Recording Academy executives Harvey Mason, Valeisha Butterfield Jones, and Panos Panay addressed last year’s outrage over The Weeknd’s Grammy snub for his hit “Bliding Lights,” which did not receive a nomination in any category in an interview with Billboard.
New goals include a renewed focus on making the Grammys equitable for more artists, their nomination structure, and how they levy the public outrage after snubs like The Weeknd’s happens.
“It’s not distracting, it’s understandable. People that make music are passionate people inherently. These [projects] are their babies. When they get upset, it doesn’t affect us or offend us,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said when asked how his team responds to the criticism from fans and artists alike who feel snubbed by the Grammy selection process.
In terms of “getting it right,” Mason said it’s their priority to apply the input from the music community is important despite the constructive criticism being so publicized. “The perception of the academy and our process is important because it allows us to do the work that we want to do.”
“Having input from the community is important. Sometimes it might be nice not to hear it always in the press; maybe it’d be nice to get a phone call or a text,” the CEO explained. “But regardless of how we get it, it’s important that we evaluate it and find out actionable steps on how to be better. At the end of the day, when our members and our community say, ‘We’d like to look at something differently and we think there is a new way of doing this, it’s better,’ we listen, and we move.”
The Weeknd made a pointed tweet directed at the Grammys last year when his album After Hours was snubbed of a nomination, calling them “corrupt.”
The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency…
The singer even went as far as boycotting the award show and saying that he would no longer be submitting music to the committee. Despite Mason and his team listening to the criticism the Grammys get, Drake still decided to pull the two 2022 Grammy nominations he received for Best Rap Album for Certified Lover Boy and Best Rap Performance for “Way 2 Sexy.” It’s being speculated that Drizzy made this move because he wanted to be recognized in the overall categories like album of the year and not just in the rap categories, but that has yet to be confirmed.
