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      Christine Farnon, ‘Guiding Light’ of the Grammys, Dies at 97

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      Present at the creation, she guarded the awards’ independence and integrity but “never received the recognition she deserves,” one record producer wrote.Christine Farnon, a quiet force behind the Grammy Awards who was credited with shepherding the event from a private black-tie affair to a telecast seen by tens of millions, died on Oct. 24 in Los Angeles. She was 97.The death was confirmed by her daughter, Joanna Shipley.The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which hosts the Grammys, was conceived partly in Ms. Farnon’s kitchen in Hollywood Hills. That was one place where her husband, Dennis Farnon, a musician who became a music producer and record executive at Capitol and RCA Records, met with other musicians and music executives in founding the Recording Academy. While they deliberated, Ms. Farnon took notes.She was eventually promoted from unpaid volunteer to paid staff member, the first, and from local to national executive. She organized the first Grammy ceremony, on May 4, 1959, which included a black-tie dinner with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin at the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. She remained with the organization until 1992.The Recording Academy is the music industry equivalent of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which puts on the Oscars, and it similarly performs a number of professional functions. But it’s best known for its annual awards ceremony.Bill Ivey, who held high-level positions with the Recording Academy, including president, for more than 20 years, and who later ran the National Endowment for the Arts, said in a phone interview that the Recording Academy’s history could be defined by a division into “two eras.” There was Ms. Farnon’s tenure, when the Grammys were a fledgling event, and there was everything that came afterward, with the Grammys now the music industry standard for achievement.In the early years, “Chris was the person who internalized the values of an artist-driven academy and created a set of rules that were applied vigorously,” Mr. Ivey said.She ensured that voting privileges for Grammy Awards were restricted to those who had substantial credits as musicians, and that the same criteria were applied to presenters of the awards on TV. To honor all nominees, she fought successfully for the presenters to say, “The Grammy goes to…,” and not, “The winner is…,” arguing that the former phrase better captured excellence among equals.Ms. Farnon was just as watchful about how Grammys were used outside the ceremony itself. She scrutinized the backgrounds of movie scenes for any unauthorized appearances of Grammy trophies. When she heard that Willie Nelson was in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, she made sure that he knew that his Grammy trophies were technically owned by the Recording Academy and thus could not be seized as his. Mr. Nelson kept his trophies, Mr. Ivey said.As the Grammys became more prominent, record companies and television producers sought to exert greater influence on the awards show, but Ms. Farnon stood firm in trying to protect the Grammys’ independence.“She built an asset that was incredibly valued because it was very legitimate,” Mr. Ivey said. “It was the kind of leadership that succeeded by tapping the brakes more than by pushing on the throttle.”Pierre Cossette, the producer who first persuaded television executives to broadcast the Grammys, described Ms. Farnon similarly in a 2003 memoir, “Another Day in Showbiz,” writing, “Christine has never received the recognition she deserves for everything she did to make the Grammy Awards show the huge success that it has become.”Toward the end of her tenure, in 1984, the Grammys attracted its largest-ever audience, more than 51 million viewers, according to Billboard.When she retired, Ms. Farnon became the first woman to receive a Trustees Award, the highest honor the ceremony bestowed on non-performers. A tribute to her in the program book for that year’s ceremony was titled “The Recording Academy’s Guiding Light.”Christine Helen Miller was born on June 24, 1925, in Chicago. Her father, John, was a businessman, and her mother, Caroline (Caspar) Miller, was a homemaker.The family moved to Los Angeles when Christine was a teenager. She graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1941 and attended a public business school in the city.She and Mr. Farnon divorced in 1960. Her daughter is her sole survivor.When she received the Trustees Award, Ms. Farnon retained her characteristic modesty.“I thank God for staying so close to this wonderful organization through the years,” she said, “and for being such a good listener.” More

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      California Bill Could Restrict the Use of Rap Lyrics in Court

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      The bill, which applies more broadly to other forms of creative expression, has unanimously passed the Senate and Assembly and could become law by the end of September.A California bill that would restrict the use of rap lyrics and other creative works as evidence in criminal proceedings has unanimously passed both the State Senate and Assembly, and could soon be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.The bill, introduced in February by Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat who represents South Los Angeles, comes amid national attention on the practice following the indictment of the Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Gunna on gang-related charges. Prosecutors have drawn on the men’s lyrics in making their case.The California measure, however, would apply more broadly to any creative works, including other types of music, poetry, film, dance, performance art, visual art and novels.“What you write could ultimately be used against you, and that could inhibit creative expression,” Mr. Jones-Sawyer said Wednesday in an interview. He noted that the bill ultimately boiled down to a question of First Amendment rights.“This is America,” he said. “You should be able to have that creativity.”Mr. Newsom has until Sep. 30 to sign the bill into law. If he neither signs nor vetoes the bill by that date, the measure would automatically become law. The law would then go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023, Mr. Jones-Sawyer said.When asked whether Mr. Newsom planned to sign the bill, his office said that it could not comment on pending legislation. “As will all measures that reach the governor’s desk, it will be evaluated on its merits,” it said.Though the bill’s genesis is in preventing rap stars’ lyrics from being weaponized against them, the measure loosely defines “creative expression” to include “forms, sounds, words, movements, or symbols.”It would require a court to evaluate whether such works can be included as evidence by weighing their “probative value” in the case against the “substantial danger of undue prejudice” that might result from including them. The court should consider the possibility that such works could be treated as “evidence of the defendant’s propensity for violence or criminal disposition, as well as the possibility that the evidence will inject racial bias into the proceedings,” the bill says.“People were going to jail merely because of their appearance,” Mr. Jones-Sawyer said. “We weren’t trying to get people off the hook. We’re just making sure that biases, especially racial biases toward African Americans, weren’t used against them in a court of law.”The bill would require that decisions about the evidence be made pretrial, out of the presence of a jury. For decades, prosecutors have used rappers’ lyrics against them even as their music has become mainstream, with critics and fans arguing that the artists should be given the same freedom to explore violence in their work as were musicians like Johnny Cash (did he really shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die?) or authors like Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote “American Psycho.”In other cases, though lyrics were not used as evidence, they were discussed in front of the jury, which “poisoned the well” by allowing bias to enter the court, according to Mr. Jones-Sawyer’s office. It also noted that while country music has a subgenre known as the “murder ballad,” it is only the lyrics of rap artists that have been singled out.Charis E. Kubrin, a professor of criminology, law and society at the University of California, Irvine, who has extensively researched the use of rap lyrics in criminal proceedings, said that the way prosecutors have used defendant-authored lyrics in court was unique to rap.The practice, she said, essentially treated the lyrics as “nothing more than autobiographical accounts — denying rap the status of art.” The California bill is significant, Dr. Kubrin said, because it would require judges to consider whether the lyrics would inject racial bias into proceedings. “This is bigger than rap,” she said.Among the first notable times the tactic was used was against the rapper Snoop Dogg at his 1996 murder trial, when prosecutors cited lyrics from “Murder Was the Case.” The rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, was acquitted.Snoop Dogg entering a Los Angeles court in 1996, where a prosecutor cited his lyrics during a murder trial. He was acquitted.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressMost recently, the charges against Young Thug and Gunna have called national attention to the tactic. Both men, who have said they are innocent, were identified as members of a criminal street gang, some of whom were charged with violent crimes including murder and attempted armed robbery.Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, co-wrote the Grammy-winning “This is America” with Childish Gambino and is one of the most influential artists to emerge from Atlanta’s hip-hop scene.In November, two New York lawmakers introduced a similar bill that would prevent lyrics from being used as evidence in criminal cases unless there was a “factual nexus between the creative expression and the facts of the case.” It passed the Senate in May.In July, U.S. Representatives Hank Johnson of Georgia and Jamaal Bowman of New York, both Democrats, introduced federal legislation, the Restoring Artistic Protection Act, which they said would protect artists from “the wrongful use of their lyrics against them.”The California bill is supported by several other music organizations and activist groups, including the Black Music Action Coalition California, the Public Defenders Association and Smart Justice California, which advocates criminal justice reform.In a statement of support from June, the Black Music Action Coalition, an advocacy organization that battles systemic racism in the music business, said that prosecutors almost exclusively weaponized rappers’ lyrics against men of color.“Creative expression should not be used as evidence of bad character,” the organization said, maintaining that the claim that themes expressed in art were an indication of the likelihood that a person was violent or dishonest was “simply false.”Harvey Mason Jr., the chief executive of the Recording Academy, which runs the Grammy Awards, said that the bill was intended to protect not only rappers, but also artists across all genres of music, and other forms of creativity.“It’s bigger than any one individual case,” Mr. Mason said. “In no way, at no time, do I feel that someone’s art should be used against them.” More

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      The Grammys Have a New Award: Songwriter of the Year

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      The honor is part of a slate of changes, including a best score soundtrack award for video games and a merit award for best song for social change.Coming to the Grammy Awards next year: a new prize for songwriter of the year.That award, given in recognition of “the written excellence, profession and art of songwriting,” is one of a handful of tweaks to the Grammy rules for the 65th annual ceremony.Four other new categories are coming, including best alternative music performance, Americana music performance, spoken word poetry album and score soundtrack for video games and other interactive media, the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys, announced Thursday. There will also be a new merit award for best song for social change, as chosen by a special committee.The biggest change is the songwriter award. Since the first Grammy ceremony in 1959, song of the year has been one of the most prestigious prizes, going to the composers of a single song. The first winners were Franco Migliacci and Domenico Modugno, for “Nel Blu, Dipinto di Blu” (better known as “Volare”), and the most recent prize went to Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak and two collaborators for “Leave the Door Open.”In recent years songwriters have been lobbying the Recording Academy for greater recognition, which has come gradually. At the 60th annual Grammys in 2018, songwriters were added to the ballot for album of the year, though only if they contributed to at least 33 percent of an LP; for the 2022 show, that limit was eliminated, allowing any credited songwriter of new material to be nominated. (Samples don’t count, nor do the writers of old songs — hence Cole Porter’s omission this year for Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett’s album “Love for Sale.”) In 2021, the academy created a Songwriters and Composers Wing for its members.The new category, officially called songwriter of the year (non-classical) — though no classical counterpart exists — will go to a single songwriter or a team of writers for a given body of work. A similar approach has long been taken for producer of the year.“The intent with this new category is to recognize the professional songwriters who write songs for other artists to make a living,” said Harvey Mason Jr., the chief executive of the Recording Academy. “This dedicated award highlights the importance of songwriting’s significant contribution to the musical process, and as a non-performing songwriter myself, I’m thrilled to see this award come to life.”Among the other changes this year is the establishment of “craft committees” in three classical categories. Teams of specialists will have the final say in who makes the ballot for producer of the year (classical), best engineered album (classical) and best contemporary classical composition. The change follows some grumbling in the classical world about last year’s nomination of Jon Batiste — the jazz bandleader and TV personality who won album of the year — for the contemporary composition prize. (The award went to Caroline Shaw.)The change is notable since last year the academy eliminated its controversial nominating committees, which acted as an invisible hand in dozens of categories, though craft committees were kept for categories like engineering and packaging that require special expertise.The new categories arrive after a series of reductions more than a decade ago. In 2011, for example, the academy dropped 31 categories, consolidating many separate male and female awards and cutting some in fields like classical and Latin. Two years earlier, the polka category — where annual submissions had dwindled to as few as 20 titles — was cut after a 24-year run.The latest Grammy ceremony, in April, had 86 categories. At the first one, there were 28. More

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      Louis C.K.’s Grammy Victory Leads to Backlash

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      Some comedians are questioning how the Recording Academy saw fit to bestow an award to someone who had admitted to sexual misconduct.“How was your last couple years?” the comedian Louis C.K. says to the audience on the first track to his album “Sincerely Louis CK.” “How was 2018 and 2019 for you guys? Anybody else get in global amounts of trouble?”Louis C.K. did, after he admitted, in 2017, to masturbating in front of women. Several said in interviews that he had done so without their consent; in a statement acknowledging the incidents, he claimed he had always asked first, but later realized that was insufficient since there were power differentials at play. For a short time he disappeared from public view, as a movie he directed and starred in was shelved and other deals dissolved in the early days of the #MeToo movement.But Louis C.K. returned to stand-up, first at comedy clubs and then at bigger venues, which often sold out. And on Sunday night he received a sign of support from the entertainment industry: “Sincerely Louis CK” — his first album since the scandal — won the Grammy for best comedy album.The album opens with the chants and wild applause of an audience.The response to his Grammy was less joyous. As his name trended on Twitter, many comedians, comedy fans and others wondered how the Recording Academy saw fit to bestow an award to someone with an admitted history of sexual misconduct.“Every woman who has been harassed and abused in the comedy business, I hear you and see you and I am so, so angry,” the podcast host Jesse Thorn, who interviews comedians, wrote, followed by several expletives.Female comics shared their own responses. Jen Kirkman posted a segment from her latest album, “OK, Gen-X,” in which she recounts her own encounter with Louis C.K. She had avoided talking about in detail previously, she explained in the bit, because of negative and threatening blowback. “I’ll forward you the rape threats I get after this,” she said.On Sunday, Kirkman reposted some messages from supporters of Louis C.K. who responded to her, often hatefully and in terms that diminished the experiences of assault survivors.The Australian performer Felicity Ward offered a lengthy list of mostly female comics “who’ve never sexually assaulted anyone. Follow, see, buy their stuff.”And the comedian Mona Shaikh wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that the award sent a troubling message. “The comedy establishment sends a dog whistle to sexual predators, forgiving their abusive actions as long as they offer a superficial apology (often drafted by their publicists) and go underground for a year or so,” she wrote. “After that, they can emerge and revive their careers.”Last fall, after the nomination of Louis C.K. and others like Marilyn Manson — who is facing an investigation over multiple sexual assault allegations — drew public ire, Harvey Mason Jr., the chief executive of the Recording Academy, defended the right to nominate anybody as long as they met the organization’s eligibility rules.“We won’t look back at people’s history, we won’t look at their criminal record, we won’t look at anything other than the legality within our rules of, is this recording for this work eligible based on date and other criteria,” he told the trade publication The Wrap. (Marilyn Manson was later removed from the nominations list as a songwriter on Kanye West’s track “Jail,” but remained eligible as one of West’s collaborators on “Donda,” which was up for album of the year.)Rather than weighing in on who could be nominated, Mason said the Grammys would instead draw a line around who was invited to the ceremony, held this year in Las Vegas. The comedy award was one of dozens presented in a ceremony that was held before the prime-time broadcast and was shown online only. Louis C.K. did not attend. Representatives for the Recording Academy did not return requests for comment.On the album, amid bits about religion, aging and sex, Louis C.K. addresses his misconduct a few times, mostly jokingly. “Man, I was in a lot of trouble,” he says in the opening. “Wait till they see those pictures of me in blackface. That’s going to make it a lot worse. Because there’s a lot of those, there’s thousands of pictures of me in blackface. I can’t stop doing it. I just — I like it. I like how it feels.”This trophy is the third Grammy for Louis C.K. in the comedy album category.The Recording Academy does not release details of how its more than 11,000 eligible members vote. Members are limited in the number of categories they may cast a vote in, as the academy tries to encourage them to vote in their various areas of expertise. The nominations process was tweaked for this year’s awards after complaints of secret agendas and uneven playing fields, and boycotts by major artists like the Weeknd.In recent years, the Recording Academy has also been roiled by accusations that it did not include or acknowledge enough women or people of color, and the organization has pledged to do better. But a report last month from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California found that the number of women credited on pop songs has remained largely unchanged for a decade, and that a Grammy-led effort to hire more female producers and engineers did almost nothing.The comedy category has changed names and focus somewhat over the years as recorded comedy shifted from musical numbers to spoken word. Bill Cosby won the prize a record seven times; in 2012, one of his albums was also named to a Grammys Hall of Fame. In the 64-year history of the Grammys, women have been nominated more than 40 times for comedy but only five have won awards outright: Elaine May (as part of a duo with Mike Nichols); Lily Tomlin; Whoopi Goldberg; Kathy Griffin; and, in 2021, Tiffany Haddish. More

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      The 2022 Grammys: Let’s Discuss

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherWhat exactly are the Grammys, at this point? A ceremony that honors the best in popular music? Sometimes, but not often. A concert that explores the connections between generations of styles and songs? On a good day, maybe. A party thrown by the stars and behind-the-scenes movers of yesteryear that young stars aren’t quite sure if they want to be invited to, or embraced by? Yes, that’s it.Which means that this year, like every year, the Grammy Awards put on display the tensions between a Recording Academy that insists it is open-eared to young performers while largely bestowing awards on those who hew to old-fashioned ideas of musicianship and songcraft.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the usefulness of the Grammy Awards, and the musicians — Silk Sonic, H.E.R., Billie Eilish — who manage to thrive in the middle of the ceremony’s spiritual tug of war.Guests:Jon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticWesley Morris, The New York Times’s critic at largeLindsay Zoladz, who writes about pop music for The New York TimesConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      Grammys 2022: How to Watch, Time and Streaming

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      A guide to everything you need to know for the 64th annual awards on Sunday night.It’s been a tumultuous few months for the Grammy Awards.First, at a meeting just 24 hours before the nominees were announced in November, the Recording Academy decided to expand the big four categories — album, record and song of the year, and best new artist — from eight to 10 slots, netting nominations for Taylor Swift and Kanye West. A few days later, Drake, without offering an explanation, dropped out of the two rap categories in which he was nominated.In mid-January, amid an uptick in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant, the 64th annual Grammy Awards, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, were postponed and then moved to Las Vegas for the first time.Last month, Kanye West, who is up for five awards, was told he is no longer welcome to perform at the ceremony following troubling behavior on social media. Then, two of the seven members of the K-pop group BTS, which is up for best pop duo/group performance for the second straight year, tested positive for the coronavirus, leaving their performance status in limbo. And this week, Foo Fighters, who are up for three awards this year, also bowed out after their 50-year-old drummer, Taylor Hawkins, died on tour on March 25.While producers were juggling lineup changes, Covid protocols and the usual stresses of preparing three and a half hours of live network television, something else happened at the Oscars on Sunday night that likely got their attention.Obstacles aside, Sunday’s ceremony at the MGM Grand Garden Arena is a return to a large-scale production with a big audience following last year’s bare-bones, intimate, largely outdoor affair. The contenders include Tony Bennett, 95, who is nominated for his collaboration with Lady Gaga on the Cole Porter tribute album “Love for Sale,” and Olivia Rodrigo, 19, who is up for all four of the biggest trophies; Jon Batiste, perhaps best known as the bandleader for “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” leads all nominees with 11 nods.A Guide to the 2022 Grammy AwardsThe ceremony, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, was postponed for a second year in a row due to Covid and is now scheduled for April 3.Jon Batiste Leads the Way: The jazz pianist earned the most nominations with 11, including album and record of the year. Here’s his reaction.Performers: Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, BTS and Lil Nas X are among the first performers announced for the April 3 show, which will be available on CBS and Paramount+.Kanye West: The singer, who is nominated for five awards, was told he will not be allowed to perform during the ceremony due to his erratic public behavior. A Surprise Appearance: The Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, who suffered an aneurysm in 2015 and has spoken in public infrequently since, will present an award at the ceremony.Here’s how to watch — and what to expect at — Sunday’s ceremony.What time do the festivities start?The ceremony, which will air live on CBS and the streaming service Paramount+, will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. You can also watch on CBS.com or through the CBS app if you have a cable subscription.Cord cutters can watch the show on any live TV streaming service that offers CBS, including FuboTV, Hulu + Live TV, Paramount+, YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream, many of which are offering free trials. It will also be available on demand on Paramount+.If you want to pregame, you can check out the premiere ceremony, when about 76 of the 86 awards are handed out. That begins at 3:30 Eastern, 12:30 Pacific and will be available to watch on grammy.com and the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel. LeVar Burton will host, and Allison Russell, Jimmie Allen, Ledisi and Mon Laferte will perform.Is there a red carpet?Yes. E! will have red carpet coverage beginning at 4 p.m., and “Live From E!: Grammys” starts at 6 p.m. Arrivals will be streamed at grammy.com beginning at 6:30 p.m.Who will be hosting?Trevor Noah, of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central, is back for a second year.How is the competition shaping up?Batiste leads the pack with 11 nominations, covering American roots music, classical, jazz and R&B. He’s followed by Doja Cat, H.E.R. and Justin Bieber, all with eight nods. Billie Eilish (“Happier Than Ever”) and Rodrigo (“Sour”) earned seven nominations apiece, including for record, album and song of the year. (Rodrigo is also up for best new artist.)Joining Rodrigo in the best new artist category are the Kid Laroi, whose ubiquitous pop radio single “Stay” features Bieber; Saweetie (“Best Friend” featuring Doja Cat); and Finneas, Eilish’s producer brother. (Learn about all the best new artist nominees here.)Can we talk about Bruno?We regret to inform you that once again, we cannot. The Grammys, which are voted on by more than 11,000 members of the Recording Academy, recognize music released from Sept. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021, meaning more recent smashes like Adele’s “30” or Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” will have to wait until next year.Who’s going to perform?The lineup includes J Balvin with Maria Becerra, Batiste, Brothers Osborne, Brandi Carlile, Eilish, Lady Gaga, H.E.R., John Legend, Lil Nas X with Jack Harlow, Rodrigo, Silk Sonic, Chris Stapleton and Carrie Underwood. As of now, whether BTS will take the stage is unclear. While Foo Fighters are no longer performing, producers have said they’re working on a way to honor Hawkins during the ceremony. Something else to look forward to, especially if you’re a musical theater fan: a tribute to the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who died in November at 91, featuring Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Ben Platt and Rachel Zegler.Who will be presenting?Joni Mitchell — who was honored at the MusiCares Person of the Year tribute show, an annual pre-Grammys event, Friday night in Las Vegas — is making a rare public appearance on the Grammys stage. Other presenters include Dua Lipa, Megan Thee Stallion, Questlove, Bonnie Raitt, Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini, Lenny Kravitz, Billy Porter, Avril Lavigne and Ludacris, as well as Jared Leto and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and the actor Anthony Mackie.What else is new this year?The expansion to 10 nominees in the big four categories isn’t the only change. The Grammys dropped nominating committees — expert panels that determined the ballot in many categories — after complaints from prominent artists, including the Weeknd, that they were unfair. The Grammys also removed the requirement for album of the year that writers play a role in at least a third of an LP to be recognized as contributors. Now, anyone who contributed to a single album, whether as a featured artist, engineer, producer or songwriter, is eligible — so if Bieber’s “Justice” wins, for instance, dozens of people will earn Grammys. There are also two new categories being awarded this year: best global music performance and best música urbana album.Who could make history?Rodrigo could become just the third artist, after Christopher Cross and Billie Eilish, to win all of the top four awards at a single ceremony. Taylor Swift could become the first artist to win album of the year four times, and BTS could become the first K-pop group to win a Grammy. Eilish, who won an Oscar with her brother, Finneas, for “No Time to Die” last week, could become the first person to win record of the year three times in a row.Who do we think will win?Our critics and pop music editor debated the 10 nominees up for record of the year … and didn’t come to much consensus. Grammys are famously hard to predict.Remind me again, what’s the difference between the record and song of the year categories?Record of the year, essentially the equivalent of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ best picture award and regarded as the top prize, recognizes the recording of a single track, focusing on both the artist’s performance and the efforts of audio engineers, mixers and producers. Song of the year also recognizes a single track, but it’s awarded solely for writing. (Think of it as the equivalent of the academy’s screenplay award.) More

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      Kanye West’s Stormy Relationship With the Grammys Erupts Again

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      The musician, nominated for five awards, was told he will not be able to perform at the ceremony on April 3. The decision came after weeks of erratic and troubling public behavior.When the latest Grammy nominations were announced in November, Kanye West picked up five nods, including album of the year, teeing up a potential reconciliation between one of pop music’s most mercurial stars and the institution he has spent much of the last two decades criticizing, challenging and sometimes outright insulting — even as West has yearned for its affirmation.But last Friday, a little more than two weeks before the 64th annual Grammy Awards ceremony, set for April 3 in Las Vegas — and weeks into negotiations over a planned performance at the show — organizers told West’s team that he would not be allowed to perform, according to a representative of the rapper and producer.The organizers cited West’s erratic and troubling public behavior in recent weeks, according to a person with knowledge of the decision, who was granted anonymity to discuss an internal matter.That behavior included the release of an animated music video that portrayed the kidnapping and burial of a figure who looked a lot like Pete Davidson — the comedian who has been dating Kim Kardashian, West’s former wife — and an Instagram post taunting Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show,” who is hosting this year’s Grammys, with a racial slur that resulted in West being banned from Instagram for 24 hours. (Noah said on Twitter that he had not called for West to be cut. “I said counsel Kanye not cancel Kanye,” he wrote.)For West, music’s perennial chaos agent, the episode may have been just the latest blur of sensational headlines. But for the Grammys, it is also a setback in a campaign to lure West back to the fold. He is perhaps the most vocal of a circle of high-profile Black creators — also including Jay-Z, Drake, the Weeknd and Frank Ocean — who have condemned the Grammys for often failing to recognize the work of creators of color, particularly in hip-hop, in its most high-profile categories.A Guide to the 2022 Grammy AwardsThe ceremony, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, was postponed for a second year in a row due to Covid and is now scheduled for April 3.Jon Batiste Leads the Way: The jazz pianist earned the most nominations with 11, including album and record of the year. Here’s his reaction.The Full List: Pop stars like Justin Bieber, Doja Cat and Billie Eilish were recognized in several categories. See all the nominees.Snubs and Surprises: From a big shock to smaller slights, The Times music team breaks it all down.Performers: Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, BTS and Lil Nas X are among the first performers announced for the April 3 show, which will be available on CBS and Paramount+.A Major Change: The awards will be the first since the Recording Academy ended its heavily criticized anonymous nominating committees.The Recording Academy, which presents the awards, has made extraordinary efforts to accommodate West, who has won 22 Grammys in his career. For the latest show, a last-minute rule change resulted in West being added to the ballot for album of the year.In an interview with Billboard, Harvey Mason Jr., the academy’s chief executive, said that when the initial slate of nominees was prepared with eight contenders in the major competitions, he noticed a dearth of rap in the top categories. Within days, a proposal to expand the ballot to 10 slots in those categories was approved by the academy’s board, bringing “Donda,” along with Taylor Swift’s “Evermore,” into consideration for best album.Since becoming the academy’s chief last year, Mason has made personal appeals to dissenting artists, including West. That outreach, and the album of the year nomination, stirred frustration and anger among some members of the academy, who have been appalled by West’s past antics, such as posting a video on social media in 2020 that shows a Grammy trophy apparently being defiled in a toilet bowl.“How vile and disrespectful,” Diane Warren, the Grammy-winning songwriter of hits like “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” said at the time.West’s recent behavior on social media has made mending fences even riskier for the Recording Academy. Always an oversharer, West has lately used his Instagram account to air grievances over custody and child care issues amid his divorce from Kardashian. That dispute has coincided with West’s attacks on Davidson, as well as figures like Noah who have criticized the musician’s posts as verging on threats and harassment.Still, for the Recording Academy, reconciling with West could have symbolic power, suggesting that the institution’s efforts to revamp its voting membership and adapt to a faster-moving music business with a younger, more diverse listenership were working.West’s complaints about the Grammys go back at least 17 years. In 2005, even before that year’s nominations were announced, West was telling Grammy voters that if he did not win album of the year for “Late Registration,” his second LP, he would attribute the loss to a judgment on his personal behavior rather than his artistry.“I don’t care if I jumped up and down right now on the couch like Tom Cruise,” he told MTV News at the time. “I don’t care how much I stunt — you can never take away from the amount of work I put into it.” (He lost to U2’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.”)Since then, West’s criticisms of the Grammys have been sporadic but unrelenting. In 2015, for example, after Beck won album of the year for “Morning Phase,” West demanded that the alt-rock musician give the award to Beyoncé instead, in an echo of his infamous moment with Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. He warned that such choices by Grammy voters would alienate “real artists.”“Because what happens is,” West said, “when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in the face after they deliver monumental feats of music — it’s disrespectful to inspiration.”While West will not perform at this year’s Grammys, he is still invited to attend as a nominee — which presents a tricky problem for the academy if West wins a major award like album of the year. Would he use the opportunity of a speech on live television to make more inflammatory comments, either about his personal life or about the Grammys itself?As a safeguard for producers of the show, and for CBS, the Grammys’ longtime broadcast network, standard editing delays are built into the show. In 2017, for example, the Grammy audience heard Adele blurt out a frustrated profanity after she flubbed the opening of a George Michael tribute; people watching at home just heard bleeps.Joe Coscarelli contributed reporting. More

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      Olivia Rodrigo, BTS and Billie Eilish to Perform at Grammys

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      The 64th annual awards ceremony, the second in a row to be delayed by the pandemic, will be held in Las Vegas on April 3.Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, BTS and Lil Nas X will perform at the 64th annual Grammy Awards on April 3, the Recording Academy announced on Tuesday.They, along with the singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile and the country duo Brothers Osborne, are the first batch of performers announced for the show, which was delayed nine weeks by the pandemic and is being held in Las Vegas for the first time. Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show” is the host.The show, at the MGM Grand Arena, will be broadcast by CBS and can be streamed on Paramount+.Rodrigo and Eilish are each up for seven awards, and will compete against each other for record, album and song of the year. Rodrigo, whose debut album, “Sour,” was one of last year’s biggest hits, is also up for best new artist, raising the possibility that she could sweep the top four awards — for the first time since Eilish did so in 2020.BTS has one nomination and will perform during the ceremony.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersLil Nas X, the singer and rapper who rose to fame three years ago with the meme-ready “Old Town Road,” is up for five awards, including album of the year. Carlile was nominated in four categories, including twice for song of the year (for “Right on Time” and “A Beautiful Noise”). Brothers Osborne have two nods, and BTS one. Jon Batiste, the bandleader on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” has the most nominations, with 11.Other top nominees include Justin Bieber, Doja Cat and H.E.R. The Recording Academy, which presents the Grammys, drew controversy last year when it emerged that it had made a last-minute change, unknown to voters, that expanded its ballot from eight to 10 nominees for the four top categories. Among the beneficiaries of that change were Taylor Swift and Kanye West.This year’s show is the second to be delayed by the pandemic, and while last year’s production was well received by critics as a fresh new take on the format, its rating slipped to a low of 8.8 million, down 53 percent from the year before. In 2012, when the Grammys were held the day after Whitney Houston’s death, the show drew nearly 40 million viewers. More