Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
The Recording Academy is planning to start an Asian Grammy Awards, according to a report by The Korea Times. The inaugural edition will be held in either Korea or Japan, and the President and CEO of the Recording Academy have met with K-pop companies in Korea already.
Panay and Mason are known to have met leaders of K-pop powerhouses HYBE and YG Entertainment, entertainment business giants including Kakao Entertainment and CJ ENM, tech companies such as Naver and KT, as well as local governments of the three cities.
The meeting was confirmed by sources at the companies, though *wink wink* not regarding what it was about.
“We can confirm that there was a meeting, but cannot disclose what was discussed,” an official at one of the companies said.
Another official said, “Holding an award ceremony in Korea will ‘meet each other’s needs’ because Grammy seeks expansion to Korean and Asian markets, while Korea’s entertainment industry will benefit from Grammy’s established reputation.”
While I realize this is a report from a Korean outlet, it seems telling that it ended up as that outlet with the scoop, that everything seems to revolve around Korea, and that only Korea or Japan are considered as hosts.
——
Anyway, I assume this effort will be like the Asian version of the Latin Grammy Awards and the Latin Recording Academy, not because they want to honor Asian artists, but rather because they want to give the Asian artists they’re affiliated with promo and prestige without actually having to do it in America.
Needless to say, I’m inherently skeptical of the intent here given that it’s an awards show, but even more so in this case that it’ll end up being anything but dominated by artists and companies from countries that would simply increase industry profits the most — and of course those with the most ties to the Western market and companies. Not that it would differ much from the actual Grammy Awards in that sense, but I have to imagine the charade will look even worse as they try to group Asian music all together under one umbrella. And it’s not like this type of cynicism from me is even original either, as when I did even the lightest research (Wikipedia!) on existing regional awards, I found all these things have been expressed by Latin artists about the Latin Grammys already.
Well, I’ll still hope for the best, but either way at least we’re due to get quality copypasta from this because fandoms will 100% go to war if their faves are up for nomination despite claiming they don’t care.
