicologist Lauron Kehrer said Beyoncé's at times tense relationship with the Grammys "has really illustrated the fault lines in how organisations think about style and think about genre, especially around race and gender lines,"
"I think that it would behoove the Grammys to show a little more engagement outside of a white pop sphere."
The sprawling, genre-bending Cowboy Carter pays homage to Beyoncé's southern heritage but she’s also making a point. After years of being overlooked in the Best Album category, what better way to test the Academy’s much vaunted "integrity" and "inclusivity" than to make her first foray into a stiflingly white and male-dominated genre?
With a little help from . . . AI
There is another interesting Grammy talking point this year, too, and it involves . . . The Beatles. Unbelievably, the band have only won a total of seven Grammys and this year they find themselves in the running for Record of The Year for their "last" song, Now and Then.
This is the band’s first Grammy nod since they won three Grammys in 1997 and they are in competition with Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish.
Now and Then was written by the late John Lennon and features his original vocals recorded in 1970, with new instrumentation from surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with archive guitar recordings by the late George Harrison.
However, and as much as McCartney plays it down, the track was coaxed into life by artificial intelligence, a technology that poses an existential threat to musicians - and a boon for a risk adverse music industry.
The Recording Academy has been grappling for years with AI's implications and last year they released a ruling that "only human creators are eligible" to be considered for Grammys.
"A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any categories," they said, adding, "a work that features elements of AI material (ie, material generated by the use of artificial intelligence technology) is eligible in applicable categories".
As McCartney has said of Now and Then: "Nothing has been artificially created" but many recording artists regard the use of AI in place of human creativity as a slippery slope.
If the Recording Academy do give a Grammy to Now and Then it won’t be for artistic merit because, let’s face it, it is not very good (the less said about the promo video the better). If it is honoured it will more likely be because the music industry is agog at the money-spinning potential of milking the technological afterlife of other music legends.
The lesson here seems to be that just because you can somehow piece together a "new" Beatles song using technology and studio trickery it doesn’t mean you should.
Who’s in the running for the Big Four categories?
There is an interesting mix of the very female and the very old in the nominees for Record Of The Year, with The Beatles’ Now and Then battling it out with Texas Hold 'Em by Beyoncé, Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter, 360 by Charli XCX, Birds Of A Feather by Billie Eilish, Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar, Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan, and Fortnight by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone.
In the running for The Album Of The Year category are New Blue Sun by André 3000, Cowboy Carter by Beyoncé, Short n' Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter, BRAT by Charli XCX, Djesse Vol. 4 by Jacob Collier, Hit Me Hard And Soft by Billie Eilish, The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan, and The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift.
Battling it out for Song Of The Year are A Bar Song (Tipsy) by Shaboozey, Birds Of A Feather by Billie Eilish, Die With A Smile by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, Fortnight by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone, Good Luck, Babe! Chappell Roan, Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar, Please Please Please by Sabrina Carpenter, and Texas Hold 'Em by Beyoncé.
Up for Record Of The Year are Now and Then by The Beatles, Texas Hold 'Em by Beyoncé, Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter, 360 by Charli XCX, Birds Of A Feather by Billie Eilish, Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar, Good Luck, Babe! By Chappell Roan, Fortnight by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone.
In the running for Best New Artist are Benson Boone, Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii, Khruangbin, Raye, Chappell Roan, Shaboozey, and Teddy Swims.
Who’s presenting?
Returning for the fifth year, Trevor Noah, who’s also a Grammy nominee this year for best comedy album for his latest release Where Was I, will host once again.
There will also be a number of music stars presenting awards tonight, including Taylor Swift, who won album of the year last year, and Victoria Monét, 2023’s best new artist winner. Cardi B, Gloria Estefan, Anthony Kiedis and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Will Smith, Olivia Rodrigo, Queen Latifah, and SZA will also present gongs.
Who’s performing on the night
It will be a night of new or relatively new artists this year with six of this year’s best new artist nominees set to perform on the night - Benson Boone, Chappell Roan, Doechii, Raye, Sabrina Carpenter and Teddy Swims. Former best new act winner Billie Eilish, woman of the moment Charli XCX, and Shakira will also take to the Grammys stage. There will also be a tribute section to the legendary Quincy Jones, who died last November and won 28 Grammys across his remarkable career, and tributes to the city of Los Angeles itself as it recovers from the recent wildfires.
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