articles
January 4, 2001
Just How Are Grammy Nominations Decided, Anyway?
by Barbara Fletcher
Just how do Grammy Award nominees get selected? Are artists nominated based on record sales, song
popularity, peer evaluations? And who decides the winners?
When I read over the nominations for this year's Grammy Awards, and saw old-timers Steely Dan, Paul Simon,
and Don Henley on the roster -- not to mention some other strange placements -- I decided to surf to
The Recording Academy Web site to better understand the Grammy Award
nomination and voting process.
I mean, how did Paul McCartney and Fiona Apple snag nominations under Best Alternative Music Album?
The Nomination Process
It all begins with the members of the Recording Academy and the record companies. Both groups
consider recordings that have been produced during the eligibility period -- in this case, from October 1,
1999 to September 30, 2000 -- and submit those "worthy of recognition".
The next step is the screening process. About 150 "experts" are herded into reviewing sessions
to determine if the recordings meet the qualifications. If so, these recordings are then slotted
into appropriate categories such as Rock, Country, Alternative, and Jazz. No judgements regarding
technical or artistic merit are made at this time.
Next comes the actual nominations. Voting members of the Academy are presented with first-round ballots
that list all elegible recordings in all fields (about 100 categories in all). However, members
are instructed to vote only in their area of expertise (and in no more than nine of the 22
fields) as well as in the four general awards: Record of
the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist.
(By the way, the requirement to become a voting member is to have earned creative or technical
credits on six commercially released tracks (or their equivalent). Voting members can therefore include
engineers, producers, and vocalists -- but can also include narrators and album notes writers.)
Once the ballots have been submitted, everything is sent under lock and key to
"independent accounting firm" Deloitte and
Touche for tabulation.
The Voting Process
Now it's time for the second ballot. This time, the ballot contains finalists from "special nominating
committees" (which, by my deductions, involve five categories), and voting members can make final
decisions on the the nominees in the four general categories mentioned above plus up to eight of
the 27 categories.
And once again, when the ballots have been submitted everything is sent under lock and key to
"independent accounting firm" Deloitte and
Touche for tabulation.
Believe it or not, the winners stay under lock and key (in stratgegically sealed envelopes) until
the Grammy Awards presentation ceremony.
And that's pretty much it. I scoured the Web site and was unable to determine just how many of the
16,000 Academy members are eligible to vote. There isn't even a list of the names and
professions of the voting elite, the great Un-named.
Whoever they are, personally, I'd like to know what other "Alternative" albums they have in their
CD player.