The producer of the Grammy Awards has addressed the decision not to grant Album of the Year nominee Lorde a solo performance spot, saying that there simply wasn’t enough space to incorporate one of her tunes into the broadcast.
Speaking to Variety after the event, Ken Erlich said “I don’t know if it was a mistake” to run the show without a live cut from Melodrama, but said the decision was one of necessity.
“These shows are a matter of choices. We have a box and it gets full,” Erlich said.
“She had a great album. There’s no way we can really deal with everybody.”
On whether the inclusion of an artist like Taylor Swift would have factored into the show’s structure, Erlich said “it wasn’t her year. She was kind of off cycle. Hopefully we’ll see her next year.”
However, Erlich didn’t comment on why Sting was granted so much airtime at the Grammys, including a live performance of Englishman In New York – a song that’s a solid 30 years old.
Earlier, Variety reported Lorde turned down a performance as part of an ensemble in a package honouring late American muso Tom Petty, as each of her fellow Album of the Year nominees were granted the space to perform their own songs.
Lorde herself appears to have commented on her notable omission, taking to Twitter to add a knowing comment regarding her upcoming tour dates.
https://twitter.com/lorde/status/958028718437425152
The 21-year-old singer’s omission comes amid broader discussions about the show’s gender imbalance.
Alessia Cara, who was awarded Best New Artist, was the only female performer to be honoured with a Grammy during the telecast – with the exception of Rihanna, who featured on Kendrick Lamar’s award-winning LOYALTY.
Discussing the matter, Recording Academy president Neil Portnow told Variety that women should “step up” if they really want to be in the mix.
It has to begin with… women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level… [They need] to step up because I think they would be welcome. I don’t have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face but I think it’s upon us — us as an industry — to make the welcome mat very obvious, breeding opportunities for all people who want to be creative and paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists.
Yep. Even after Kesha’s Grammys performance of Praying, a song broadly understood to be about her surviving alleged abuse at the hands of her former producer, the industry’s head honchos still seem oblivious to some of the more troubling aspects of pop music complex.
