Recording Academy Consolidates Grammys

Fewer In Number

The RECORDING ACADEMY has downsized the number of GRAMMYS it will award next year. In what the L.A. TIMES describes as "a massive overhaul of its categories and voting process," last year's 109 categories have been cut or consolidated to 78 for this year.

Nevertheless, RECORDING ACADEMY Pres./CEO NEIL PORTNOW insisted that "The message isn't anything about cutting;" rather that the recent growth in categories "springs from a tradition of honoring specific genres and/or sub-genres within a field, and it has basically been approached one category at a time without a current overall guiding vision and without consistency across the various genre fields."

Among the changes:

* "Best Contemporary R&B album" is going to be absorbed into "Best R&B album."
* "Best Rap performance by a duo or group" has been streamlined to "Best rap performance.
* Seven Latin categories have been condensed to four.
* Nine categories in The American roots music field have been trimmed to five. * The "Best Male Pop " and "Best Female Pop" vocal performance categories are being combined.
* "Best Rock instrumental performance" and "Best Rock solo vocal performance" can now be found in "Best Rock performance."

« see more Net News