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Opinion | The Art of Snubbing: Should We Abolish the Grammys?
- Alex Tran
- 6 days ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Written By Alex Tran | Oct. 25th, 2025
Stan wars are commonplace on all social media platforms, notoriously on X and TikTok. Fans go head-to-head with each other via comments and quote retweets about which celebrity has the better discography, more popularity or cultural impact, assuming the role of unofficial spokesperson for their favorite celebrity.
Amongst the chaos, one thing can be agreed on across numerous fandoms: Award ceremonies like the Grammys are inadequately recognizing artists and their work. Whether it is Ariana Grande's lack of nominations for her commercially successful “eternal sunshine” or Beyoncé’s long-awaited historic Album Of The Year (AOTY) win for “Cowboy Carter,” positive public opinion of the Grammys has been declining.
From corrupt voting practices1 to the underrepresentation of artists of color2, online discourse3 has emerged about the importance and continuation of the Grammys, like when a Reddit user on r/popheads4 sparked a 230-reply thread after questioning the relevancy of the Grammys. One glance at the Grammys’ track record shows a clear answer: abolition.
Bribery, Bad Reputation and Scandals
The Recording Academy, who present the Grammys, has faced scrutiny and lawsuits over the years for using an anonymous voting committee to decide nominations and winners.
Deborah Dugan, a former Recording Academy president and successor of former Academy president Neil Portnow, outlined in a legal complaint5 about the alleged corrupt voting practices: “The Board uses these committees as an opportunity to push forward artists with whom they have relationships… to end up receiving nominations.” Dugan was originally brought onto the Recording Academy to “change the culture behind the Grammy awards,” after allegations of sexual misconduct against Portnow came to light. However, Dugan faced mounting allegations of creating an “abusive work environment” by the academy, according to NPR6. Despite both sides denying the allegations, the academy settled7 with Dugan.
Celebrities like Abel Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd, spoke openly to The New York Times8 about his disdain for the anonymous voters, leading to his boycott of the Academy, “Because of the secret committees… I will no longer allow my label to submit my music to the Grammys”.
Zayn Malik, another notable musician, called out the process of spending obscene amounts of money on lavish gifts in a tweet posted on X9, “F–k the Grammys and everyone associated. Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations.” While the accusations are speculative, these accusations still raised enough concerns about the ethics of the Grammys.
On April 30, 2021, after the major backlash from several high-profile celebrities, the anonymous committee was dissolved by the Recording Academy, according to the New York Times10. Instead, the Grammys voting process11 has been replaced by voters with “creative and technical processes of recording.” Furthermore, the Grammys’ voting and solicitation guidelines12 more clearly outline the constraints and policies about gifting for a nomination.
Despite the Grammys’ efforts to become more open about their awarding process, it did not prevent them from online scrutiny during the 2025 award cycle.
The Voters: What’s wrong with them?
Voters’ opinion can easily be swayed by implicit biases like racism, misogyny, homophobia and ageism that contribute to whether a voter would consider a celebrity worthy of an award. The most recent award cycle demonstrates the challenges that still need to be overcome in the recording industry.
“Wicked” actress Cynthia Erivo lost her nomination for best lead actress to Mikey Madison, the star of Oscar-winning “Anora.” While both are incredibly talented, an interview conducted by Indiewire13 with an anonymous voter highlighted the potential biases that play a role when it comes to voters: “Cynthia Erivo was actually too old for Wicked...”
The voters at the Grammys also faced similar backlash, especially for artists of color like Beyoncé, who, despite recently winning AOTY with “Cowboy Carter” and being the most awarded Grammy recipient, took eight studio albums to win the treasured AOTY. Her album “Lemonade,” which earned nine nominations in 2017, received substantial critical acclaim, ranked recently at number ten on Apple Music’s14 top 100 albums of all time. However, she lost to Adele’s “25,” another popular album at the time. The longevity and cultural impact of tracks like “Freedom,” a song recently featured on Kamala Harris's presidential campaign15, suggest the question of how Beyoncé lost the AOTY category. While the focus has been on Beyoncé, other artists of color have faced similar treatment, like SZA, Tyler, the Creator, The Weeknd and more.
The discrepancy between the Recording Academy and the artists it votes on is alarming. According to the Associated Press16, the most recent demographics of the Recording Academy voting board show 66% are men, 49% white and 66% over the age of 40. In contrast, around 61%17 of artists on the Billboard Hot 100 are artists of color, and around 41%17 are women. While anyone can empathize with the message behind an album, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand the gravity of Black and Brown artists' experiences as someone outside the community.
Scammy or Grammy, Who Actually Wins and Benefits?
The Grammys’ entire 65-year history has produced some alarming statistics. Since the writing of this article, only 12 black artists18 have won the coveted AOTY award, with only four19 being black women. Meanwhile, you have artists like Taylor Swift winning AOTY four separate times.
Comparatively, Latin artists have also been making strides on the music charts, with Karol G, Kali Uchis and Rauw Alejandro breaking records for the Latin community. Despite this, Bad Bunny has been the only Spanish-speaking artist to be nominated for AOTY in 2022. In an interview with Variety20, Bad Bunny took the loss not as a moment of discouragement, but to highlight an important issue with the Recording Academy: “Maybe they weren’t ready for a Spanish-language album to win the big prize…”
Moreover, Korean pop, commonly referred to as K-pop, has been on the rise with little recognition by the academy. According to the Korean Herald21, only BTS, a Korean boy group, has received a nomination from the Grammys. The lack of acknowledgement of Asian American achievements in Western contexts demonstrates the challenges that still need to be overcome, on top of the current challenges with Latin and Black artists.
There has also been criticism from Black artists about whether their music, despite not being traditionally rap, gets mislabelled or thrown in the “urban” category. Tyler, The Creator22, pointed this out when he won rap album of the year in 2020, “It sucks that whenever we — and I mean guys that look like me — do anything that’s genre-bending…they always put it in a rap or urban category. I don’t like that ‘urban’ word — it’s just a politically correct way to say the n-word to me.” While Black artists appreciate the recognition for their work, not defining their music in the proper categories demonstrates the racial biases in the music industry.
An album’s nomination, especially for the big categories like AOTY, is contingent on the album’s marketability, publicity and retention of importance, all of which are tied to whether a record label even wants to promote an artist. Even well-known, non-marginalized artists Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish struggle to secure a nomination.
The struggle intensifies for smaller, independent artists, who face challenges in achieving mass marketing and longevity in a world of streaming and constant music releases by larger artists, often leading to their work being overlooked in the grand scheme of the music world. While all recipients are incredibly talented, the music industry has been dominated by people of color, but their works never seem to be commemorated with the same rigor.
What is the Solution?
Proposed solutions to fix the Grammys and other award ceremonies need to honor the ceremonies' sanctity and prestigious nature, while ensuring that the audiences can still have invested interest and confidence in the ceremony process. The amendments made back in 2021 have not accounted for the impact of streaming, nor the parasocial relationships many fans have developed with their favorite celebrity.
A solution, implemented by other award ceremonies like Eurovision and Kids’ Choice Awards, is displaying an audience pick. Simply acknowledging the audience would engage with those die-hard fans who want to give their artist the recognition they deserve. Also, posting an article on the official Grammys page explaining their choices for the big categories, like AOTY, would clarify why an artist earned their spot, like when Jon Batiste won back in 2022, someone relatively under the radar compared to the other nominees that Grammy cycle, like Doja Cat, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo.
Another interesting solution, proposed by Reddit user ZealousidealVirus35823, involves splitting the AOTY award, similar to the current model of record versus song of the year. Splitting the award would honor two artists who contributed immensely to the music culture that year, while still earning the title of AOTY. While the execution of a divided AOTY is still unknown, the concept is interesting and demonstrates that multiple albums can play a powerful influence in an era of streaming.
The Future of the Grammys
Music is always being pushed in different directions, some of which have led to different music genres outside of pop, like electronic or reggaeton, gaining traction and the attention it deserves. But the Academy seems to be rewarding those who are capable of reproducing music that appeals to a majority-white audience.
The Grammys deserve to be abolished. The Recording Academy was built to uplift artists to a new level of status, but the artists it chooses to elevate do not reflect the current trends in music, like the rise in K-pop24 and reggaeton25. Furthermore, it feels like the Grammys have been following trends, rather than looking for innovative, well-crafted work, like Charli XCX, who, despite earning her first Grammy this award cycle, was already making a name for herself in the industry with records like “Break the Rules” and “Boom Clap” back in 2014.
The music world has changed drastically since the creation of the Grammys back in 1959. Social media and digital streaming services uplift artists and give the opportunity for smaller artists, who used to rely intensely on record labels and the academy, to make a name for themselves. While the academy can solidify an artist into history, millions of fans are already making that history happen through the internet.
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