The Grammys has been an annual tradition in the music industry, used as a means to celebrate the accomplishments of many top artists. However, it seems that each year more and more people criticize and question the legitimacy of the Grammys, stemming from the disliking towards the performances, winners, categorization of awards, and much more. Even artists, such as Eminem, criticized the awards show in the past, with The Weeknd even going as far as to boycott it. With the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards being held just this past Sunday, the tradition of celebrities and the public openly showing disapproval towards the Grammys continues, with many people taking to various social media sites to voice their opinions.  

When typing the words “Why the Grammys” into the Google search bar, the first autofill suggestions to pop up are things such as “Why the Grammys are a joke”, “Why the Grammys are corrupt”, “Why the Grammys are rigged”, and other statements that have the same negative sentiment. This type of attitude has been seen for a long time now, but why? Well, to start off, the biggest reason people hold such a grudge against the awards is due to some of the winners that have been selected in the past. One of the most infamous and controversial winners that I can remember, is when Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ album The Heist won the award for the Best Rap Album over Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, during the 2014 Grammy Awards. This win caused a lot of controversy amongst music fans, with Macklemore himself even saying that he was conflicted about winning the award. Other projects and artists seen as not being awarded properly include Prince’s album 1999 not even being nominated for Album of the Year during the 1984 Grammy Awards, Beyonce’s Lemonade losing to Adele’s 25, Maroon 5 winning Best New Artist over Kanye West in 2005, and countless other examples. These questionable selections have caused many people to have a disliking towards the Grammys.  

Along with the various snubs that have taken place of the years, multiple other reasons have played into the perception of the downfall of the Grammys. The show taking a “marketing first” mentality has attributed to much of this, with some categories not even being televised in favor of the more mainstream artists and genres. The NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences), who chooses the nominees and winners, consistently seems to make their choices with the artists’ sales being what is taken most into consideration. While artists usually have good sales for a reason, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their song or album is 100 percent worthy of winning an award. With awards being favored to the most mainstream artists for marketing purposes, many believe that the Grammy Awards don’t even mean much, with Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam famously saying in his 1996 acceptance speech for Best Hard Rock Performance, “I don’t know what this means…I don’t think it means anything”. 

A final big reason on why the Grammys isn’t well liked anymore, is that some of the categorization isn’t correct, or doesn’t make much sense. When Tyler the Creator’s album IGOR won the award for Best Rap Album, he was conflicted on the win, due to the album not being considered rap by both him and his fans. Tyler later said, after the win, that he felt he was just put into the rap category due to the color of his skin, and not the actual music. Also, Justin Bieber stated that his album Changes should not have been in the pop category for the 2021 Grammy Awards, stating that he “…set out to make an R&B album”, on Twitter. The Grammys also have taken away multiple award categories designed for smaller artists and genres, especially in 2012, when the number of categories was dropped to 78, from the previous 109. This further shows that the Grammys cares less about smaller categories, and categorizing correctly, and more about marketing.  

The reasons stated above, plus many others, have brought a huge downfall of the public’s opinions on the Grammys, with the fallout being seen in the ceremony that happened this past Sunday. The recent 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, hosted by comedian Trevor Noah, showed a 53 percent drop in viewers, hitting a record low 8.8 million people watching, according to The Washington Post. This year’s Grammys also kept up with the previous years on stirring up controversy, most notably with the Weeknd’s hit single “Blinding Lights”, and his album After Hours, not even being nominated by the NARAS. Seeing this big hit in viewership and the continuation of the typical turmoil surrounding the show, the question of if the Grammys will ever become respected by the public remains unanswered. Hopefully, we will soon see successful changes being made to bring respect to the Grammys, and meaning to the awards that are given out to artists.