Yahoo Finance Recording Academy CEO on Grammy Awards: 'We're here to honor excellence in music, but we're also here with a purpose.'
The 65th Annual Grammy Awards will be held this Sunday, Feb. 5, back at their home base in Los Angeles to celebrate the music industry's biggest night.
But while all eyes are on the nominations, the trophies, the performances, and the glitz and glam, the show is a major source of revenue for the Recording Academy, which puts on the Grammy’s, to raise money to help challenges facing the music community.
"We're here to honor excellence in music, but we're also here with a purpose. Our show allows us to bring in revenue so that we can then advocate for music people and figure out what is fair for ticketing, what is fair for streaming, what are the things that we can be doing to help serve music people,” Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, told Yahoo Finance.
One of the biggest questions facing the music industry is how to compensate artists, Mason says, and the Academy is working on how to get creators better compensated.
Disruptors and streaming music sites like Spotify and now Apple Music, Amazon, and Google have given musicians more access than ever to fans and consumers, offering more opportunity for discovering new music, said Mason. With streaming there’s also less "gatekeeping" and an opportunity to get music to market faster, Mason said.
Mason, a Grammy-nominated music producer himself who has produced for music legends from Aretha Franklin to Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake, says it will take more conversation and dialogue with streamers and different DSPs he calls partners of the music industry. He also said it could require legislation from Congress.
“The question is, how do we come to a fair solution around the economics of songwriters, performers, labels, publishers, independent artists, DIY artists?” Mason said. “All these different buckets need to be addressed. I think it's really going to come down to having meaningful and hopefully constructive productive dialogue with the [Digital Service Providers] and it probably will include the legislators.”
New genres, more diversity
Another area Mason is focused on: the future of genres.
For the first time in the history of the Academy, an all Spanish-language album is up for Album of the Year, with Bad Bunny's "Un Verano Sin Ti."
“I think that's going to be the future of music is how do you evaluate different genres? How do you program playlists or other forms of consumption based on genres?” Mason said.
One of the other biggest goals for Mason has been increasing diversity at the Academy and the Grammy’s. This year, nominations and membership are the most diverse ever.
Nearly half of this year's leading nominees are women and more than half are people of color.
"Inclusion and equity make sense," said Mason. "It's not performative. It's not because we think it sounds good or it's a cool buzzword. It's because greatness comes when different people from all different experiences and all different backgrounds come together, whether that's to make decisions, to make music, or make a TV show. It makes sense when you reach out to other groups, invite people in and you listen, learn and collaborate."
The University of Southern California found that credits for women in pop have essentially remained flat over ten years starting from 2020. Just 23.3% of the credited artists among the top 100 songs over that period were women.
But this year, more than half of the songs nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year are by solo female artists, while half of the albums nominated for Album of the Year are by solo female artists.
In addition to female artists, Mason says there's still more work to do for racial diversity in the Academy and increasing representation for Black artists. "We know 34% of music created and consumed is Black music, so we need to make sure we're reflecting that and we need to do the same with women voters in our organization," he said.
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