BTS on the 2022 Grammy Awards. Image Source: Getty Images / Amy Sussman
For three years, BTS have been nominated for Grammy Awards — and, in doing so, the celebrity group have made historical past a number of instances over for being the primary Korean group to snag these nominations (5 in complete) and to carry out on the award present. But on Feb. 5, for the third yr in a row, the Recording Academy snubbed one of many bestselling acts within the music trade.
BTS have been up for 2 awards on the sixty fifth Grammy Awards on the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles — one for his or her “Yet to Come” music video and one for greatest pop duo/group efficiency for “My Universe,” their collaboration with Coldplay.
The snub got here as no shock to tens of millions of BTS followers, known as ARMYs. For many, it highlighted how out of contact the Academy is with in style music and additional solidified the impression that the voters are older, out of contact, and principally white.
It’s arduous to not ignore BTS’s therapy on the Grammys, nicknamed “The Scammys” by some followers. On Sunday, when asserting the nominees for greatest music video, as an alternative of a photograph from the nominated “Yet to Come” video, Grammy producers flashed a photograph from a Hyundai advert — from BTS’s 2022 World Cup advert marketing campaign with the carmaker. To make issues worse, the picture lower off one of many members, the beloved rapper Suga.
Hey, #GRAMMYs , @RecordingAcad , how about if you current a nominee for Best Music Video, you utilize a picture of the particular Music Video that was nominated…
This is NOT the right picture from #BTS #YetToCome nominated MV… pic.twitter.com/qtvdCwgcYO— Li 🎶 💜 – Fan Account (@LiAlerp) February 6, 2023
Meanwhile, BTS’s final group live performance, “Yet to Come,” was launched as a live performance movie in film theaters final week, and on the two screenings I attended, many of the followers weren’t conscious the Grammys have been on the identical weekend.
“The Scammys are at all times like this, run by historical racist dinosaurs,” a 32-year outdated TV author in Los Angeles famous after one of many screenings. “Beyoncé has gained essentially the most variety of Grammys, which is historic, however has by no means gained album of the yr. If it wasn’t Beyoncé, then you definitely’d assume it will go to Bad Bunny, however he did not win both.”
It’s not just like the Recording Academy is not conscious of its perceived racism. In 2022, it prolonged membership to 2,000 “numerous music creators and professionals” to strive “cultivating a neighborhood that embodies the ethnicities, genres and crafts that energy the music trade.” It proudly extolled the elevated illustration of ladies, nonbinary individuals, and folks of colour within the new cohort, with out giving a breakdown of the identical teams of the present 12,000 different members. And but, when one truly seems to be on the figures, the 2022 cohort was nonetheless majority male (52 %) and principally white (33 %), with 24 % saying they’d desire to not disclose their ethnicity. AAPI illustration within the cohort got here in at simply 4 %. These percentages apply to roughly one-seventh of the complete Academy, so their illustration is doubtlessly diluted to far lower than these figures.
It’s obvious that the Academy’s future wants range in membership, awards, and media play because it struggles for relevance in a altering music panorama. It’s not an ideal comparability, however final yr’s Grammys viewership — with its much-hyped BTS efficiency — clocked in at 8.93 million. In distinction, world viewership of BTS member Jungkook’s four-hour Weverse reside stream final week drew 16.3 million viewers globally, who tuned in to look at him sing karaoke, reply questions, and play together with his canine in his pajamas whereas drunk.
Ultimately, for a lot of followers, the Grammys, which have but to bestow an precise award on BTS, are more and more irrelevant; the group proceed to set data with different awards, data, and accomplishments.
Last yr, after a live performance in Las Vegas, the place the Grammys have been held, BTS’s RM mentioned as a lot. He informed the followers: “We did not come to Vegas for the Grammys, we got here for the ARMYs. The data, the titles, the accomplishments, the trophies, they’re actually essential, however that wasn’t the primary purpose why I began all this stuff. These two hours: communion, power, eye-to-eye, singing alongside, dancing collectively. This communication, that is all the things. This is why we’re doing this.”
Still, the dearth of Asian illustration within the Recording Academy appears to disregard that Ok-pop, which is greater than BTS, is an more and more in style style each globally and within the US. Acts like Blackpink are headlining Coachella whereas smaller teams are promoting out live shows, so the Grammys snub simply erases what tens of millions of followers need — in addition to who they see themselves mirrored in and who they need talking for them.