GRAMMYS 2018 RECAP: #GrammysSoMale?

So, that was...unexpected.

Last night, the 60th Annual Grammy Awards took place in New York, and a lot of people were not happy with the outcome. During the show's broadcast, the only awards given out to female artists were Alessia Cara for Best New Artist and Rihanna (a shared award with Kendrick Lamar for Best Rap/Sung Duo). This morning, #GrammysSoMale was trending on Twitter.

Now, there's a large chance this wasn't an intentional move to exclude female artists, considering this was a voting process by members of the Recording Academy, but what does it say about the collective value of women in the industry? For starters, Lorde was the only female artist nominated for Album of the Year among many viable contenders, but, fair enough. After all, the showdown for the most prestigious prize of the night last year was between two of the biggest female artists in the industry. Interestingly enough, however, Lorde was the only nominee from this group to not be offered a solo spot to perform during the ceremony's broadcast. In addition, a statistic provided by the New York Times stated, "Out of the 899 people nominated in the last six Grammy Awards...only 9 percent were women." Album of the Year was also Lorde's only nomination of the evening, which is odd for someone with an Album of the Year nod.

Ed Sheeran won the award for Best Pop Solo Performance for his hit "Shape of You" in an otherwise all-female category, and his album was generally the most poorly received by critics out of the respective albums with songs nominated in this category. But the award was for the single track, not the whole album, so...alright. But Sheeran then went on to win Best Pop Vocal Album. He wasn't even in attendance at the ceremony.

SZA, who had the most nominations of any female artists this year with a grand total of five, failed to be awarded anything yesterday.

Kendrick Lamar won several awards throughout the night, but this was only to be expected, with DAMN. being one of the year's most praised albums. But even he couldn't best Bruno Mars, who swept the awards for Song, Record, and Album of the Year (and Mars therefore proved me wrong in all my predictions for the big three, sigh). But this was a bit of shocker--24k Magic was a good album, but was it that good? Sure, it referenced a lot of throwback R&B, which the Recording Academy surely loved, and it really is a fun album. A win was deserved. But in every category? There were some brilliant works of art that failed to be recognized, and it becomes obvious when the members seem to be voting with a bias towards their favourite artist in question, rather than for the specific work in question. Mars won for three differentiated works in these categories: "24k Magic" (record), "That's What I Like" (song), and 24k Magic (album). The question is: where does this kind of a bias leave female nominees in a year when there is already a lack of them (the exception to this being the pop categories)?

There were a lot of memorable performances, from Kendrick to Gaga to Rihanna, Bryson Tiller, & DJ Khaled. But unfortunately, this is probably not what this Grammy Awards will go down in history for.

In a response to the "GrammysSoMale" hashtag, the Recording Academy's president said that to be recognized, women need to "step up." This obviously angered a lot of people--as if there wasn't already an abundant of female talent this year that had been flat-out ignored. Even if it wasn't intentional, it shows that they weren't being mindful of women's place in music in a time when the spotlight is shining heavily on gender equality. Even James Corden made a joke about his being one of the least diverse hosts the Recording Academy could have picked. 

It'll be interesting to see how the Grammys responds to this controversy with their nominees roster next year. I have a a sneaking suspicion there will be a lot more women on it.