If Kanye West’s Donda or Justin Bieber’s Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe) wins album of the year at the 64th annual Grammy Awards on April 3, the Recording Academy will be handing out more than 100 golden gramophones in that one category alone.
As you can see from the Academy’s updated nominations list, 77 songwriters on Donda are in line to win Grammys, more than on any other album of the year contender. Donda also employed more producers (41) and featured artists (29) than any of the other album of the year nominees. It employed 19 engineer/mixers, the third-highest total of any of the nominated albums. (You can’t simply add those numbers up to get a grand total, because some people served in multiple capacities on the album, yet are in line to receive just one Grammy should the album win.)
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The numbers on Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe) are nearly as eye-popping. The album employed 73 songwriters, 32 producers, 19 engineer/mixers and 14 featured artists. (Again, some people served in multiple capacities on the album.)
As a result, a record-setting number of people may go home with a trophy if one of those albums, or such other nominees as H.E.R.’s Back of My Mind, Doja Cat’s Planet Her (Deluxe) or Lil Nas X’s Montero, wins on Grammy night.
Why are the Grammys being so generous?
It all stems from a rule change the Recording Academy announced on May 26: “Moving forward, all credited artists (including featured artists), songwriters of new material, producers, recording engineers, mixers, and mastering engineers are eligible to be Grammy nominees and recipients in the album of the year category. Previously, the rule stated that all artists, songwriters, producers, recording engineers, mixers, and mastering engineers were required to be credited with at least 33 percent or more of playing time.”
The impulse at the Recording Academy to be generous is easy to understand. The albums with very large numbers of participants tend to come from hip-hop and contemporary R&B, a community that has felt undervalued and disrespected at the Grammys over the years. No hip-hop or contemporary R&B album has won album of year since OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below 18 years ago.
So the Academy is bending over backward here to be inclusive. They’d rather send a letter of congratulations than one expressing regret that someone didn’t meet the standard.
But by throwing the gates open to all participants on an album, no matter how minor their contribution, the Academy is in danger of devaluing the Grammy — especially in what has long been seen as its most prestigious category.
It will be very interesting to see if the Academy amends this rule at its annual trustees meeting in May. The trustees may decide there needs to be some “floor” in place, if not 33%, perhaps 20%. Or it may decide that it likes making friends, especially in the hip-hop world, where it has long seemed to make enemies — even if that means the nominations list for album of the year is absurdly long.
The Recording Academy didn’t always dole out Grammys like Halloween candy. From 1958, the year of the first Grammys, through 1964, just the artist won when an album won album of the year. In 1965, the Academy started also awarding producers for album of the year, but in the ‘60s and ‘70s, just one producer usually worked on an entire album.
As late as 1997, just two trophies were awarded for album of the year. Bob Dylan won as the performing artist on Time Out of Mind. Daniel Lanois won as the producer. (Songwriters and featured artists weren’t eligible to win album of the year back then, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. Dylan wrote all of the songs on the album, including the modern classic “Make You Feel My Love,” by himself. And the album didn’t have any featured artists.)
The following year, the Academy started expanding the scope of who would win for album of the year. They started awarding engineer/mixers in 1998, mastering engineers in 2001, featured artists in 2007, and songwriters in 2017.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is much stricter about eligibility. Here are their current rules about eligibility for best original score: “No more than one statuette will normally be given in the original score category. A second statuette may be awarded when two credited composers function as equal collaborators, each contributing fully to the original dramatic underscore for the film.
“In cases where three or more credited composers function as equal collaborators, a single statuette may be awarded to the group. Each composer must agree to the single ‘group statuette’ option by signing and returning a group award form prior to the submission deadline. Final determination of the awardable composers in the group will be made by the music branch executive committee.”
At the 93rd annual Academy Awards in April, the winners for best original score were Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste, for Soul. It marked the first time that three composers had collaborated on a winning score since Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne and Cong Su shared the 1987 award for The Last Emperor.
Remarkably, Reznor, Ross and Batiste share one statuette. According to an Academy spokesperson, “Since all three were nominated and won they signed a group award form which awarded them one single award that they all share.”
Just as the Grammys are being too lenient, this is too strict. To be fair, it’s hard to strike the right balance. Situations present themselves where a rule that seemed perfectly reasonable on paper just doesn’t feel right in practice.
It will be interesting to see if the motion picture academy tweaks this rule in light of the Soul episode.
Here’s their rule regarding their other music award, best original song: “No more than two statuettes will normally be given in the original song category. A third statuette may be awarded when there are three essentially equal writers of a song. The music branch executive committee has the right, in what it alone determines to be a very rare and extraordinary circumstance, to award a fourth statuette.
“In cases where five or more credited songwriters function as collaborators, a single statuette may be awarded to the group. Each songwriter must agree to the single ‘group statuette’ option by signing and returning a group award form prior to the submission deadline. Final determination of the awardable songwriters in the group will be made by the music branch executive committee.”
There has never been a best original song winner with five or more co-writers. There have been two with four co-writers. Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt co-wrote “Shallow” from A Star Is Born, the winner three years ago. Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, Christopher Cross and Peter Allen shared the 1981 award for co-writing “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” from Arthur.
Allen wasn’t an active participant in the writing of that song. Sager had borrowed a line of his from an old “trunk song” (an unpublished song) that she and Allen had co-written – “when you get caught between the moon and New York City.” It was by far the most memorable and quotable line in “Arthur’s Theme.” Should a situation like that arise again, the Academy would have to decide whether that contribution qualifies, but the new, stricter Academy doesn’t seem inclined to go along with it.
Going back to the Grammys, if Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever wins album of the year, just five people will win Grammys: Eilish; Finneas, her brother, producer and songwriting partner; Rob Kinelski, who teamed with them to engineer and mix the album; and John Greenham and Dave Kutch, who served as mastering engineers.
If Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga’s Love for Sale or Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour wins, the number of Grammys dispensed would also be quite reasonable – just seven in each case.
The number of potential winners in two other Big Four categories also varies greatly, depending on who wins.
If Rodrigo’s “drivers license” or Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever” wins record of the year, the Academy will need just four Grammys (in either case) for all of eligible participants to take home a Grammy. By contrast, if Doja Cat featuring SZA’s “Kiss Me More” wins, they’ll need 10.
If “drivers license” or “Happier Than Ever” wins song of the year, the Academy will need just two Grammys (in either case) for all the nominated songwriters to be honored. But if Bieber’s “Peaches” (featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon) wins song of the year, the Academy will need 11 Grammys for all of the nominated songwriters to be covered. (That’s a new Grammy record for most songwriters on a song of the year nominee).
Here are this year’s album of the year nominees listed by the number of nominated professionals in each of four categories:
Songwriters
77 – Kanye West, Donda
73 – Justin Bieber, Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe)
51 – H.E.R., Back of My Mind
35 – Doja Cat, Planet Her (Deluxe)
24 – Lil Nas X, Montero
12 – Jon Batiste, We Are
6 – Taylor Swift, Evermore
3 – Olivia Rodrigo, Sour
2 – Billie Eililsh, Happier Than Ever
0 – Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga, Love for Sale (the songs are all vintage Cole Porter songs. Only songwriters of newly-written material are eligible)
Producers
41 – Donda
32 – Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe)
28 – Back of My Mind
19 – Planet Her (Deluxe)
16 – Montero
12 – We Are
4 – Evermore
3 – Sour
1 – Happier Than Ever
1 – Love for Sale
Engineer/mixers
29 – Evermore
21 – Back of My Mind
19 – Donda
19 – Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe)
17 – Montero
13 – We Are
10 – Planet Her (Deluxe)
3 – Happier Than Ever
3 – Love for Sale
3 – Sour
Featured artists:
29 – Donda
14 – Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe)
11 – We Are
9 – Back of My Mind
7 – Planet Her (Deluxe)
5 – Montero
3 – Evermore
0 – Happier Than Ever
0 – Love for Sale
0 – Sour
Note: The Academy also awards Grammys to mastering engineers for album (and record) of the year, but the number of mastering engineers doesn’t range much from album to album, from a low of one to a high of three among this year’s album of the year nominees.
