The Pop Corporation

At the country music awards, they didn’t nominate Beyonce for anything despite her all-conquering country LP and while many shrugged, many were irritated by the whole thing. The irritation came from all sides, but more importantly, so did the shrugs – apart from something for the shelf in the spare toilet or a sticker to put on the front of an album, who really cares about award shows?

Country singer Zach Bryan feels the same, as he’s not put any of his music in for consideration for the 2025 Grammy’s. It isn’t a protest as such, but rather, he’s not sure that music should be a contact sport.

According to reports, he’s withheld his music because “he does not feel comfortable with awards shows making music competitive.”

It’s an interesting take because, obviously, chart positions are something of a contest, but that’s effectively a straight shoot out where the most listened to song climbs the highest – it’s not exactly subjective, even if there’s a number of dark arts available to recording companies. Maybe an artist like Bryan determines his success by seeing increasingly larger rooms singing his songs with him? That’s a pretty undeniable metric for why you got into the business of making records, right?

Bryan isn’t the only artist to have done this. For example, The Weeknd isn’t interested in the Grammys one bit and hasn’t been near the ceremony in any way for years now. So too, Frank Ocean and Macklemore.

It isn’t a case of sour grapes either, as Zach has been nominated in the past, even winning a gong for Best Country Duo/Group Performance with the Kacey Musgraves track ‘I Remember Everything’.

According to the National Research Group, 38% of consumers say that these shows prompt them to check out media they wouldn’t have otherwise been aware of, which is not an inconsiderable number, but it’s not exactly setting the world alight. Even fewer – a mere 31% – say they even check what the award shows are saying, at all, ever.

Where award shows were a central showcase for what was going on in the various arms of entertainment, with the various algorithms, social media and playlists, you feel like the average pop fan is even more ahead of the curve than the award panels – more now than they’ve been at any other point in history.

While award shows will remain, because entertainment is an industry that loves a work party and a network like no other, you do get the nagging sense that they’re becoming less relevant than previous decades. Sure, film buffs will do a cursory check to see what won Best Picture at the Oscars – but does it have the same sway it once did? Absolutely not. Do kids still tune in for the BRIT Awards like they did after it was revitalised in the mid ’90s? Certainly since talent shows and BRIT School, interest has waned.

It might be the beginning of the end for the award show as we know it, but when it pivots to Twitch or some other young person’s platform, that’s when the vultures will start to circle in earnest.