What do small town mechanics across America and Trump’s former campaign manager have in common? Both seem to think that Bad Bunny’s win at Sunday’s Grammy Awards is proof of a liberal plot to destroy our nation. Corey Landowski, now a Senior Advisor of the Department of Homeland Security had previously announced that ICE agents would be present at Bad Bunny’s upcoming Super Bowl halftime show because the singer “hates America.” MAGA has in general been… skeptical… of his recent success. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called him a “perverse,” and “unwanted” pick for the show. Social media sleuths have worked tirelessly to prove the link between his management company, Rimas Entertainment, and the Chavez-era Venezuelan government. I’m sure they’re getting pretty close to cracking the case at this rate. When we invade Caracas, maybe we can all take a look for ourselves.
Bad Bunny’s wins likely reflect commercial realities more than conspiracy. For the fourth year in a row, he has been the most streamed artist on Spotify globally. Still, in a time when everything down to the coffee shops we frequent is politicized, it’s no great shock that music has suffered the same fate.
Most headlines Monday morning picked up on the overt political trends of the show. Celebrities strolled the red carpet adorned with ‘Ice Out’ pins and winners spent their speeches criticizing the policies of Trump’s DHS. “Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say, ‘ICE out,’” Bad Bunny said during his speech for the Best Musica Urbana award. “We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.” While it may have come as a shock to some Trump supporters that Puerto Rico is a part of this country, and its residents American citizens by birth, the speech was otherwise predictable. For most of the night, America’s richest delivered compelling condemnations of injustice and inequality.
Bad Bunny (can I call him Mr. Bunny?) also won the night’s coveted Album of the Year contest, the first time it’s gone to one predominantly sung in Spanish. The nominees were a reflective sample of this country’s broad taste in music -- pop, alternative pop, indie pop, even a bit of mainstream R&B! The genre hyperfocus might explain why on Sunday night, only about fifteen million people tuned into music’s most important awards show. That’s around a 75% drop from the show’s peak in the 1980s. Meanwhile, our cities and heartlands have grown by more than 100 million hearing persons, many of whom listen to music. But a hip hop album has not won the award since 2004. Rock hasn’t had its day since 2006, when How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2’s worst effort except for everything that’s come since, bested Kanye West’s Late Registration. Of the three country records that won in this century, two were about as pop-tinged as you can get while still claiming red dirt. Thank God for the Dixie Chicks.
There were silver linings to the night. The 26-year old British singer Olivia Dean, about whom it is hard to find something disagreeable, won Best New Artist, beating Addison Rae, despite the latter’s admittedly admirable performance hanging off the back of a box truck.
But as I set out to write a Grammys recap, I couldn’t help but think: does anyone still care about the Grammys? Before writing this, I’d never heard half of the albums the Academy thought were the absolute best of last year. After hearing them, I’d like to know what they’re smoking. It would be pointless to list specific snubs, but to suggest that not a single rock, country, EDM, jazz or blues record was better than Justin Bieber’s Swag last year feels … off. For years the Recording Academy has claimed that their votes reflect artistic merit and not market success. Baloney. All of the winners, and damn near every nominee in the last thirty years, has been cut from the same inoffensive, derivative cloth of commercial viability. But, who really cares?
Like much else in America, the communal experience of music is dying. It may have died when Elvis took his last breath; it may have croaked when the iPod hit stores. But there is no American popular music anymore.
In the past, when teenagers gathered at record stores and around jukeboxes, it was clear to see what ‘pop’ music was. It was clear to see trends and who set them. Now, like mice to the baseboards, listeners find their own antisocial corners of the music world to withdraw. The whole of recorded music history lives under our fingertips and new music is birthed for free daily. And if you like to listen to ska punk, who is the Academy to tell you that Sarbina Carpenter could broaden your horizons?
So maybe this atomization of society — this decline in communalistic listening — is the real culprit. To their credit, the people who run this dilapidated old show seem to recognize this. Next year, the Grammys are relocating from CBS, their home of the last half century, to a streaming service. As of 2024, two-thirds of the Academy’s voting members joined in the last five years, and half of last year’s new members were under the age of 40. Voting trends reflect this shift. Twenty years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a Spanish-language record to win Album of the Year. Many of Sunday night’s other awards seemed equally tapped into the cultural zeitgeist. So maybe, by this time in five years, I’ll be eating my words. I sincerely hope that the Grammys regain relevance. I hope that the Academy learns to recognize America’s less commercially viable music. But for now, I just don’t care.