IS THE ACT HARD FREE
Photograph: Artem Nazarov/The Guardianĭuring the very first lockdown, which now seems like years ago, still flush with a sense of newly free time that might be used creatively – rather than in a state of guilty, dribbling inertia – I set about trying to read the longlist for the Women’s prize for fiction. Patricia Lockwood’s ebook left me questioning my internet use Unless they adapt, award shows are in danger of becoming irrelevant. I’m sure the pandemic didn’t help, but the Golden Globes lost two-thirds of its viewing audience this year and had its lowest ever rating among 18-49-year-olds. It makes the old institutions look outdated, creaky and unfit for purpose and that, in turn, makes the audience less interested. Such omissions devalue the Grammys, in the same way that failing to even nominate I May Destroy You devalued the Golden Globes. People will always argue that anyone who complains is simply hurt because they’ve been overlooked, but the exclusion of the Weeknd is undeniably bizarre, if not downright belligerent. However, that relies on a silence that is starting to break. For all the fun and pomp and silliness, and I do love a good red carpet, plenty of award shows exist in a grey area of back-scratching and behind-the-scenes brokering and they have done for as long as they have existed. The sentiment fits far more than just the royal family. Drake and Frank Ocean have also been critical of the Grammys in recent years the New York Times points out that, staggeringly, the last black artist to win album of the year was Herbie Hancock, in 2008, for River – his tribute to Joni Mitchell.Īfter the week’s big interview, you know the one, David Baddiel astutely tweeted that the fallout is “what happens when an institution that has always relied to some extent on silence has to exist in a world that no longer does silence”. His announcement followed tweets from Zayn Malik, who criticised the awards for allowing “favouritism, racism and networking politics to influence the voting process”.
After being left out, the Weeknd has announced that he will no longer submit his music for their consideration, blaming his exclusion on “secret committees” and a lack of transparency. There were no Grammy nominations this year for the Weeknd, one of the world’s biggest and bestselling pop stars, who headlined the Super Bowl half-time show in February for around 96 million viewers. I t’s shocking, I know, but an awards ceremony with at least 683 distinct categories, which takes roughly four days to get through and almost certainly has a gong for best backing vocals on a rap-classical crossover in the Portuguese language, has again run into trouble amid accusations of an opaque and complex voting system that some artists claim damages the integrity of the process.
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