The inevitable downfall of the Grammy awards

The Grammy’s came around again and it was another year of underwhelming results.

Year after year we get the same thing in which the new up and coming artist has a breakout year, everyone isn’t happy with it, and everyone complains.

This year the Grammy’s were slightly unique in the sense the Grammy’s were held in the Staples Center home of the Los Angeles Lakers where former Lakers and NBA legend Kobe Bryant played.

Bryant passed away the morning of The Grammy’s and the Staples Center had to issue a message to everyone to not come to the arena to mourn the loss of a man who not only brought greatness to the team residing there but also had a very large impact on the city of Los Angeles itself. Not a good look if you want to continue hosting the Grammy’s in southern California.

In all fairness though the Grammy’s had some very impressive performances most notably coming from Meek Mill and Roddy Rich in their tribute for the late rapper Nipsey Hussle with their song “Letter to Nipsey.”

It was a very heartfelt performance because initially it would have only been a tribute to Nipsey but with Bryant passing away it became one for him as well, with both icons faces in the background of the entire performance.With all that being said that was the only thing I was interested in the entire six and a half hours of the award show being on.

In today’s society people aren’t interested in sitting there for almost the entire length of a work shift just to see if their favorite artist won an award. Especially when they can go about their business all day and depending on the outcome of the award fans can just get a notification on their phone and continue going on with their business.

These awards mean more to the artists themselves than the fans, and rightfully so. If I was worked hard all year on an album, song, or performance I would want to be rewarded for such hard work, but putting together a whole award show just isn’t worth it anymore.

The Grammy’s hit a new low this year, according to the Nielsen ratings the award show was recorded at 18.7 million views down 1.2 million views from last years ceremony. On YouTube videos of the performances by Tyler the Creator, Demi Lovato, and Billie Eilish alone amassed over 22 million views, and that’s only 3 of the many performances of the night. It’s not just The Grammy’s that are uninteresting its all forms of award shows. We don’t have to sit there for the entirety of the ceremony anymore to find out who won what.

Either award shows need to add something special to them that allows them to stay around, shorten them, or get rid of them all together. Instead of having 18 performances cut it down to 10 or less and only choose people that have the best pitches for their performance.

One performance alone is roughly five minutes. Take away at least eight of those performances and you’ve already cut time down by 40 minutes. You can’t keep the same format of television that has been around since the 60s. You are not going to continue to make money with that mindset, and that is all awards shows are, a money grab.

They have all these celebrities show up in their fancy dresses and have everyone get their pictures taken and they show off to everyone. There’s no real point to this event and it is a dying breed. Turn these ceremonies into a reality TV format. People all the nominees in a room together and announce the winner and let the drama commence.

Tens of millions of people tune into shows like Keeping up with the Kardashian’s and Survivor, and a lot of these shows people don’t even know the contestants and are still intrigued, so imagine drama among their favorite celebrities.