Are the Grammys Still Relevant?

According to Stereogum, nineteen million viewers tuned in to catch the Grammys last year. By comparison, about fifty-eight million people watched Thriller dominate in ’84. Why is that? I‘m sure many people will blame technology. After all, in 1984, there were no DVRS, and the internet certainly didn’t exist as we know it today. While I don’t personally own a Tivo or comparable video recorder, I am definitely guilty of watching most of my favorite television shows and movies on streaming websites like Hulu, so it comes as no surprise that TV viewership is eroding. But, with that said, I always felt like that Grammys were to music what the Superbowl is to sports. And, despite todays viewership trends, in six days, six hours and 30 minutes (at the time of this writing), I think there will be a handful more than 19 million sports fans gathered around their TVs.

So why did the Grammys resort to trying to entice audiences with cheap 3-D glasses this year? Here’s what Trent Reznor had to say:

What are your thoughts? Did you enjoy last night’s performances? I have to say, I thought Elton John’s team up with lady Ga Ga was pretty sweet! In case you didn’t catch it, I’ve posted it below for your viewing pleasure. That is, until the old guard pulls it off Youtube ;)

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!

-Mason

P.S. If you still have those 3-D glasses kicking around from the Grammys, you can get more mileage out of them by checking out the trailer for Attack of the 50ft Robot! which I included in my post, Travis Scores Video Game.


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4 Responses to “Are the Grammys Still Relevant?”

  1. New “We are the World” Recording to be Filmed in 3-D. Seriously? « Says:

    [...] viewership has been sucking lately so they broadcast a tribute to Michael Jackson in 3-D right? (See my entry, Are the Grammys Still Relevant?). So obviously we can all conclude that, in order to get people to spend money on art, we need to [...]

  2. Meet Stereogum: Now in Wordpress Flavor « Says:

    [...] love it! If you didn’t check out what they were doing before when I wrote about them in my posts Are the Grammys Still Relevant? and The Genius of Peter Gabriel, this would be a great time to surf on over. Here’s a peak at [...]

  3. MGMT Releases New Song and I Play Ms. Pacman « Says:

    [...] far more attention than that. Seriously. This tune is fantastic and further proves why MGMT should have won a Grammy. Then again, most previous ‘best new artist’ award winners have been a flash in the pan so [...]

  4. azerty Says:

    azerty…

    [...]Are the Grammys Still Relevant? «[...]…

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