Artists like Anderson .Paak and Taylor Swift are already planning out their legacies as a means of keeping control of their music catalogues as their careers continue to develop.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
The 62nd annual Grammy awards are just around the corner and the highly anticipated nominations were finally announced this Wednesday. New artists that have emerged in popularity throughout 2019 have truly taken over; Lizzo being the most nominated artist this year with a total of eight nominations! Swifties were disappointed to see that Taylor Swift only acquired a total of three nominations, Album Of The Year not being one of them. However, the year of the new artist has truly graced all of our ears this year, and the nominations uphold that.
Following Lizzo, both Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X are two more new artists that are leading the nominations with six each! All three of them are first-time Grammy nominees, making this one of the most new artist nominated awards shows to date.
Album Of The Year includes all three of those artists with their respective albums from 2019, and additionally includes Ariana Grande for her album “Thank U, Next,” Bon Iver’s “I, I,” Lana Del Rey’s “Norman F***ing Rockwell,” H.E.R.’s “I Used To Know Her,” and finally Vampire Weekend’s, “Father Of The Bride,” making them the only band nominated in the category.
Alicia Keys is hosting the Grammy’s again this year after a successful job last year; this also makes Keys the first female to ever host the show twice, she’s also the third woman to ever host the show in general. Which speaks volumes to why the awards this year are so heavily saturated with newer and more diverse nominees. In the past, all of the major award shows have been highly criticized for being extremely white washed and male dominated. While improvements have been made within the past decade, there’s still plenty of room to go and grow.
Everyone remembers in 2017 when Adele won Album and Song of the Year over Beyoncé Knowles, who dominated with her “Lemonade” album that year. Adele herself said in both of her acceptance speeches that she felt Knowles was more deserving of the awards, sparking a massive online debate over the integrity of a group of individuals deciding what music they deemed to be award worthy every year. Frankly, they’ve lost their credibility.
The ratings have shown it to, this year both the VMA’s and the Emmy’s saw a record low rating of viewers, for reasons similar to those listed above. People aren’t as interested in seeing people awarded for accomplishments based off one groups opinions. For this reason, many major award shows are trying to base their ranking system based on public reaction and reception. With social media being as powerful as it is now, it’s easy to get a large focus group digitally to come together and tell the academy what worked, and what didn’t.
While this year may have been dominated by the new artists, it seems as though the public is still bothered by the fact that those newcomers knocked out more established artists in categories they felt they were more than qualified to be nominated for, such as Taylor Swift, BTS, and Bruce Springsteen, who released a live Broadway album this year.
“The Grammy’s have long been accused of not keeping up with the times and ‘playing it safe’ by honoring the tried and true artists in the industry. But this year it appears to be mostly about the new blood, with some of the more established performers actually being snubbed,” (CNN).
While the public may never be fully satisfied by the system in which these award nominations are chosen, the Grammy’s are always one of the most viewed award shows and this year it most likely won’t be any different.
For the rest of the Grammy nominations for 2020; click here.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
Kacey Musgraves is coming at the holidays full force this year, and she’s doing it with a little help from Amazon and some other stars excited to celebrate the holidays in a full on traditional Christmas special spectacular! The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show along with an accompanying soundtrack will be released on Amazon Prime Video on November 29th, also known as black Friday, the official beginning of the Christmas season. The soundtrack will include studio recordings of all the performances and duets, along with some dialogue interludes from the Christmas special itself.
“I can say without a doubt that this project is unlike anything I’ve ever done before. What started as the small seed of an idea one night over a year ago has turned into something I’m so proud of. Some truly brilliant comedic and musical guests are featured in the show – as well as my own Grandma. My vision was to bring my old Christmas album to life visually and create a modern and fashionable, fresh take on a classic format. It’s a nostalgic, Wes Anderson-inspired re-imagining of the holidays. It’s heartfelt, funny, and most of all, real. I can’t wait to finally share,” said Musgraves when she made the official announcement yesterday (11/4).
As stated above, Musgraves already has her own Christmas album, “A Very Kacey Christmas,” which was widely received as a perfect Christmas album when it made its 2016 debut, and now she’s back to take that album experience to the top possible level. Musgraves took to all her social media platforms yesterday to post a series of tweets and Instagram pictures showing off each individual who would be involved in the holiday project. Actor, writer and producer Dan Levy, known for his current television role in Schitts Creek, will be the coveted narrator for the entire special. Fred Armison from Saturday Night Live will join Musgraves for their own rendition of the holiday classic “Silent Night,” although the official announcement credits the song to be titled “(Not So) Silent Night,” which should be a holly jolly twist.
Kacey and Leon Bridges will perform their hit “Present Without A Bow” which the two collaborated on originally for Musgraves Christmas album. Other singles from the original album that are getting a new exclusive re-recording specifically for this special include “Let It Snow” which will now feature late night talk show host James Cordon, who’s actually classically trained vocally, as seen in his many Carpool Karaoke skits. Musgrave’s will also be performing her iconic Bing Crosby cover of “Mele Kalikimaka (Hawaiian Christmas)” and this time will be accompanied by Indie singer and actress Zooey Deschanel. The last track that is getting remastered from her original album is “Ribbons And Bows” which will now be performed with the New York City Rockettes! It doesn’t get much more festive than that.
Other collaborative performances include “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” featuring up and coming singer and former Fifth Harmony member, Camila Cabello. Troye Sivan will also join Musgraves on a brand new track titled “Glittery.” Finally, Musgraves will collaborate with ethereal alternative pop beauty Lana Del Rey for an old school classic cover of the track “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.”
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
Del Rey’s newest album is her most mature—and perhaps her most pessimistic—to date.
Tyler Olhorst is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. You can reach him at inquiries@thenationaldigest.com.