Barely every week ago, the 2024 Grammy nominations were announced.
But at the same time as top contenders SZA, Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo were already getting fitted for gowns, something was amiss.
The proven fact that the nominees for music’s top prize were being announced before anyone got to chow and cocktail down for Friendsgiving — let alone Thanksgiving — made it feel way too early within the awards season.
I mean, Mariah Carey didn’t even have enough time to properly defrost.
Add to that the proven fact that the 2023 Country Music Awards took place just two days before the 2024 Grammy nominations were announced — and also you knew that something just ain’t right with music award shows.
That trend continued on Sunday night, when the Billboard Music Awards took the pre-Thanksgiving weekend spot long occupied by the American Music Awards — and turned it into one big turkey. (To make matters even weirder, each the BBMAs and the AMAs are owned by the identical parent company.)
Indeed, while the BBMAs were previously aired on NBC — these awards were relegated to a rattling Billboard website. And there was hardly anything “live” about them with a bunch of pre-taped performances and award presentations.
Womp, MFing womp.
If the BBMAs, which had previously been held in May since 2011, were going to bogart the AMAs — which had previously given us such iconic moments as Whitney Houston’s bravura, 10-minute medley of “I Loves You Porgy,” “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” and “I Have Nothing” in 1994 — they needed to bring it.
As a substitute, it was such a fail that nobody even cared — and even knew — about it. (That’s, after all, in case you weren’t one among Carey’s Lambily who were all about her performing her holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on an awards show for the very first time.)
As winners were being announced before the awards were even scheduled to happen on Sunday night, those that bothered to loaf around for the BBMAs — and were willing to endure a spotty stream on the Billboard site — quickly realized that that they had been bamboozled.
Not that the BBMAs were ever the very best of honors — nor did they ever deliver the sort of must-see moments of the Grammys, the AMAs or the MTV Video Music Awards — but this made you wonder in regards to the way forward for all music awards shows.
Let’s face it: The VMAs are barely holding on for relevance already.
And if it wasn’t for the Grammys and the Academy of Country Music Awards, there may not be any network presence for these trophy-giving galas.
It’s sad to see that after was one among music’s biggest nights with the AMAs within the buildup to the Grammy nominations, grow to be so inconsequential. Or worse yet, just ignored.
