Grammy Chief Harvey Mason Jr. on Beyonce’s Big Country Nominations, the Beatles for Record of the Year, and the Problematic Best New Artist Category

Being the head of the Recording Academy and the Grammy Awards is a very challenging job, and even one of the organization’s most joyful days of the year — the annual Grammy nominations — can be fraught with controversy and disappointment as well as happiness. But every year, Grammy chief Harvey Mason Jr. gets on the line with journalists to talk about the year’s nominees and defend the process that he and the organization’s staff and members are continually transforming and evolving in order to reflect the year in music. It’s an imperfect process — and one that Mason himself oversees but does not control — but there’s little question that the Grammys have become much more representative than they were 10 or 15 and especially 20 years ago.

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Variety caught up with Mason about this year’s nominees.

Even though the singles chart has been so male-dominated this year, the Grammys have another very female-centric list of nominees.

This is a unique time for the Academy because of our voting membership — the makeup of that membership has changed and evolved so much, 66% of the voters are new. There’s 3,000 new women voters over the last four or five years, people of color at 38%, and I’m so thankful for our Academy voters and the way they showed up, did the work, and produced an amazing list of nominees. I sent a message to our voting body urging them to make sure they were doing the work and voting with purpose and intention, and with this outcome, it really seems like they did just that. I’m really, really inspired by their dedication.

It’s interesting that Beyonce has three country and one Americana Grammy nomination, but she hasn’t really gotten that kind of a look for the country-music awards shows.

Yes, and remember our “10/3” rule, where you can only vote in three fields — which means that as a voter, you’re not just following your favorite artist around [every category], saying “I like this artist, I don’t care what type of music they make, I’m gonna vote for them everywhere.” So when you see an artist nominated across genres, those are different voting bodies voting for that same artist in different genres. To me, that really, really adds credibility, because people with expertise in rock or rap or country or folk are voters are [solely] evaluating the music that’s in their category.

It’s not lost on me that the perception used to be that some of these decisions were being made in [proverbial] smoke-filled rooms at the Academy. But you know, and hopefully your readers know at this point know, that is not about popularity, it is not about streams, it’s not about how many likes they get, but it’s about the peers, the professional musicians, people doing the work that we talked about in that letter, doing the listening, doing the evaluating. And of course it’s subjective, but they’re evaluating it for its technical merits and for its artistry. It says a lot about our voters that they’re able to do that across the genres.

Andre 3000 — what the hell? It’s an instrumental flute album — I can’t think of anything like it that’s been up for album of the year.

You never know what’s going to resonate with the voters. What I like is our voting body is made up of all kinds of different creators, so when you see somebody like that coming from a different genre, it’s exciting because we’re pleased that we have representation in all those different types of music.

Here’s a question about the rules: a person can only submit for best new artist three times, but this year we’ve got a situation where Tate McRae had a breakout year but already used up her three submissions, but Sabrina Carpenter has been releasing albums for ten years and released her sixth album, but is eligible. I know this is always the most problematic award, but do you think that rule needs to be looked at again?

Honestly, we look at that category every year, because it is so hard to get just right. It’s a bit amorphous —you can’t really pin down what constitutes the best new artist nominee. The verbiage is about the rise to national prominence, and I think we can all absolutely acknowledge that this was the breakout year for a lot of these artists. It’s a tough one, and we review it and talk about ways to make it better. It is so darn subjective, but we’ll continue to look at it.

On a similar note, the wording of songwriter of the year was changed. The award was originally intended to recognize “non-performing” songwriters, but the term was taken out of the official rules because a lot of major songwriters who have written hits for others have solo careers. I assume that change is why Raye, who is a pretty major artist qualifies for songwriter of the year?

[Mason deferred to the Grammys’ official rules, which have been revised to state that eligible nominees must have “a minimum of five newly written songs in which they are listed as a non-performing, non-producing songwriter or co-writer,” which means that they can release as many solo songs as they like as long as they’ve written five for others.]

Here’s another tricky question — the Beatles are nominated for record of the year. Do you feel like that is almost a technological award, that they were able to create a new song out of a 45-year-old John Lennon demo, using other elements that had been recorded across the decades, in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘90s and last year?  

I’m not sure how deep the voters went into it, and I’m speaking a little out of school here, but I’m thinking it has more to do with them loving the song and just being excited to hear new music from one of the best all time groups. I think it’s an exciting use of technology, but I would guess that the voters just really love the song.

Another tricky question: Tyla won big last year with her single “Water,” but her album didn’t get any nominations this year. Do you think that’s because she’s sort of betwixt and between, she’s not fully R&B or Afrobeats?

It’s possible, but again, hard to say. She’s obviously so good, and I’m sure there’s a debate to be had around that, but I don’t know why it ended up that way.

One last question: How on earth are you going to do a tribute to Quincy Jones without it taking up half the show?

I’d be fine with the taking up half the show! That’s how much I love Quincy and how much our community appreciates him and what he’s contributed. We’ll definitely do something, although probably won’t be as much as I wish we could do. But I’ll be pleased and proud to honor him in the show.