The GRAMMY nominations for 2025 are out! See the full list here and Billboard’s summary here.
Presented by the Recording Academy since 1959, the GRAMMYs are a celebration of excellence, the music community’s highest honor, and its only peer-based award.
— The Recording Academy
The awards feel freshly minted, covering recordings, compositions, and artists from just September 2023 to August 2024 (well, technically, including remasters—that’s why Beatle’s Now and Then is also nominated for “Record of the year”). There are 94 categories in total, with the most publicized awards like “Record of the Year,” “Album of the Year,” and “Best New Artist” always taking center stage. Yet, the lesser-known awards, tucked away during the non-televised ceremonies, are equally worth a glance. Take the classical categories, for instance—neatly relegated to the tail end, between Category 81 and 94.
The GRAMMYs hold undeniable influence, but I have my doubts about their authenticity and objectivity. Reading Yoshitaka Mōri’s book, Popular Music and Capitalism (here’s a link to the author’s homepage), has only deepened my skepticism of the popular music industry. The relationship between individual listeners and the entire musical ecosystem has transformed since the advent of digital recordings, and now, algorithmic recommendations. As labels evolve their methods to maximize profit, so does our consumption of music—and with it, the awards and accolades that reinforce this system of mixed incentives.
Music itself, seems much simpler than the huge machines operating on top of the its notes and bars.
Now, look at this year’s nominations—consider “Best Pop Vocal Album.” It’s as if coherent typography is a lost art:
A little artistic with the letters
I’ve written before about the art of wild capital letters (a study of the lowercase aesthetic)—it’s an attentive style favored by younger generations, and even a few professors I know type exclusively in lowercase informally. But playing this game with album titles is something else entirely. Honestly, when a stylistic choice overshadows its function, it just feels intentional and silly, Miss Swift.