Used to be the airwaves were flooded with CBS touting the stars who were going to appear on the Grammys. Not this year. Because most of the superstars won't commit!
Because they don't need it.
Yes, the script has flipped. Used to be the stars needed the show for exposure. Now the fans of the mostly young acts dominating the Spotify chart (ignore "Billboard," it's manipulated and inaccurate, only for the industry and the sycophantic press that prints it) don't watch network TV. And certainly don't want to sit through commercials. And they know if anything good happens they can watch it subsequently online (assuming CBS allows the clips to be posted on YouTube, which it usually doesn't, meaning you have to go to the network's homepage, which is not one of your usual stops, find the clip, click and watch the ad and...why bother). And the truth is today's acts have a plethora of video online, who needs one more clip?
Artists used to spend a fortune on production (or their labels...) for the show. Now that's a waste of money. We learned that late night TV appearances didn't move the needle, now we know awards shows with their tanking ratings don't either, so why bother to show up!
All this hogwash about the Grammys alienating the artists... Well, it's true, but it's not the main reason the acts aren't appearing, it's just not to their career benefit. Ever try to get an artist to do something? YOU think it's a slam dunk, the good charity, this or that, but it's nearly impossible to get them unless you're personally related/involved. It's their career, they don't see the benefit, and they're all time-challenged, and unless you're paying... Yes, a million and a half is the standard price for a private these days. It's moved up from a million. And true superstars get multiple millions. And you want them to show up for free? Not gonna happen.
I mean if CBS were going to pay the acts...
That ain't in the budget.
As for the budget...that's how the Academy makes their nut every year, through the CBS payment for the show. Do you think CBS is going to continue to lay out big bucks for a show with low ratings that doesn't even feature stars? Well, the term has a while to run, but as for renewal...
So the boys club Recording Academy implodes, and no one there saw it coming, even though everybody outside did.
Women... Corporations are bending over backwards to place and elevate women. What does the Academy do? Hire a woman and fire her, because she wanted change too fast! Do you think the oldsters have forgotten? And the youngsters never cared about the Academy and its bogus awards show anyway. As for the trophy... Who remembers who won? It was all about the appearance. The trophy only matters to those who are niche artists who put it on their resumé. A true star does not display their Grammys, of if they do, they're in the bathroom. You see their fellow artists put them down for it!
But at least music still has true stars. As for film and TV...they're soulless regular people.
It's not like you couldn't see the train coming down the track. Network ratings dropping in general. Young people not listening to terrestrial radio. Streaming being king (whereas the Academy members are all against streaming, I won't even bother to get into the economics, but Spotify allows everyone to see how piss-poor their streams are). Evolve or die. And the Academy and the antique and minor acts dominating it want to live in the past. I bet a bunch of them drive Teslas... How come they can't apply this same thinking to their organization?
And music is inherently organization averse. That's what makes music so powerful, it's the anti. With no inherent criteria. So you break out, throw the rules of society overboard, and then you want to conform and get into bed with these overlords? I don't think so.
It's not only the Grammys. And it's not only awards shows. More then twenty years have gone by since Napster, a whole generation. Young people have no idea what happened in the nineties and before, and they don't care. They don't even have a CD player, never mind buy CDs. Music is plentiful, not scarce. And why would anybody steal music, when for ten bucks a month you can get it all?
Music moves so fast and the self-congratulatory Academy so slow.
I could point out how to try and save it, but why bother, it deserves to die.
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