Grammy Awards 2022: Always predictable, the music awards face new surprises this 12 months

This was speculated to be the 12 months the Grammy Awards bought again to regular. In 2021, the pandemic delayed the ceremony by six weeks and led organizers to placed on a stripped-down outside present with no viewers, which charmed critics with its intimate look but had anemic scores.

This 12 months, after one other delay — this one brought on by the omicron variant — the sixty fourth annual Grammys have decamped for the primary time to Las Vegas and will likely be broadcast by CBS on Sunday evening from the MGM Grand Garden Arena. But a deluge of extra problems have adopted. Kanye West was barred from performing due to his unsettling on-line habits. Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters, who have been scheduled to carry out on the ceremony, died whereas on tour.

And then, on the Oscars on Sunday, Will Smith smacked Chris Rock onstage, an incident that grabbed headlines world wide and introduced new scrutiny over how the organizers of main awards exhibits ought to deal with star-on-star altercations on dwell tv.

Even with these surprises — and after years of controversies on the Recording Academy, the nonprofit group behind the Grammys — producers say they’re prepared for something and have labored to create a contemporary search for the present. The ceremony will as soon as once more have an enviornment viewers and have full-scale performances by stars like Olivia Rodrigo, Silk Sonic, Billie Eilish, J Balvin, Carrie Underwood, John Legend and Lil Nas X. Other highlights embrace a tribute to Stephen Sondheim and a second of remark of the warfare in Ukraine. Trevor Noah returns because the host.

The most intently watched contest is whether or not Rodrigo, the 19-year-old singer and actress whose music “Drivers License” was a sensation final 12 months, can sweep the 4 prime awards of album, file and music of the 12 months, and greatest new artist. Her competitors ranges from meme grasp Lil Nas X to 95-year-old Tony Bennett, who’s up for “Love for Sale,” a Cole Porter album with Lady Gaga. The prime nominee this 12 months is Jon Batiste of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” who has 11 nods.

Last 12 months Ben Winston, who took over because the Grammys’ producer after a four-decade run by Ken Ehrlich, gained plaudits for brand new touches like in-the-round performances and video segments constructing out the again tales of the nominees for file of the 12 months, which has quietly changed album of the 12 months because the Grammys’ most coveted award.

Some of these manufacturing choices have been requirements of pandemic-era tv. But in an interview, Winston stated that even in an enviornment setting, he needed to maintain a way of final 12 months’s intimacy and storytelling. The present Sunday will spotlight behind-the-scenes staff within the revived live performance business, and nominees from among the dozens of Grammy classes hardly ever seen on tv will likely be showcased on the roof of the MGM Grand. (Of the 86 awards, all however eight or 9 are given out throughout a rapid-fire ceremony earlier that day.)

“I hope that the lessons we learned last year,” Winston stated, “of trying to construct a TV show that touched on themes and wasn’t just a concert of one song followed by another will stay for this year as well.”

Raj Kapoor, the showrunner this 12 months, stated that even the place of the stage — it has been lowered by about 3 toes — will foster a more in-depth connection to the viewers. (Kapoor is an government producer of the present, together with Winston and Jesse Collins.) Still, some COVID measures will likely be evident to viewers. Nominated artists will likely be separated in a bistro-style seating space, and the quantity of people that will settle for awards on the microphone will likely be diminished.

Just days earlier than the present, uncertainties stay about who will carry out and even which stars would possibly attend. Since Hawkins’ demise March 25, producers have raced to place collectively a tribute to the drummer. Two members of Okay-pop group BTS lately examined constructive for COVID-19, elevating the query of whether or not or how the group would undergo with its scheduled look.

This mixture of photographs exhibits the highest nominees for the upcoming Grammy Awards, prime row from left, Jon Baptiste with 11 nominations, Justin Bieber, Doja Cat, and H.E.R, every with eight noms and Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo with seven nominations every. (AP Photo)

The Recording Academy had no remark about BTS, and representatives of the group didn’t reply to questions on its plans. Foo Fighters, nominated for 3 awards, canceled their scheduled efficiency.

The largest wild card is perhaps West, whose invitation to carry out was revoked after a barrage of troubling on-line habits directed at his former spouse, Kim Kardashian, and at Noah. But West continues to be up for 5 awards, together with album of the 12 months, for “Donda.” A consultant of the Recording Academy stated that after the episode on the Oscars, there are “plans in place for a variety of scenarios.”

For the academy, a easy ceremony is very essential after years of complaints from artists and business insiders in regards to the awards course of and the academy’s personal governance. Stars akin to West, Drake, the Weeknd and Diddy have criticized the Grammys over its poor file of rewarding Black artists within the prime classes and its opaque voting procedures.

The academy has taken steps to handle these points, but it surely stays to be seen whether or not that will likely be sufficient to quell dissent. Last 12 months, it eradicated its longtime use of nameless screening committees to find out many nominees, which the Weeknd and others had known as unfair. Yet simply sooner or later earlier than this 12 months’s slate was introduced in November, the academy’s guidelines have been modified so as to add two spots to the poll within the prime 4 classes, permitting stars like West, Taylor Swift and Lil Nas X to achieve nominations. Days after, Drake withdrew from competitors within the two rap classes by which he was nominated, although he gave no rationalization.

Harvey Mason Jr., the academy’s CEO, stated in an interview that the academy was working to regain confidence amongst its members. “My hope,” he stated, “is that we will earn the trust of all that were mistrustful.”

So far, the music world appears prepared to provide the academy the advantage of the doubt.

“The issue with institutions like the Grammys is that there is always a sense of nostalgia and tradition, so change is generally a little slower,” stated Ghazi, founding father of the impartial music firm Empire. “But some of the conversations we have been having have been encouraging.”

Willie Stiggers, generally known as Prophet, an artist supervisor and co-chair of the Black Music Action Coalition, stated he takes Grammy leaders at their phrase a couple of dedication to foster variety throughout the group. “The Recording Academy is a reflection of American society,” he stated. “It’s going to take more than a year or two to unpack all that.”

One space by which the Grammys and the music business as a complete have proven a cussed lack of progress is within the development of feminine creators. This week, the most recent version of an annual examine by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative on the University of Southern California discovered that credit for girls in pop have primarily remained flat over the previous decade. Last 12 months, simply 23.3% of the credited artists among the many prime 100 songs have been ladies, whereas a Grammy-sponsored pledge from 2019 to rent extra feminine producers and engineers has had virtually no impression, the examine discovered.

“Despite industry activism and advocacy, there has been little change for women on the popular charts since 2012,” Stacy L. Smith, one of many examine’s authors, stated in a press release.

A bigger debate within the music business looms over the worth of the Grammys — and of all awards exhibits — in an period of fragmented viewing and declining scores. Last 12 months, the Grammys drew simply 8.8 million viewers, its worst exhibiting ever, and the gross sales advantages that artists and file firms used to get pleasure from from a outstanding Grammy look have practically vanished.

According to Will Page, an economist who research the music business, the two-week gross sales acquire after Adele gained album of the 12 months in 2012, for “21,” was price $1 million in estimated artist royalties, whereas Swift’s win final 12 months, for “Folklore,” introduced her simply $50,000. “Today’s harsh reality is that winning over the judges doesn’t necessarily win over the consumers,” Page stated.

For the producers of the TV present, nonetheless, the crucial is to maintain the occasion feeling contemporary. And they are saying they’re as much as it.

“Things can get stale,” Winston stated, “if they stay the same.”