Grammy Trends: Rising Women, Global Acts, and AI Music (Full Transcript)
[00:00:00] Speaker 1: If I could go back to any Grammy Awards, I think it would be the 27th Grammys in 1985 hosted by John Denver. I would have booed when Lionel Richie won. It's a struggle, but all you want to do is win, that's the main thing. My name is Chris Dallariva, I wrote the book Uncharted Territory, what numbers tell us about the biggest hit songs and ourselves, and I love to analyze music with data. The Grammys have evolved pretty dramatically over the years. The first Grammys in 1959 was often highlighting music by classical musicians, lots of stuff by Frank Sinatra. It really became more of a popular award show as the decades went on. I think the biggest trend that I've seen is women have dominated the Grammys in a way that they did not at the end of the 20th century. I looked over since the 1960s at nominations, and there are more and more women being nominated across categories than ever before, and that has continued to some degree this year. Some of my Grammy predictions for this year. Song of the Year, I'm going to go with Golden from K-Pop Demon Hunters. For Album of the Year, I think it's Bad Bunny's year, he's playing the Super Bowl, his album was humongous. And for Best New Artist, I'm going to go with Olivia Deen. She's had quite the year, and I think it is hers for the taking. I expect over the next decade we will see more and more artists who are not based in the United States get nominations in the big four categories at the Grammys. Next year's Grammys, I think the thing to watch out for is music made with artificial intelligence to some degree. The president of the Grammys has said that songs made with artificial intelligence are eligible for nomination in some categories, and I think we will see at some point a song clearly using artificial intelligence get a nomination.
- The Grammys have shifted from classical/traditional emphasis in 1959 to a more mainstream pop orientation over time.
- Women have increasingly dominated nominations compared with the late 20th century, a trend continuing into the current year.
- Predictions: Song of the Year—“Golden” (*K-Pop Demon Hunters*); Album of the Year—Bad Bunny; Best New Artist—Olivia Deen.
- The “big four” categories are likely to include more non‑U.S.-based artists in the coming decade.
- AI-created or AI-assisted music is expected to become a key topic as eligibility rules allow some AI involvement.