The winner takes it all

I’m far from the first to say it, but I just don’t like music awards shows. I think it was the VMAs that finally did it: the glitz, the glamour, who won what, why they deserved it – or didn’t… ahem, Macklemore – and so much live tweeting. What’s it all for?

The highlight in the music industry’s calendar is the perfect time to gain insight into how the industry actually works. This is not the people’s choice. It’s all one big hand-shaking, I’ll-scratch-your-back, self-congratulatory ceremony from industry ‘insiders’ to themselves (xoxo).

In the case of the recent Grammys, the most-lauded artists were the ones most popular among and reasonably uncontroversial to ‘the masses’ – that one homogeneous, quantifiable ‘target audience’-shaped lump. Fundamentally, there’s nothing wrong with that, although they may as well cut the crap and just dole out ‘Biggest Money Maker’ Awards.

With that in mind, it’s hard not to be sceptical of the motivations behind the pomp and ceremony. The Grammy’s mass wedding was nice and all, and it did get people talking, but it felt preachy – very much like it was saying, ‘Look! We support equal marriage! The music industry is not homophobic!’ …all while the majority of mainstream pop acts still predominantly present the same images of (heterosexual) masculinity and femininity.

A visit to Twitter/Facebook/Buzzfeed reveals that ordinary people still watch and care about big awards shows, and that it doesn’t matter what people are saying. If the show’s being talked about, any publicity is good publicity – which seems to be the problem.

If proof were needed that award voters literally just pick the most viral shit out there, check out the amount of Grammy nominations a certain Mr Thicke got. The less said about that, the better, but the opposite choice – supporting promising acts that fewer people have heard of – is equally unappealing to the powers that be. For all the marketing power of the industry’s big players, preaching to the unconverted seems too big a gamble when there are surer horses to bet on. Enter BRIT Critic’s Choice Award winner Sam Smith, already famous from work with Disclosure and Naughty Boy, with an album on the way. Them critics sure know how to hedge their bets.

It’s all well and good to preserve institutions like the Grammys or the BRITs, or any of the million other awards bodies across the arts, but increasingly, it feels like these two are stuck in the era they were born in. Anonymous industry experts act like arbiters of culture in an age where individuals are most able to choose for themselves what and how they consume. The global reach of the internet can work in the industry’s favour, but it can just as easily bypass what they’re trying to sell this week altogether.

From an industry perspective, it’s easier to quantify sales, likes and retweets than it is quality, critical reception and artistic dedication (and in saying that, not all big pop acts make rubbish music and lack integrity), but as it stands I prefer to be pissed off with the spectacle of big industry award shows. I’ll be clicking away from them and their winners as fast as my WiFi can take me.