The Grammy Awards are considered one of the most prestigious awards a musician can receive in the music industry. However, throughout the past couple years, the prestige surrounding the award has been doubted, due to questionable recipients, and lack of actual candidates, winning the award. The Recording Academy, the musical company in charge of the Grammys Awards, has also found themselves in a lot of questionable and immoral situations throughout 2020, which only adds to invalidness that the Grammy Awards should hold. The Recording Academy is not a company in which the public should trust and be giving validity to, which also makes the Grammy Awards’ importance close to nothing.

When the Grammy Nominations for 2021 were announced, many music fans found themselves in a state of surprise due to their favorite bands and artists of the year being shown no representation in the nominations list.  While some artists, such as Taylor Swift and Post Malone, did receive many due nominations, many other influential artists did not, the most surprising of which is the Korean boy band BTS, who had shown to smash all previous records in their history in 2020. According to ChartData, their album, MAP OF THE SOUL: 7, was the second best selling album of 2020. Their song, Dynamite, has also sold over 2 million pure copies in 2020 alone. Despite these achievements, BTS only received their first nomination this year in the category “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance”. 

Another musical artist that got snubbed by the 2021 Grammys Nominations was Halsey, whose album, Maniac, instantly peaked at the number two spot on the Billboard 200.. Manic also was the first album of 2020 to be certified platinum. Who else would deserve nominations, if not these artists? With the lack of representation within the biggest musical artists and influences of 2020, we can only conclude that there must be other bias involved in the nomination selection process. 

In addition, the Recording Academy didn’t have the cleanest track record this year. In the start of 2020, the then CEO, Deborah Dugan, was placed on administrative leave, then eventually fired soon afterwards. She was replaced with Harvey Mason Jr. due to the claimed “misconduct”. However, Dugan’s response was quite contradictory to the claims made by the Recording Academy. Dugan stated that in the Recording Academy, there were multiple instances of misconduct and unjust methods in the Grammys voting procedures. She described it as a “boys club mentality”, with heavy bias and favoritism towards certain artists. In addition, Dugan also claims that there were many instances of sexual harassment and rape in the Recording Acadamey’s executives. How are we supposed to, in any way, trust the Recording Academy when they have illegal and immoral actions occurring at the highest levels of position? By letting these allegations slip through the cracks, who knows what else they are allowing to go unnoticed and not acted upon?

In response to the situation, Bill Freimuth, the chief awards officer at the Recording Academy, stated that the Grammys voting members make their choices based solely on the artistic excellence and technical merits of eligible recordings. He also states that “independent investigations” found the sexual harrasment and rape allegations false. These independent investigations have not been named or credited, making it extremely difficult to believe. Hiding these investigations adds more suspicion to what actually occurred, painting an even worse image. With loose responses and vague claims, the Recording Academy brushed off the allegations despite their seriousness. This reveals a trend of unethical behavior in the Recording Academy, which is not something the public can trust. We should not place the Grammy Awards in such high prestige if the company that runs it is heavily laced with bias and possibly engages in illegal activity.

With no evidence or proof to protect themselves, it is only safe to assume that the 2021 Grammys Nominations, and any further Nominations, should not be held in any ounce of respect by the public. The Recording Company and its questionable nominations make it clear that the Grammys were never meant to reward actual talent, and should therefore not be trusted.