New Chief Wants Right Spin for the Recording Academy

“It’s been a conservative organization . . . one that has moved slowly and has been overly protective of the Grammy process.”

Another critic taking a potshot at the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for awarding Grammys on “safe,” mainstream pop acts?

Not this time.

The words are from the recording academy’s new president, Mike Greene, a 38-year-old former musician and record producer.

On the job three months, Greene--who proudly describes himself as a “boat-rocker”--isn’t mincing words. “I am as far removed from a stodgy Grammy process as anybody in the world,” he said during an interview at academy headquarters in Burbank.

“We have been seen as the Establishment and we’ve got to reach out a lot more,” he said. “I really want to see this become an inclusive organization and bring in all forms of music.”

The Atlanta native feels one example of the academy’s timidity has been its reluctance to take stands on key industry issues, including record piracy, home taping, censorship and record rentals.

“Before, it was like, ‘Gee, we better stay back from that because there’s probably a wide divergence of opinion on that,’ ” Greene said.

“I think we have underachieved in (the role of) being the mouthpiece for the industry. We’re the one organization that can represent both the creative and technical sides--the songwriters, performers, producers, arrangers and engineers. . . .”

Greene plans to revive the academy’s long-standing goal of building a recording industry museum, possibly in the Los Angeles area, and to enter the home video market with a series of one-hour videos based on the 30 years of Grammy Awards TV shows.

Also on the agenda: To generate more fan excitement at the annual Grammy telecast, Greene wants to move the ceremony from 6,000-seat facilities such as the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles to 18,000-seat arenas, such as the Forum in Inglewood.

Greene, who recorded albums in the ‘70s under his own name and as a member of the Hampton Grease Band, is no stranger to the recording academy. The one-time singer and horn player served as president in 1985 and 1986 when the office was a part-time, largely honorary position.

The academy trustees voted in 1986 to name their first full-time president, but their appointee--industry veteran Joe Smith--was lured away after four months to become vice chairman of Capitol/EMI. Greene took over as the academy’s second full-time president in February.

Time and money, Greene feels, were the part-time president’s biggest problems. Under the old setup, the academy chief never had time to see a project to completion. “We used to spend half our time reacting to problems,” Greene said. “It was hard to get long-term projects through the structure we had.

“We also had very limited income sources. We had the TV show . . . and that was about it. But now we have a second (revenue-generating) TV show (the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards, now in its second year) and the home video project, which should be available in about a year.”

Greene envisions the museum--a $10-million-to-$14-million project, which he’d like to see opened within two years--as a 50,000-square-foot facility with interactive media centers.

“It’s something the academy really needs to be doing--educating and having a place for archival retrieval and storage,” he said. The academy may house the museum in the new headquarters it expects to buy next year in Burbank’s media district.

Greene also is seeking to combat charges that the Grammy voters are slow in recognizing important shifts in pop music. At their annual meeting this month, the academy trustees voted to add categories for two of the hottest genres in contemporary music--rap and hard rock/heavy metal. (The 33 trustees also added a bluegrass category).

Greene agrees with critics who charge that many of rock’s most passionate artists have been short-changed in past Grammy voting, though he sees the situation improving dramatically in recent years.

Middle-of-Road Members

“The academy did have a proliferation of middle-of-the-road and jazz members in the early days,” he said. “And other musical communities, like country and classical, came in a lot quicker (than rock).”

Greene credits an aggressive recruiting campaign in recent years with attracting more young, rock-conscious members. This, he believes, has helped lead to album-of-the-year nominations for such acclaimed rockers as the Police, Bruce Springsteen, Prince and U2.

Without minimizing the challenges that remain, Greene thinks he and the trustees are making progress.

“The academy is like an oil tanker and the trustees are all like tugboats,” he said, with a smile. “We’ve got to push it, because, if we just use the rudder, it will take us forever to get the thing turned in a new direction.”