Yes, They Got Hipper. But is That Enough?

The Grammy Awards are about music, but sometimes for the people who run the event, silence is golden.

They would have welcomed the quiet three years ago. Instead, they heard a roar as industry executives railed that the Grammys were an embarrassment. That was the year that both “The 3 Tenors in Concert 1994” and Tony Bennett’s “MTV Unplugged” were nominated for best album, while such trend-setting and culture-shaping acts as Nine Inch Nails, Hole, R.E.M. and Neil Young were passed over in the top categories.

Sony Music Chairman Thomas Mottola at the time went so far as to suggest that the major record companies should explore withdrawing from Grammy participation and start their own awards show.

Shortly thereafter, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, which sponsors the Grammys, took steps to add currency to the awards by altering the nomination procedures for the four top categories--best album, song, record and new artist. These are the only four categories for which each of the academy’s 9,000 members--from young gangsta rappers to retired swing musicians, classical producers to dance-music remixers, art designers to salsa artists--are given a vote, which has the inevitable effect of drawing the process to a conservative middle ground, honoring the most well-known and best-established figures over the groundbreakers and pacesetters of the day.

To mitigate that situation, a procedure that had been used in some of the specialty areas in the past was adopted for these general categories. Rather than having the five nominees in each category determined strictly by ballot, the final candidates would be selected from the top 20 vote-getters by a 25-member blue-ribbon panel.

The results have been tangible, with such cutting-edge works as Beck’s “Odelay” and Radiohead’s “OK Computer” getting best album nominations last year and this year, respectively. And if most record executives contacted for an evaluation are not ready to go on record with support for the Grammys, they also for the most part aren’t airing complaints.

“They clearly have made an effort and a lot of it has paid off in a more well-rounded and responsible way of getting nominations and awards,” says Don Ienner, president of Sony’s Columbia Records, who admits that part of his enthusiasm this year comes from key nominations for several Columbia artists, including Bob Dylan (best album for “Time Out of Mind”) and Shawn Colvin (record and song for “Sunny Came Home”).

“When it works in our favor, to be hypocritical, I’m happy about it,” he says. “And when it doesn’t, I’m not in favor. But notwithstanding that Columbia had a lot of nominations this year, the key is [the academy trustees] have been sensitive.”

Dan Klores, a veteran publicist and past member of the New York host committee, also has softened heavy criticism he leveled at the awards three years ago.

“They have made progress, yes,” he says. “They’ve zeroed in on a younger demographic. And even if it seems that Beck and Radiohead are on to show that they’re quote-unquote hip, at least [Grammy voters have] opened up to different types of artists.”

That relative calm is music to the ears of Michael Greene, the president of the recording academy, who has admitted that he too has been embarrassed by many nominations and awards over the years. He says that in the past three years, at least half the actual nominees in these categories would have been bypassed under the old procedure.

“Personally, it makes Grammy night and our press conferences so much nicer for me,” Greene says of the clear progress made in the past three years. “I’m not sitting there going, ‘Oh my God.’ There’s very little in the top four categories this year that I’m not emotionally prepared to defend.”

Still, there is just as clearly more progress that could be made.

“I still don’t think it’s really representative of what we do,” says one top executive who asked that his name not be used in this story. “Some of the stuff seems outdated, no real connection to what’s going on.”

Some wondered, as well, if the new system merely replaces the old lowest-common-denominator results with a new brand of homogenization. This year’s roster of top nominees by and large reflects tastes generally associated with fortysomething white males. It’s not just the presence of Dylan, who is almost universally seen as deserving this year, and Paul McCartney, whose presence is often questioned, in the best album category.

But Babyface, though among the most respected and best-liked figures in the business and a multiple-Grammy winner in recent years, is seen as a fairly safe choice, the kind of mainstream R&B; figures that fans of ‘60s and ‘70s soul can embrace. His album, “The Day,” was widely seen as not his strongest effort.

Paula Cole, too, who seemed a longshot for major Grammy recognition yet wound up the only artist in all four top categories for her “This Fire” album and “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” single, appeals to the “adult alternative” aesthetic that fits that demographic. Even Radiohead, perhaps the most daring selection, has a sound compatible with Pink Floyd and U2.

“You have to wonder [about the panel’s makeup] when those are the nominees in an era when black music dominates,” Ienner says.

Greene says that impression of the panel is both false and unfair.

“It’s very diverse by race and gender and background, with people ranging from journalists to producers to musicians,” he says. “The one thing they have in common is that the trustees in choosing the committee look for generalists, people with broad musical tastes.”

Complaints that the top categories don’t reflect the diversity of today’s pop music field and fail to acknowledge the artists having the greatest impact on music and culture, he says, are off base and come from a misunderstanding of the Grammy mandate.

“The goal is to reward excellence in creativity,” he says. “That’s probably very different than what many record company folks or critics would look for. This is more appreciation of the form than the societal impact or something. And any attempt to have the nominations be a well-rounded representation of the music landscape is a slippery slope. We’d be asking, ‘Have we got enough black artists? Have we got enough this? Enough that?’ We’ve got to center on excellence and nothing else.”

With that matter largely in hand, the loudest complaints now have to do not with the awards, but with the show itself--as well as with long-entrenched personality clashes between Greene and record company executives that have plagued not just the Grammy Awards but free speech campaigns and anti-drug abuse efforts.

Both Ienner and Greene are troubled that the value of the Grammy telecast is constantly being eroded by the proliferation of awards shows.

“We used to see real sales spikes on the Grammy and other shows [for artists performing and/or winning],” Ienner says. “But they’re so commonplace now that there’s no emotional impact.”

Greene cites that conflict as the reason for his recent edict that artists performing on the American Music Awards, held in late January, won’t be booked for the Grammy show.

“If we could just get [AMA producer] Dick Clark to move his show to November, we’d all be in better shape,” Greene says.

But even that call rankles some.

“A lot of people in this business are disappointed in the quality of the show and in the competition with the AMAs,” says one executive. “It all gets turned into political battles.”