Hey guys,
The Grammies are an award given out by the record INDUSTRY, not some
aesthetic minded organization. Awards nearly always have more to do
with how an album affected the Industry, rather than artistic merit.
In this way they're not unlike the Oscars.
The Oscars however, do have rules about who gets to vote in many of
the comparatively esoteric categories. In the Grammies this MAY be
the case for some of the technical awards, but for all of the awards
to best artists and recordings in all categories, EVERY member of (I
think it's) NARAS is eligible to vote.
So, especially in categories like jazz and classical musics, with
which a VERY small proportion of the voting members are familiar,
awards tend to go to artists & recordings with VERY familiar names
and have VERY little to do with the relative artistic merit of the
nominees.
You can, of course, complain all you want, but it's (perhaps even)
more pointless than complaining about, say, the Oscar for best
foreign-language film, for which the nomination process is SO screwed
up that it's a miracle when half-way decent films are nominated, let
alone winners, in the category.
Bests,
Herb
