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OR THE FIRST 61 YEARS OF
the Grammy Awards, the
record and song of the year
prizes went to the same piece
of music slightly more often
than not: 31 times. At the first
Grammys in May 1959, Italian
composer and crooner Dome-
nico Modugno walked off with both
awards for his lounge-lizard classic “Nel
Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare).” At the most
recent Grammys in February, Childish
Gambino’s politically charged hip-hop
smash “This Is America” — a song with
almost nothing in common with “Vo-
lare” — also took both awards.
That the awards have gone in tandem
so often suggests that many Grammy
voters don’t really distinguish between
the two categories. Broadly speaking, if
voters really like something, they seem
to vote for it in whatever category it
appears.
The Recording Academy’s category
description guide includes a capsule
summary of these two awards, but it
doesn’t shed light on the distinction
between them.
In a 2017 post on Grammy.com, the
academy’s Nate Hertweck attempted
to explain. “Simply put, record of the
year deals with a specific recording of
a song and recognizes the artists, pro-
ducers and engineers who contribute
to that recording, while song of the year
deals with the composition of a song
and recognizes the songwriters who
wrote the song. That’s it in a nutshell!” If
you’re singing a song in the shower, or
humming it as you walk down the street,
that’s the song. What you hear on the
radio, with a specific arrangement, per-
formance and production, is the record.
Through the years, the roster of song
nominees and winners has accumulat-
ed some major oversights. Bob Dylan,
widely regarded as the most important
songwriter of the modern era, has yet
to be nominated for a Grammy for song
of the year and has yet to win in any
songwriting category. That’s presum-
ably a source of great embarrassment
to the academy, which has long since
sought to make amends. It awarded
Dylan a lifetime achievement award in
1991, and Dylan has won 10 Grammys
in various album and performance
categories.
The only Beatles song to win song of
the year is “Michelle” (1966), a charming
ditty that probably wouldn’t rank among
the group’s top 25 on most fans’ lists.
Grammy voters at the time seemed
to be impressed by the way the group
incorporated some lyrics in French.
The songwriters who have received
the most song of the year nods (six
each) are Paul McCartney and Lionel
Richie. The songwriters with the most
song of the year wins are Henry Manci-
ni & Johnny Mercer (the only songwrit-
ing team to win twice), James Horner,
Will Jennings, U2 (the only group to win
twice) and Adele (the only
female to win twice).
The roster of song win-
ners reflects changes in
the music industry during
the past six decades. In
the ’60s and ’70s, three
winners emerged from
Broadway shows, but the
last was in 1975. In the
past couple of decades,
an increasing number of
song of the year winners
have come from genres
other than pop. “This Is
America” was the first
hip-hop song to win. Alicia
Keys’ “Fallin’ ” (2001), Luther Vandross’
“Dance With My Father” (2003), Beyon-
cé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”
(2009) and Bruno Mars’ “That’s What I
Like” (2017) came from the R&B field;
U2’s “Beautiful Day” (2000) and “Some-
times You Can’t Make It on Your Own”
(2005) from rock; and Dixie Chicks’ “Not
Ready to Make Nice” (2006) and Lady
Antebellum’s “Need You Now” (2010)
from country.
Also, an increasing number of song of
the year winners are written or co-writ-
ten by the artists who made them
famous. In the last 20 years, just one
song of the year winner wasn’t written
or co-written by the star who recorded
it (Jesse Harris’ “Don’t Know Why,” re-
corded by Norah Jones). By contrast, 12
songs from the Grammys’ first 20 years
meet this description, as do 11 songs
from their second two decades.
This reflects the post-Dylan,
post-Beatles belief that a complete artist
should be able to write and record his
or her own material. That may be unfair
to nonwriting artists, from Frank Sinatra
to Whitney Houston, but it remains a
prevalent attitude in the
music business.
For many years,
ballads prevailed in the
song of the year cate-
gory. This reflected the
mindset of that era that
ballads were more likely
to become standards
— songs that would be
widely covered, sung
in nightclubs and go on
to have a life apart from
the original recording.
In 1977, the Eagles’
“Hotel California”
became the first rock
track to win record of the year, while
song of the year went to a pair of movie
ballads, “Evergreen” from the Barbra
Streisand remake of A Star Is Born and
“You Light Up My Life” from the movie
of the same name. (They tied for the
award.) The richly textured “Hotel Cal-
ifornia” was a great single, the thinking
went, but nightclub singers will be sing-
ing these other songs forever.
This pattern — nonballad wins re-
cord of the year, ballad wins song of the
year — has repeated several times. For
1982, Toto’s propulsive “Rosanna” won
record; “Always on My Mind” (recorded
by Willie Nelson) won song. For 1983,
Michael Jackson’s MTV classic “Beat
It” won record; Sting’s “Every Breath
You Take” (recorded by The Police)
won song. For 1986, Steve Winwood’s
“Higher Love” won record; “That’s What
Friends Are For” (recorded by Dionne &
Friends) won song. For 1994, Sheryl
Crow’s frisky “All I Wanna Do” won re-
cord; “Streets of Philadelphia” (written
and recorded by Bruce Springsteen)
won song. (In all of these cases, both
hits were nominated for both awards.)
The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool
Believes” (1979) was the first midtempo
pop-rock song to win both record and
song of the year. When it beat “You
Don’t Bring Me Flowers” (made famous
by Streisand and Neil Diamond) for
song of the year, it was one of the first
signs that the Grammys were changing.
Two years later, another midtempo
pop-rock song, “Bette Davis Eyes”
(recorded by Kim Carnes), won both
record and song of the year. It’s no lon-
ger a surprise when a song other than a
standard-type ballad wins both awards.
Santana’s propulsive “Smooth” (featuring
Rob Thomas) and U2’s exhilarating
“Beautiful Day” were back-to-back win-
ners of both awards in 1999 and 2000.
The Grammys have 13 categories that
are open to songwriters and compos-
ers, which is nearly one-sixth of the 84
total categories. The only major genre in
which the Grammys don’t have a best
song award is pop. The Grammys have
long believed that the nominees for
best pop song would overlap too much
with the nominees for song of the year.
There’s probably something to that, but
that’s scant consolation for pop-leaning
songwriters. As the Grammys make an
ongoing effort to diversify their nomina-
tions in the Big Four categories, includ-
ing by genre, they might consider adding
a best pop song award. In a diverse
musical era, the overlap between song
of the year and best pop song might be
less than the Grammys think.
WHAT’S THE SONG OF
THE YEAR? CHECK THE RECORD
Some legendary songwriters are still waiting for a win
BY PAUL GREIN
ILLUSTRATION BY SUSAN BURGHART
THE LAST
THREE
DOUBLE
WINNERS
Childish Gambino’s
“This Is America” (2018)
Adele’s “Hello” (2016)
Sam Smith’s
“Stay With Me”
(Darkchild Remix) (2014)
148 BILLBOARD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2019