Recording Academy Releases 2024 Membership Report: Details, Analysis

On Thursday (Oct. 3), in the future earlier than first-round voting opens for the 67th annual Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy launched its 2024 Membership Report. The most eye-popping statistic: 66% of the present Grammys voters has joined for the reason that Recording Academy launched its new membership mannequin in June 2019. Under that mannequin, the academy invitations giant new member lessons to affix, with a watch on boosting the numbers of girls, individuals of shade and folks beneath 40 within the academy.

Thus, the voting membership that delivered album, report and track of the yr to Adele in 2017 and those self same three awards to Bruno Mars in 2018 is far completely different right now. We began to see a shift in voting patterns in February 2019, even earlier than the brand new membership mannequin was launched, when Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” turned the primary hip-hop hit to win report or track of the yr. (It received each.) That identical yr, Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour received album of the yr.

Since 2019, roughly 8,700 creators have change into voting members of the Recording Academy. Of that complete, greater than 2,000 joined simply this yr. There at the moment are greater than 13,000 complete voting members, based on the Academy.

Other key takeaways from the report embrace:

Boosting Numbers of Women

In 2019, the Recording Academy set an bold aim so as to add 2,500 girls voting members by 2025. With a yr to go, the Academy has already surpassed this aim, including greater than 3,000 girls voting members.  Since 2019, the share of girls voting members has grown by 27%.

Increasing Racial Diversity

The Academy stories that the share of individuals of shade has grown by 65% since 2019 amongst voting members. Since 2019:

The present voting membership, counting the brand new voting members added this yr, is 49% white or Caucasian; 38% individuals of shade; and 13% want to not disclose or unknown. That “people of color” slice breaks down like this: 19% Black or African American+; 10% Hispanic or Latin+; 4% Asian or Pacific Islander; 2% want to self-describe; and different smaller slices.

The present voting membership is 66% males; 28% girls; 6% want to not disclose/unknown; and different, smaller slices.

Too Much Jazz. Not Enough Country

By style, the present voting membership is 27% pop; 19% jazz; 17% R&B; 17% rock; 13% American roots; 13% different; 12% classical; 10% international music; 10% Latin music; 10% different; 10% rap; 9% dance/digital; 9% nation; 8% gospel/Christian; 8% visible media; 7% up to date instrumental; 5% new age; 4% kids’s; 4% musical theatre; 3% reggae; 3% spoken phrase; and 1% comedy. (Members might choose a couple of style.)

Jazz and classical are overrepresented, relative to their share of the music market. Country lags behind its share of the music market.

By space of specialization, the present voting membership is 46% songwriters/composers; 33% producers; 33% instrumentalists; 32% vocalists; 19% engineers; 12% arrangers; 6% different; 4% music video; 3% album packaging; 3% album notes writers; 2% music supervisors; 2% conductors; 2% spoken phrase.

In a letter accompanying the discharge of the report, Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, stated partially: “The Recording Academy membership has by no means been extra reflective of the music neighborhood than it’s right now. It has extra girls, extra People of Color, and a broad illustration of various genres and crafts. But we’re not simply celebrating numbers. Our group has been essentially reworked by this extraordinary infusion of recent expertise, making us an unquestionably higher, stronger, extra profitable, and extra impactful group.

“And we’re not carried out but. Even although we’ve made big strides in direction of creating a various and consultant membership physique, there’s nonetheless a lot work to be carried out. We wish to recruit extra younger voters, as a result of the way forward for music is of their arms. We wish to see a rise within the share of girls and folks of shade, as a result of our aim should all the time be to precisely characterize our neighborhood.

“And as we globalize our mission, we want a membership body that reflects every corner of the music world.”

Mason added some specifics in an interview with Billboard this week. “It’s been a very intentional effort to try and make sure that our membership is the most relevant, the most diverse. …We’re not just trying to build numbers. We’re looking at, what is the music community made up of? … A big goal for us is to make sure that we’re matching or coming close to the community that makes music. That’s not the same as the general population of our country. We know that R&B/hip-hop is roughly 33%-34% of all music created and consumed. We know what the numbers are for Latin music, women, and other groups. We have a rough idea of what the numbers feel like.”

On July 26, Mason despatched a pointed letter, through electronic mail, to the Academy’s voting members, “It’s about the current year and the quality of the work, period!,” he implored. “There should be no other rationale for voting. If you are taking into account an artist’s older work, or their reputation, or race, or gender, what label they are on, who their manager is, how many friends participated in the project, or anything else like that, you’re not doing your job.”

Talking to Billboard, Mason expressed a bit extra sympathy for members who could also be inclined to take different elements into consideration, although he once more stated he hoped the main target can be on the music. “Voters have their own ideas around how they vote and what they chose to vote for and we want to give them some latitude to be able to do that but it’s my hope and I believe it’s the Academy’s desire that our voters will evaluate the music based on the merit of that music exclusively. It’s not about past sins [of the academy]. It’s not about genre representation. It’s really about the quality of the music. My hope is that people listen to the music and evaluate it based on the merits.”

At one other level within the dialog, he stated “The whole idea of this membership [drive] is not just to hit numbers, it’s to try to get the right results and the right outcome.”

Asked to be extra particular about that assertion, Mason stated, “I’m not saying the positive result is any specific album or genre winning any specific award. I’m just looking for accuracy and relevance and making sure the outcomes are reflective of what’s happening in music. I don’t care what genre that is. I’m definitely not looking at making reparations [for past Grammy outcomes]. I’m just saying the outcomes for our academy … are all driven by our membership and if we have the right membership, we’re a better organization.”

First-round voting for the Grammy Awards opens on Friday Oct. 4 at 9 a.m. PT, and closes on Oct. 15 at 6 p.m. PT. Grammy nominees will probably be introduced on Nov. 8. Final-round voting will probably be held from Dec. 12 to Jan. 3. All voting members, together with these welcomed within the 2024 new class, are eligible to take part within the voting course of. The 67th annual Grammy Awards will probably be held on Feb. 2 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The host has but to be named. Trevor Noah hosted the final 4 Grammy telecasts.

The 66th annual Grammy Awards had been held on Sunday, Feb. 4.  Ben Winston, Raj Kapoor and Jesse Collins had been government producers. Hamish Hamilton directed. The present acquired a Primetime Emmy nomination for excellent selection program (dwell), however misplaced to The Oscars (which was additionally government produced by Kapoor). The Recording Academy has but to announce the host, producer or director of the 2025 present.