𝐓𝐥;𝐝𝐫: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐲 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐨𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭. The Grammy Awards for 2021 are presented in a storm of controversy. The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights," arguably the year's most popular album, was entirely ignored in the nominations. Several prominent artists have announced that they will boycott the Grammys because the Recording Academy refuses to consider artists of colour [Beyoncé, the most nominated artist of the night](https://pittnews.com/article/154517/opinions/opinion-awards-shows-are-overrated/) declined to participate. Ignoring these artists prove these awards are over-rated because, once more, they are devaluing their talent The Grammy Awards have recently come under fire due to former Recording Academy President [Deborah Dugan's claims](https://theweek.com/articles/891415/grammys-are-americas-worst-awards-show). Dugan believed that the Grammys' counterpart of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Recording Academy, has an immoral procedure. She believes that if an artist has a friendship with the Recording Academy members, they are more likely to earn a nomination. This suggests that the Recording Academy is more concerned with supporting artists who have a mutually beneficial relationship with them than honouring the best music of the year.

**TL - DR; If your music is not marketable to a large audience or seems too weird, you won't be nominated at the Grammys. The system is pretty rigid and favorites popular artists.** The Grammys are totally overrated. It's kind of odd watching them because they don't have a consistent method for choosing nominations. They try to nominate critically acclaimed albums along with popular albums one year, and then the next year, they go solely with mainstream popular artists and ignore everyone else who had a better album. Even when they try to nominate something closer to critically acclaimed, they always stay within marketable 'safe zone' artists. Some of the most critically acclaimed albums according to [Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/browse/albums/score/metascore/year/filtered?year_selected=2010&distribution=&sort=desc&view=detailed) that had a huge impact and were totally ignored by the Grammys: - (2009) Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon - (2010) Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - (2014) Swans - To Be Kind - (2017) Tyler the Creator - Flower Boy The system is generally pretty arbitrary: If your name is Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Eminem, or Adele, you can more or less guarantee you will be nominated for album of the year even if you have a flop of an album. Even with generally popular genres, there always seems to be some sort of bias against black artists. In the case of Beyoncé, she has been nominated numerous times. It's pretty ridiculous that she still hasn't won; even Adele, who won the album of the year in 2017, claimed Beyonce should've won the award. White rappers are also way more likely to be nominated for album of the year. Both Macklemore and Eminem have been nominated an unusual number of times compared to their African American counterparts. The Grammys would've nominated Macklemore for every single award if they could back in 2014; he even felt bad when he [felt he was stealing awards from Kendrick Lamer](https://www.nme.com/news/music/kendrick-lamar-125-1245066) who in many ways had the superior album that year. You can check out this video, this channel explains the situation pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30KWximi-Ss&t=1s

**TL;DR The Grammy Awards (and award shows in general) are a pretentious display of celebrities showing off and snobbery**. Generally, I think award shows, like the Grammy Awards are silly and pretentious. I do not think it is actually about the music, but rather a glamorous social event for celebrities to feel that they are superior and show off their riches. A recent survey from Huffington post also found that [68% of Americans do not care about award shows either,](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/award-show-poll-no-one-cares_n_56bcc43ae4b0c3c5505055fc?ri18n=true) the poll specifically focused on the Oscars, Grammys and the Emmys. I feel these award shows are not made for the public to celebrate their favourite music, but rather is for celebrities to show off and make a spectacle. Media professionals were also interviewed for their thoughts on the likes of the Grammy awards. Stephanie Marcus labelled award shows as 'awful' and that they are the Hollywood equivalent of running for prom King or Queen. She also called them just 'another form of advertising.' These sentiments seem to be shared by many people. The Grammys are a way for predominantly rich white males to celebrate their successes, whilst profiting from the hundreds of advertisements that they show during the awards. Frankly, the Grammys and many other award shows are outdated, ridiculous and pathetic. It is a snobbery act of celebrities and does not represent the actual views, likes and opinions of the populations. They are completely overrated.