Friday, February 27, 2009

The Grammies

By Danny Hoover

Each and every single year, the annual Grammy Awards are hosted as a means of honoring the best and brightest starts in the recording industry. These awards were originally know as the Gramophone Awards when started by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. These annual awards are held every February and currently cover roughly 20 genres and over a hundred categories.

You will see categories like the Artist of the Year or even the biggest Newcomer to the recording industry. There are just so many great categories in which a recording artist can actually win an award, or even several of them. In order to win though, voting has to take place and on this voting committee you will see infamous names like Jon Bon Jovi and even Prince.

More then 150 people in the recording industry are selected for the nomination committee and assigned to be experts in the particular field. This committee researches and analyzes all of the artists and releases before making the selections for nominees. These are then passed on to be voted upon but the results of the final vote are only made known on award day. October 1st is the important date when it comes to being nominated and starts on that day 2 years prior up until the previous year. Anything release after October 1st will be placed on hold until the next year's awards.

For the longest time, the Shrine Auditorium was the home for the Grammy Awards and today it is still the place where the Oscars are held every year. However, because of the expansion to the categories and genres in which the awards are given in, a larger venue was needed to accommodate the guests and nominees. As a result, the Staples Center has since become the home to the annual Grammy Awards.

When it comes to attending the Grammy Awards, everyone has to pay for their seats including those who have been nominated for an award. These seats have been steadily increasing in prices over the years with the most recent ceremony costing more then $2,000 per seat. Attending the official post part also costs money even if you win and those tickets have to be paid in advanced as well. One of the benefits though is a cool gift bag that is filled with things like jewelry, CDs and a whole lot more.

For more then 50 years, the Grammy Awards have been honoring those in the recording industry. Since 1971 though, every ceremony has been broadcasted as a live televised event. While it was originally broadcasted on ABC, CBS now has the rights for airing this annual honoring of recording artists.

There have been those who have been against the Grammy Awards as well. Many insist that the Grammy Awards focus is only on the mainstream music artists who are signed with studios who are part of the RIAA and does not give awards to those outside of that group. Furthermore, there have also been complaints about the influence of the outcomes by the recording industry itself. However, anyway that you choose to look at it, the Grammy Awards are nothing short of one of the largest recording industry award ceremonies in the world. - 15634

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