Sophie Moser 0:02
Hey, I'm Sophie.
Sophia Barber 0:03
And I'm Sophia.
Sophie Moser 0:05
And this is the That's Showbiz, Baby! podcast.
Sophia Barber 0:12
Hey, everyone. And hey, Sophie, how are you?
Sophie Moser 0:15
I'm really good. The Grammy nominations came out this past week, which I think is really exciting, obviously big news in the music industry world. So I'm really excited to chat about those with you.
Sophia Barber 0:26
Yes. How convenient that that is what we're going to talk about first today on this episode. So, um, yeah, everyone the Grammy nominations for 2020? or 2021?
Sophie Moser 0:40
2021.
Sophia Barber 0:41
Okay, couldn't remember. Was there? Yeah. All right. I'm lost. So the Grammy nominations for 2021 came out like a week before this episode is airing and we want to talk about some of them. So I'm gonna start us off with Album of the Year so the nominees are the album "Chilombo" by Jhené Aiko, "Black Pumas" (Deluxe Edition) by Black Pumas, "Everyday Life" by Coldplay, "DJesse Vol. 3" by Jacob Collier, "Women in Music Pt. III" by HAIM, "Future Nostalgia" by Dua Lipa, "Hollywood's Bleeding" by Post Malone and "Folklore" by Taylor Swift. So when I looked at this, I was honestly shocked that Coldplay is in this category, considering all of the other hot albums that were released this year. But we will discuss this Grammy trend in a minute of their weird choices. But my favorite to win, we're gonna choose a favorite to win for each of these categories and see if we're right, is- I love HAIM and "Women In Music Pt. III" album is incredible. But my predicted winner is kind of a three way split between Post Malone, Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa. But- just because the Grammys love giving awards to super popular artists. But if I had to guess, I'm gonna say my guess is "Future Nostalgia." Sophie, do you have a favorite to win for Album of the Year?
Sophie Moser 2:06
You know, I would honestly second that. I think that that is one of the album's that made like the biggest splash in the popular music world. So I would not be surprised if that's the winner.
Sophia Barber 2:18
Yeah, I agree.
Sophie Moser 2:19
Anyways, moving on. I'm going to talk about the Song of the Year category. So this is a songwriters award. And there's actually a lot of nominees for this category. And I'm not going to read through all of the songwriters, they're all incredible, but there's like 50 of them between all of these songs. So I'll just let you know the song and the artist and then if you want to check out who wrote it, you can head to the Grammy website. So first of all, we have "Black Parade," which is a Beyonce song, "The Box" by Roddy Ricch, "Cardigan" by Taylor Swift, "Circles" by Post Malone, "Don't Start Now" by Dua Lipa, "Everything I Wanted" by Billie Eilish, "I Can't Breathe" by H.E.R., and "If The World Was Ending" by JP Saxe featuring Julia Michaels. Honestly- And like, this is so hard. There's so many songs that I love on this list. So this is kind of like, you know, me personally, I don't know, I'm very torn on this category. But I think that honestly, this one's hard because I think any of these songs really could be great candidates to win the award. But I think if I had to pick a winner, I would probably pick maybe "Don't Start Now" by Dua Lipa or "Everything I Wanted" by Billie Eilish. And for my personal favorites on the list, I really like those two and then "Cardigan" by Taylor Swift. And if the world was ending by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels, but I don't know this one is a major toss up. So Sophia, do you have any, any thoughts?
Sophie Moser 3:56
Oh, yes, this one was really hard. I really thought hard about who I was gonna win. I love a lot of these songs. I also, in addition to what Sophie enjoys, I also love the song "Black Parade" by Beyonce, and it will come up again later in this episode. I- the Grammys just love Post Malone and Billie Eilish. So I, my top two I ended up with were "Circles" or "Everything I Wanted" and I'm gonna go crazy. And I'm gonna call it for "Circles" by Post Malone. I don't totally love that song. It's not my favorite Post Malone song. But it feels like something the Grammys would give an award to.
Sophie Moser 4:36
Yeah, I can definitely see that. I feel like this category is hard because it is a lot of artists that, and a lot of songs that just feel right for the Grammys. So I see that but I think it is a toss up. So we'll see.
Sophia Barber 4:51
All right, Sophie, what are your other- we each chose three categories. So what are your other two that you're gonna share with us?
Sophie Moser 4:57
So I am also going to look at the Best New Artist category and the Best Country Duo or Group Performance category. So for the Best New Artist category- This is an award to recognize a breakthrough artist someone who kind of popped into the public consciousness, made some notable impacts. And the nominees for this category are Ingrid Andress, Phoebe Bridgers, Chika, Noah Cyrus, D Smoke, Doja Cat, Kaytranada and Megan Thee Stallion. And again, I feel like there's a pretty good list here of Grammy favorites. But for me, I kind of I'm going to call it for Doja Cat. I think she really made a big impact. She was really popular this last year. You just heard a lot about her and she seems like someone that the Grammy- the Grammys, would be likely it to honor with this award. And I know Sophia any thoughts?
Sophia Barber 5:55
I agree. I think either, either Doja Cat or Megan Thee Stallion and they both got like Tik Tok famous and then real life, if you count Tik Tok as not real life, famous. So I think between those two is a good bet.
Sophie Moser 6:09
My next category is the best country Duo, Duo or Group Performance Category. Kind of a mouthful. So this is a category honoring a new vocal or instrumental duo or group or collaborative country recording. Sophia and I were kind of talking about this, that it's kind of confusing when there's like a performance category, but it is for a recording. And the nominees for this category are "All Night" by Brothers Osborne, "10,000 Hours" by Dan and Shay and Justin Bieber, "Ocean" by Lady A, "Sugar Coat" by Little Big Town, and "Some People Do" by Old Dominion. Now for this category, I think I'm going to call it for "10,000 Hours" by Dan and Shay and Justin Bieber. That just seems like it was such a hit. I feel like I've heard a lot more about that and then some of the other songs on this list. So I think that would be the Grammys pick. However if it was me, I really love Old Dominion. Definitely a country music fan and Old Dominion is one of my favorites. But I am going to say "10,000 Hours" for the Grammy win.
Sophia Barber 7:13
Yeah, I agree with that one. I haven't heard all of these songs, confession, but I think you're on the right track with that one that one was huge. Um, I'm gonna take it far away from country and we're going to go to the Best Rap Song. And so the nominees for Best Rap Song, once again, these are nominees for the- or nominations for the songwriters, but I'm just going to give you the title and the performer. The nominees are "The Bigger Picture" performed by Lil Baby, "The Box" performed by Roddy Ricch, "Laugh Now, Cry Later" performed by Drake featuring Lil Durk, "Rockstar" performed by DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch, and "Savage" performed by Megan Thee Stallion featuring Beyonce. So I really want "Savage" to win. One, because the song is incredible. And two, it'd be really cool to see two Black women win this category. And I think they really deserve it. But the Grammys has a history of snubbing women, especially Beyonce. So if that happens, then I think probably "Rockstar" is going to take it, just because it was such a huge song.
Sophie Moser 8:17
Yeah, I definitely agree with you. I think it would be between those two for sure. But I think kind of, coming out of like the later half of 2020. That maybe "Savage" would be kind of a bigger song. It seems like Rockstar was a little bit bigger at the beginning of the year. So I don't know, maybe that would kind of make them lean a little bit towards Savage. But we'll see.
Sophia Barber 8:41
Yeah, we will. And then to wrap it up, I'm gonna go to the Best R&B Song nominations. So first, we have "Better Than I Imagined" performed by Robert Flasper featuring H.E.R. and Michell Ndegeocello, and then "Black Parade" performed by Beyonce, "Collide" performed by Tiana Major9 and EARTHGANG, "Do It" performed by Chloe X Halle, and "Slow Down" performed by Skip Marley and H.E.R. So, my fave to win. I think that maybe just because of the star power, I'm going to call it for "Black Parade" by Beyonce. But notable shout out from me to the song "Collide," because I really like the song and I don't know if it'll win, but it's really good.
Sophie Moser 9:26
Yeah, I would again, agree with your take on that. I think maybe the star power would kind of you know, sometimes that's kind of a indicator for the Grammys, But-
Sophia Barber 9:37
Yeah.
Sophie Moser 9:37
To be honest, I haven't heard some of these songs. So not the most knowledgeable on this one.
Sophia Barber 9:42
Okay, now we're gonna go into some Grammy controversies that came up after these nominations were released, and Sophie is going to take it away with the response from The Weeknd.
Sophie Moser 9:55
Yes, so the flip side of having a lot of people excited about their Grammy nominations is that some, honestly, really big stars were not honored with any Grammy nominations. And I think many noticed when the Grammy nominations came out, and The Weeknd was very noticeably absent from the list of artists who received nominations. He didn't get anything, either for his album After Hours, or his huge single blinding- "Blinding Lights." Both of these had undeniable commercial success. They did really well on Billboard charts, huge hits, and it just didn't add up. So The Weeknd took to social media and he posted this on Twitter and Instagram and said that, quote, the Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans, and the industry transparency... which I think is a little ominous. But, I don't know, a ton of artists and industry execs took his side and expressed their frustration that his like Uber successful projects from this year were not recognized at all. And I can definitely understand that. I think, especially to see artists who are kind of on par with him or had really similar successes in 2020. Kind of like Megan Thee Stallion, she had, you know, obviously really a big Tik Tok driven like, career this year and similar- similarlyn with The Weeknd, "Blinding Lights" did amazing on Tik Tok and really blew up there. It's just strange that he wasn't recognized when other people did- kind of had similar achievements and did. So, I would definitely agree with him. It seems that given his success in 2020, his successes of the year, that he was definitely snubbed this year and should have been honored with Grammy nominations.
Sophia Barber 11:41
Yeah, some people think that it's because The Weeknd is gonna play the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which I think is a week after the Grammys. And then he was also slated to perform at the Grammys. Now that he did not get nominated, he took that as a non invitation. So he will no longer be performing at the Grammys. But that's maybe a reason, among other things, that he didn't get nominated.
Sophie Moser 12:04
Yeah, definitely a little unclear.
Sophia Barber 12:06
But like Sophie was saying, other musicians and celebrities kind of spoke out to defend The Weeknd and what he was saying, including Drake, who posted on his Instagram story, that we shouldn't be shocked that there's a disconnect between impactful music and the Grammy Awards. He thought that The Weeknd was a lock for either Song or Slbum of The Year, yet he didn't get nominated. H`e also tagged Lil Baby, Pop Smoke, Party Next Door, and Popcaan, who he thought should have been nominated, among many others. And then the Recording Academy Chief Harvey Mason Jr. released a statement saying, unfortunately, every year there are fewer nominations than the number of deserving artists. But as the only peer voted music award, we will continue to recognize and celebrate excellence in music while shining a light on the many amazing artists that make up our global community. So personally, I've kind of been ov- over the Grammys for a while now. I think they're fun to watch. But I don't think we should take them too seriously. Because I just don't think they're reflective of what's actually going on. And it feels kind of political at times. And they also just really lost me when in 2018, they nominated almost no women for any of the categories. And then in 2019, they like got criticized for that and then went out of their way to highlight women's empowerment to a point where it kind of felt like they were giving female artists wins out of pity. And it was just kind of nauseating to see. And so Drake is saying that it's time for something new, something that reflects what's actually going on in music. And I honestly kind of agree, I think it'd be cool to see something new pop up.
Sophie Moser 13:43
Yeah, it's definitely interesting. I think it obviously like, you really can't honor everything that is happening with one award show like, no matter how good of a job they do. Which, you know, they definitely haven't always even done a good job with what they do have in the past, but it's definitely hard to do. So I think you're right. And I think people are starting to take it less and less seriously, even artists. Like I think it's fun and it's exciting. And it can be really cool for them to be honored in that way. But I don't know, it seems like it is becoming less of kind of this, like, just I don't know, big thing in the music industry. People are kind of catching on and the, the awards there aren't quite as indicative of success as they may be used to be.
Sophia Barber 14:26
Yeah, I agree. So now we're going to kind of take a 180 and we are going to kind of look at some industry trends of A&R. So I'm going to start out just kind of explaining what A&R is, I'm sure a lot of people listening already know. But in case you're not we're trying to make this podcast inclusive and understandable to people outside of the music industry as well. So A&R stands for artists and repertoire, and it is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists, so A&R used to be people that would go to shows constantly looking for the newest artists to sign and would even scour the internet looking on blogs or reviews to see who was hot and who they wanted to sign and develop. So from the outside, at least, it seemed like they were really focused on talent and the sound, and not so much on the following the band already had. So the A&R person's job was to find the sound that they like, and then figure out how to get them the fame. And this way of finding artists is sometimes referred to as gut instinct A&R. But with the rise of Spotify, and the accessibility of putting your music out there into the world, the way of discovering new talent is changing. So Sophie is going to touch on where we think and other people think it's headed now.
Sophie Moser 15:47
Yeah, absolutely. So, I think the biggest change is that A&R has really shifted from being this gut instinct driven type of field to being extremely data driven. So this is happening for two main reasons. So first, data an- analysis can lower the risk of major losses for labels. And second, as Sophia kind of touched on, it really does help sort through the really overwhelming amount of new music being released in today's age. So kind of touching on the first reason there, the rise of data analysis allows A&R executives to use numbers and predictive modeling, to justify signing talent to their company. So, they can kind of use predictive models to understand a little bit better, obviously it's not perfect, but they can try to understand what's going to happen with artists that they sign. So this allows labels to mitigate some of the massive risks that they take on by signing new artists. Because before there wasn't a lot of insurance of like, wow, is this person going to do well, are they going to really kind of like crash and burn, um, and record labels, they do invest an enormous amount of their revenue into A&R and marketing. So the IFPI global music report of 2019 revealed that labels are actually putting in over one third of their global revenues, or around $5.8 billion into, into A&R and marketing. So obviously, that's a massive portion of revenue. And record companies really need to ensure that they can minimize revenue loss to, you know, exist as businesses. So using data analysis, offers more concrete information that can help, help record labels make the right bets, and avoid major losses. And then second, thousands and thousands of tracks are being uploaded on DSPs, or digital service providers, like Spotify every day. So this can be around 40,000 tracks a day, according to Spotify.
Sophia Barber 17:44
Wow.
Sophie Moser 17:45
So obviously, like that's a lot, and then for that to happen, you know, without stopping every day, obviously, you're getting up to you know, just like an unbelievable amount of music that is available. So obviously, making music is much more accessible than ever due to personal tech, due to softwares, just being able to make music on your computer, upload it right from your bedroom. And this allows pretty much anyone to try their hand at making music. So obviously, A&R execs cannot go through all of that by hand. So they use data analysis as a way to sort through all of that noise and find new artists who are backed up by numbers by audience engagement already. Um, beyond knowing that data driven A&R is taking over the industry, the details of how they do this actually often remains a mystery, which I think is interesting. Which is mostly because companies don't want to give away the methods that they're using, and lose a competitive advantage against other labels. So very few have a clear idea of what this data driven analysis looks like, specifically, exactly what they look for. But we do know that data and automation, even algorithms and artificial intelligence are key tools in this field today, which is obviously very new. Nothing really like the world that Sophia was describing, how A&R used to look. So I think it's interesting, actually, that a lot of job descriptions even reflect this new reality for A&R. Like they focus on many technical skills. So you might see, you know, on like job posts for A&R that they want skills like statistics, coding, creating part- predictive model- creating predictive models, and much less on more qualitative skills like understanding branding and aesthetic and having good taste in music. But it is important to note that those things like taste and a more musical and artistic perspective, do still come into play. Because, I mean, pretty much any record label can use data, they can spot artists with big numbers. We don't know exactly what they're doing. But, you know, generally they're all looking for people with big numbers and anyone can kind of find that. So having a strong A&R exec with good intuition. And still knowing who to pick out of those people with engagement still is a strong competitive advantage. So, you definitely see a lot of new things in the A&R world today. But you know, there's still a hint of that old, traditional A&R, you do need people with good intuition, you do need people with musical and artistic taste in the, in the playing field as well. But I think moving forward and looking towards the future, there's definitely no doubt that data and AI are going to continue to turn the A&R industry on its head. And I think it's a pretty interesting article that I was reading talked about a prediction of what the A&R field might look like. So they were kind of thinking that moving forward, the initial artist scouting process is going to be more and more data focused, run by a data-specific team, which will likely replace the traditional A&R entry role. So this team would be actual data analysts who would use predictive modeling, machine learning, algorithms, AI, all of that fun stuff to monitor unsigned artists, and keep an eye out for those who are gaining reactions and engagement. They're focusing mostly on audience engagement, audience based statistics, which I think is interesting. And then they predict after this initial stage, it's likely that you would find your more traditional type A&R officials. So out of the people who have kind of like passed the first round, per se, you would have the more traditional A&R exec step in to identify the artists who have real lasting potential. So this would be more traditional in the sense that it would be focused on branding, and aesthetics. So that's still there. But as AI algorithms will become more and more prominent in the A&R field, especially as, I mean technology advances so quickly, so not even knowing what tools will be out there in the future, but likely, you know, it's just going to become more and more technology focused, that's going to continue to be a huge part of it. But it will still be important to companies to offer a personal experience, to allow artists to engage with, you know, humans. Um, so it definitely seems like moving forward that A&R will continue to be really influenced by tech. Um, but kind of after you find your artist, you're still gonna want to, you know, have a human experience human interaction, definitely have people with a more kind of like aesthetic sense for branding, and just kind of artist development and identity. So that's definitely interesting to consider, if you are interested in pursuing A&R, there definitely might be room to develop some of the technical, statistic, coding skills, all of the things that I don't love. So-
Sophia Barber 22:57
Yeah, I have to like re-learn statistics and go take a data analysis class or something.
Sophie Moser 23:02
Yeah, I don't know if that's it for me, this is maybe that A&R is not, not my calling.
Sophia Barber 23:08
Not for us. Yeah, I also was reading that, you know, once they get- an artist gets to that higher level, that hopefully, a&r will also have a mental health expert, and they'll bring, you know, mental health experts onto their team. So that's exciting, because a lot of artists kind of get lost, because it's really, I'm assuming it's very difficult to be in the public eye so much, and, you know, be on tour constantly. So that's another part of the expansion of A&R that I was really kind of excited about. But, speaking of expansion of A&R, there was a fun headline this morning from Music Business Worldwide that was Twitch has recently launched a new personalized music directory on its platform, a part of what it calls a discoverability experiment. So the directory features shelves that have different types of music-related content from live performances to music production, like, instruction live streams. And this feature came out two weeks after they had to publicly apologize for their handling of music related copyright infringement issues on the platform earlier this year. So how this ties into A&R and the expansion of it is that Twitch is currently looking for a Head of Artist Relations, who will be responsible for the development and acquisition of new creators to Twitch. They will also have to contribute to the development of new music content programs, and enhance their music product roadmap, and I was looking at the job description and like Sophie said it, it was preferable that you had experience with data analysis and DSPs. So we really got to get that knowledge, the statistics knowledge. So this just kind of shows that not only is A&R trending towards a data driven approach, but it's also expanding its scope to not just record labels, but also to streaming services. And I'm sure we'll see it expand even further as music and other technologies such as video games continue to work together.
Sophie Moser 25:17
That's definitely interesting to consider how A&R is going to expand beyond the traditional record label. And I think we're gonna see a lot of that, like a lot of the traditional structure of the music business being kind of turned upside down in different ways. Which will be really interesting to see what happens.
Sophia Barber 25:36
Yeah, hopefully, you know, we can get a job somewhere in there.
Sophie Moser 25:40
Yeah.
Sophia Barber 25:43
Well, everyone, thank you for listening. We hope that you're having a happy and safe holiday season. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts if you're feeling so generous. You know, if you want to give us a little holiday present, you could do that for us. And overall, thank you for listening.
Sophia Barber 26:02
Thank you all for listening. You can find us on Instagram at Sophia.productions and please go rate, download, and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai