The 54th Grammy Awards airs Sunday, and the Recording Academy has declared digital, mobile and social media a focal point of this year's proceedings. With more focus on social media, it's hard not to wonder whether the medium now has any bearing on who wins music's most-coveted trophies.
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Look at the judges from The Voice, a singing contest that became an online powerhouse in 2011, for example. Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton are nominated for Grammys this year. And all four judges boosted their digital activity, particularly on Twitter, to match the show's ambitious social mission.
Up until the current Grammy season, however, Shelton had never been nominated -- unlike the other three judges, who have snagged a combined 11 Grammy Awards. Why then did the Recording Academy give the country crooner a nod this go-around?
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Were Shelton's three nominations for Red River Blue this year based solely on his music, even though for 10 years his previous successful albums went unnoticed by the Recording Academy? Shelton hit the public's radar in 2001 with a popular country single, "Austin," and has since taken home trophies from the American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music, CMT Music Awards and Country Music Association.
Shelton's surprising lack of Grammy nominations before 2012 could be the result of the academy's frequently criticized nomination process in which many artists and albums could arguably be glossed over or missed.
Critics say the amount of recordings that emerge each year is too massive for some of the Grammy voters to listen to and accurately pick winners. As more voting members and artists jump on social media, it theoretically has become easier for them to hear more music as countless links to songs float around the web.
The Voice undoubtedly helped Shelton and his genre-specific music reach a whole new audience on TV, which subsequently attracted a widespread following across social networks.
It's impossible to say whether social media had a direct effect on Shelton's or other artists' nominations or Sunday's forthcoming winners, but there's no doubt that social media couldn't hurt as it makes artists and their music more accessible -- even to the Recording Academy's voting members.
Dear Recording Academy,
Your voting process for the Grammys has noticeable flaws, and it's time for you to revolutionize it in order to better educate voting members.
As it stands, you send a list of recordings to voters, but you don't send them the audio of the recordings for voters to hear. Why not? Right now, you're counting on every voting member to have already listened to or to otherwise find the recordings they haven't heard. This is how artists and albums get glossed over or missed completely.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives DVDs to the people voting for Oscars. You could send Grammy voters CDs of music, too, to ensure a recording doesn't slip through the cracks.
The long-held tradition of distributing only ballots needs to end -- regardless of whether you don't send audio recordings because of piracy fears or cost factors. Don't rely on the voting members to do the extra grunt work; give them the recordings.
?Dear Recording Academy, Online tools exist now for you to easily revamp the way your frequently criticized nomination process works. ... It?s time for you to revolutionize it in order to better educate voting members."
Let's make this simpler for you: Online tools exist now for you to easily revamp the way your frequently criticized nomination process works. Music-streaming services such as Spotify allow you to make playlists that you could share with voters. No postage necessary.Your voting members -- singers, songwriters, engineers, producers, managers and other music industry professionals -- also tend to vote in the categories in which they have expertise, but sometimes they stray and vote in categories in which they have less knowledge. Online playlists or physical copies of the recordings could go a long way to make certain every voting member has a better chance of listening to every song in categories that pique their interest.
Another way to educate voters throughout the year and not only during the nomination process is to create social media news streams for them. Take prestige of the highest and only peer-recognized award in music" by reorganizing the 109 categories in previous years down to a more manageable 78 categories for 2012.
You've improved the online experience for viewers and Grammy fans enormously in the past three years. Now look in the mirror and try to embrace new technologies and social media internally for the sake of a richer end result. In the future, you should continue evolving the awards process by using social media and technology to help voting members cast the most-educated votes possible.
Photo from The Voice
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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