Follow the Bouncing Show

The Grammys are the frequent flier of award shows, bouncing between Los Angeles and New York like some tuxedo-dressed courier delivering trophies and flirting (or feuding) with the local politicians eager to prop up their city’s limousine industry.

Unlike the other major awards shows, the Grammy gala is a home-and-away series for the nation’s largest cities (it’s also routinely wooed by Chicago and Nashville, but they have as much chance as vinyl records these days) and the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences should win a Daytime Emmy for the soap opera that ensues each year.

Why the bother? The show airs to a television audience of 1.5 billion in 161 countries and generates, depending on whom you ask, between $20 million and $40 million for the host city. And, while the Oscars are pure Hollywood, the Grammy represents an industry that is distinctly a two-city beast.

On Wednesday, the vagabond of trophy shows returns to Los Angeles after two years back East. Local leaders hope to lay a stronger claim to the show with a fancy new home--the downtown Staples Center arena, scheduled to open in October. But, like the Rolling Stones, there is no telling when the Grammy show will retire from the road.

And to the world at large, maybe it doesn’t matter. To the television viewer, after all, the stages at Radio City Music Hall and the Shrine Auditorium are all but identical.

Yet to the music industry, with its complex geopolitical landscape split between the two cities, here versus there does matter.

“The talent is in L.A., the executives are in New York, and each city, quite arrogantly, thinks it’s the center of not just the industry, but the universe,” says Thomas O’Neil, author of “The Grammys: The Ultimate Unofficial Guide . . . .” “There is a rivalry, and sometimes that comes across in the awards.”

For instance: On a chilly, shimmering New York night in February 1981, Manhattan’s music industry elite gathered in Radio City, took their seats and prepared for a Grammy valentine to their grand old town.

The occasion marked only the third Grammy telecast from New York, and, by all accounts, the race for album and song of the year was between Gotham favorites Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra. The latter was up for the “Theme From ‘New York, New York’ “--a winner that would most certainly send the sentimental crowd into a swoon.

Instead, a chubby, meek kid named Christopher Cross pulled off perhaps the greatest Grammy upset ever by sweeping the four top awards for his debut album and hit song “Sailing.”

Cross’ birth certificate may have said Texas, but to the disappointed New Yorkers he was a product of the California pop machine that churned out his music--and his victory was a clear indication of the academy’s West Coast-leaning voting bloc.

O’Neil says that same cry went up when the veteran L.A. session musicians in Toto won album and record of the year for 1982 and Sheryl Crow took home an armful of trophies in 1994 when she sang about the sun coming up over Santa Monica Boulevard in “All I Wanna Do.”

Does that add up to a California advantage? Well, Los Angeles is the largest academy chapter (New York is second, Nashville third), so that helps, but even die-hard New Yorkers shrug off the SoCal conspiracy talk.

“It’s nonsense,” says Sony Music Chairman Thomas D. Mottola. In fact, Mottola said, it is his beloved New York that has the most meaningful Grammy advantage: “Our parties are the best. There is much more excitement in the New York party scene; it seems to be more fun.”

Ah, now we’re getting to the real issues.

The Grammys typically last three hours, then the glitterati bolt for their limos to get to the parties. The difference is: With prime-time TV in mind, the New York show ends at 11 p.m., while in Los Angeles, the valets start scrambling a full three hours earlier.

“New York is definitely harder on the system,” says Michael Greene, president of NARAS. “With the late start, it’s an all-night party in New York. You just don’t go to sleep.”

So who says you have to sleep in Los Angeles? For Roy Lott, president of the Hollywood-based Capitol Records, the three-hour head start on the West Coast makes it the ideal Grammy town.

“The biggest difference of all, frankly, is the time of the show: Out here you get more parties, a longer partying experience,” said Lott, a New Jersey native. “The people you see in each city are the same, so the only big difference is the time. And the weather.”

What bicoastal conversation is complete without weather? Los Angeles offers an often balmy February, while New York may leave your Armani dress sleet-soggy. “You freeze in New York,” says a completely unbiased Kathy Schloessman, president of the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission. “What is it here? Seventy-five degrees, clear skies, Rose Bowl weather.”

What about culture, shoot back the New Yorkers, where’s the culture in Southern California? Even Greene, a Georgia native who loves living now in L.A., concedes that the East Coast city is more “culturally connected” geographically and boasts a business community that is “more accustomed” to wiring up the assorted Grammy tie-in festivities that range from jazz and classical concerts to museum events.

But, he says, Los Angeles has gained much ground in recent years by galvanizing its resources and leaders. With a smile, the controversial NARAS president says that change is due in large part to the Grammys going to New York for two years.

This year’s show will mark the 19th in Los Angeles since the gala became a televised event in 1971. New York has hosted nine times in that span, including three of the past five years.

The competition has also forced the cities to get creative and sweeten the deal for the awards show. The New York host committee, for instance, came up earlier this decade with Grammy Week--a series of cultural and charitable events to help hype the Grammy brand name. Shuttling the event back and forth, Greene acknowledges, is a strong negotiation tactic.

“You need a carrot to get everybody pointed in the same direction,” Greene said.

Sometimes, though, carrots can leave an aftertaste of sour grapes: Greene and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani got into a very public feud in 1997, when the politician blasted Greene for speaking in an insulting way to one of Giuliani’s staff members (Greene denies the accusation).

The topic of the exchange in question? Greene and the City Hall staffer were discussing Giuliani’s role in the Grammy nomination press conference (it would be a cameo appearance only, the aide was told), highlighting the ego-sensitive nature of Grammy politics.

While the fiery mayor said he could not care less if the awards show returned to its native L.A. (“We could replace the Grammys in about a day,” he told reporters), Greene insists the feud is old news and will have no meaningful impact on the Grammys going back East in the future.

Even before the Greene spat, back when the New York mayor was still in love with the Grammys, Giuliani was stoking the coast-versus-coast rivalry.

When his city first secured the 1997 show, the mayor declared at a press conference that the coup made the “capital of the world the music capital of the world as well,” and he went on to stab westward with his comment that his metropolis is “a real city,” while oft-filmed Los Angeles is merely “a city on tape.” Ouch.

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What are other differences between the New York and Los Angeles Grammy experience? NARAS won’t discuss the actual cost of the show (industry sources put the production costs between $6 million and $7 million) but he says New York union prices and taking the Los Angeles-based production company back East tack $1.5 million on the bill.

But the New York shows also get higher ratings, which Greene attributes to East Coast population hubs being more aware of the show when it’s in their midst. Indeed, Mottola said the always frenetic metropolis takes it up a few notches when it hosts the Grammys, perhaps more than the sometimes celebrity-weary L.A.

“We’re not the city of awards shows, so it becomes a very exciting time for us,” Mottola said. “It really lights up the city.”

What does the future hold for the traveling award show? Next year’s site remains undecided, but most insiders say Los Angeles will get the nod on the strength of the Staples Center, which was designed, quite literally, with the Grammys in mind.

Despite the protests of Nashville and Chicago academy chapters, New York and Los Angeles will probably remain the only cities to host the show, Greene said, citing the dangers of inclement weather, the wishes of the academy majority and “infrastructure” concerns.

Nashville hosted the show once, and it remains a sore spot for the Grammys. It was in 1973 that NARAS leaders took the show South against the direct wishes of their network partner, ABC, which prompted the network to drop the awards (CBS has had it ever since) and seek out a replacement, which led to the creation of the Grammys’ biggest rival, the American Music Awards.

In the years after that, the Grammys came dangerously close to losing their edge over their rival. But academy membership has doubled to 14,000 in the past decade, and reforms have elevated the industry view of nominations. These days, a Grammy ticket is hotter than it has ever been--to the point that it has outgrown the venues that have been its home.

Greene says this will almost certainly be the last year the show will be at either the Shrine or Radio City Music Hall. Instead the Staples Center and Madison Square Garden, both 20,000-seat venues, will be the the only sites big enough for NARAS to consider.

To Bobby Goldwater, senior vice president and general manager of the Staples Center, the show has become a cultural touchstone--and a central reason Goldwater was hired to helm the venue. The former Madison Square Garden chief was a top candidate for the new project because he brought the show to the Garden in 1997. Now, though, he believes the show belongs in Los Angeles.

“This is the entertainment capital of the world, the home of the recording academy, and we have a premier facility now to host the show,” Goldberg said. “In our perfect world, the Staples Center will be its primary home. But we understand that it’s important for the academy to go back every once in a while to New York. But with all due respect to the folks back home, I don’t think L.A. is second to anybody.”

The folks back home? Goldwater is a resident of Marina del Rey these days, but, like a certain awards show, he has a hard time committing to Southern California.

“Oh yeah,” he said with a laugh. “I’m working on that.”