How Grammy Voting Really Works & Why It Matters More Than Ever w/ Harvey Mason jr.

23:47I think that's the coolest thing ever, first of all. Everyone has their own identity and their individual things that they love and that makes sense to them and moves them. And I would much rather that be the environment we're working in rather than a few select people we're driving what we all think we should be listening to or what they think we should be listening to. And the ability to discover music and to try something and say, I'm not crazy about that, but you know what? I love this. Let me find 10 more things like that. I don't know if there's been a more exciting time in music than right now.

24:20I know there are things that we're all nervous about and scared about with the dreaded AI conversation and consolidation of label or power. But with what's happening in music and, as you said, the ability for music lovers to find different kinds of music and have it at their fingertips at any given moment is really, really exciting. As to what we're doing about it, I want to make sure, as the person who's running the academy, along with our board and our chair and our executive leadership, I want to make sure that we are – I want to make sure our membership is representing what's happening in the music business right now.

24:56So I want to make sure there's members from different parts of the world. We can't all be just from one place. We can't all just be people who love one kind of music. We can't all be people who look a certain way or a certain gender or a certain age. We need everybody to be a part of the process. And we need everybody to be able to come in and advise us as an organization. And I hate to, I'm not trying to sound over-important. I know the Grammys or even music, for that matter, is not the most important thing in the world. But I think what artists do is one of the most important things in the world.

25:28And I think music is what makes us human. And it's what makes society move and work. And so for us to serve music and to serve music people, we have to do a lot of things that maybe you're saying, well, that's not really important. But for us to get it right, those are the things that are really, really important. Getting the membership right. Make sure we're talking about music the right way. Making sure we're getting the right outcomes, the right nominations, the right wins so we have a great show and we can generate more revenue for our music community. And for those who are listening who don't know much about it, what does Music Cares do?

26:02Music Cares is the 501c3 affiliate of the Academy. And it is an organization dedicated to the health and well-being of music people. Anytime a music person, you don't have to be a member, just a music person, a professional in the industry. You could be a guitar player. You could be a yodeler. You could be a roadie on a tour. If you're a music person, you work in this industry, you need help, you call Music Cares. You might have a car accident. You might have medical bills. Maybe it's a drug addiction, mental illness. Somebody stole your tuba. You call Music Cares, and these people are taking care of you.

26:38And what I'm so proud of is what Music Cares has done in times of great need, crisis, disasters. We had so many people that had lost their homes during the fire or had been affected by COVID. During COVID, we gave out over$30 million to music people who needed help. Same for the LA fires in the last year, music people who need help. So that's what Music Cares does. And I'm just proud. And comparatively, the museum does kind of a similar thing on the education side and the preservation side, making sure young people are exposed to music and music teachers and music classes and have instruments.

27:17And there's just so many great things that this organization does, which is why I jump on a podcast like this and talk to you, because I want people to know we are so excited about our noms and our wins and our performances. But what we do really matters. What we do as an organization to support music and music people, I think, changes the world. And one of the things I thought was really inspiring last year was Chapel Rhone dedicated part of her speech when she won Best New Artist to talking about how artists don't receive health care and that can be really challenging for them. It's probably the most stressful job you could choose to do is being an artist, especially a pop artist, with the whole world watching you.

27:58And I'm wondering, could someone get some sort of health care covered by Music Cares? Like, is that one remedy? Well, first of all, what Chappell said, I couldn't be more excited about the sentiment of what she brought up in her passion and advocacy for music people. Because I feel the same way. I wake up every day thinking, what can we do for our community? And insurance and health care is a big challenge for us because none of us are, or at least until this job, none of us are working for companies that offer that, retirement packages or 401s or health insurance. And so as a music creator, and it's not just artists, it's the songwriters, it's the engineers, it's the musicians, we don't have access to that.

28:47So Music Cares doesn't do that specifically and directly, but the Academy has, over the last five years, been sourcing low-cost insurance opportunities for our members. And we're trying to develop more things like that where we can fill gaps. We haven't nailed it all because we also have a certain pool of resources to work with. But these are things that we are super passionate about, and we're really working closely with the artist community, the songwriting community, to try and also figure out what's the legislation. We have an advocacy department in D.C. and at the state level where we're fighting for the rights of music people, not just on copyright protection and AI protection, things like that, intellectual property.

29:25It's about how else can we be helpful to the music community. So these are things that we're working on every single day, including how do we solve some of the challenges financially for the creative community. One of the recent ads, as far as categories go for the Grammys, was Songwriter of the Year, which I know songwriters are so excited about. They've been wanting that for a long time. And the songwriter category specifically, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's non-performing, non-producing songwriters. So it's like true, like, you know, writing music and lyrics, songwriters. And over the last few years, I've started to see that some of the same names keep cropping up in the nominations.

30:05Is that category stagnating? And is there maybe too small of a pool of people eligible? Like, I don't know, what are you thinking about Songwriter of the Year as it evolves? I hope that it continues to grow, and I hope we get more and more songwriters, but this is the challenge. One of the things that we're concerned about is human creativity and the craft of writing songs, which is why I was so pleased to be a part of bringing that category to our list and to our show. We've had a deficiency in celebrating the craft, I would think. Maybe I'm biased because I'm a songwriter, But I feel like we needed to do a better job of recognizing and honoring the incredible people that are writing the songs that artists are performing.

30:51So that category was an attempt to do that. I hope we'll continue to get great support and people submitting for that category. I know there are some names that are the same, but I don't think it's stagnant. I feel like there's great different people. We've only done it three years, so we'll see where it goes. And I love the fact that we're doing that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the things that people on the outside looking in at the Grammys might not totally understand is like how certain artists end up in certain categories. I think, for example, Justin Bieber getting nominated for Yummy and he was in the pop category, but he wished he was in the R &B category.

31:31But there's a lot of steps along the way to determine who is in what category. I know that you have to submit, like, correct me if I'm wrong. You have to submit and put yourself in a certain category and then it's reviewed. How does that happen sometimes that an artist will end up in a category that they were not intending? And how do you address those challenges when the artists are upset about that? Well, start with the process. You enter as an artist or as a creator, songwriter, whatever you are, you enter the material in a category and in a genre where you believe you should be competing. Sometimes you as an artist may have a different opinion of what type of music you think you're making.

32:12So with that in mind, and so we didn't get very disparate types of music competing against each other, being judged, I'll say, in the same category. We created committees of experts. So if you're talking about a record that's either pop or R &B, we have a committee of pop songwriters, producers, executives, artists, engineers that exclusively work in that genre. Then we'll have the same committee in R &B. And then music that's submitted in R &B go to the R &B committee. And the R &B committee listen to it and say, not is it good, is it bad, does it deserve a nomination? No. Is it R &B? That's the only determining factor that they have the ability or the authority to be able to say.

32:54And if they say that it is R &B in their minds, and again, we can only try and assemble the group of experts that we can because all this is subjective. Nobody can definitively, factually say a piece of music is definitely a certain genre. It's opinion. So we get people who we think are really smart and know the genres to evaluate whether or not it fits in that genre. And they keep it or they pass it on to the other genre committee. And so if R &B feels like it's not as R &B as they think maybe the artist does, they move it over to pop. If pop thinks that, yeah, it's pop, we'll take it, then it comes out in pop.

33:27If pop doesn't like it, then it goes back. The only thing, and I know that sounds complicated, The thing that we've tried to do over the last five years is pay much more reverence or respect to artist intent. And so when an artist submits in a certain category, whether it be jazz or pop or rock, that committee is instructed, is asked to make sure you're paying attention to where it was entered. And in order to do that, we've adjusted those committees' ability to move things easily. So we now have it where it has to be a supermajority, 66 and a third percent has to vote that it is not of that genre in order to move it.

34:03So if half the committee votes, it stays. 66 and a third, it goes. Interesting. Not 66 and a third, sorry, 66.66. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Math. Math. Whatever. It was mathing. We're music people, you know? Um, so one of the genres that has cropped up in the last like five to 10 years as a really popular one and a growing popular one in the States is K-pop. Um, one of my coworkers at Billboard wrote a story a couple months ago talking about whether or not K-pop should have its own category at the Grammys or if it's just pop music, basically. And what did they think? I, you know, I think they had a very balanced article.

34:46I think it was very balanced. Sign of a good journalist. Yes. Talk to all sides. I think there totally is an argument for both. So K-pop is an especially challenging one. But I think since that article came out, we got our nominations out. And we saw that a K-pop Demon Hunters track ended up in the Song of the Year category, Golden by Huntrix, which has been leading on our charts. If you watch the show, you know that it's been on the charts for a long time. So I think it kind of proves that K-pop at this point has hit some sort of a threshold where maybe it can actually compete in these mainstream categories.

35:23So I'm wondering now, what do you think? Does K-pop still need to be considered for its own category or should it be in pop? Well, it's a good question. And luckily, you or I don't have to answer it because our categories and any genre-specific categories that are created or developed are determined by the music community. So the music community will survey the landscape. Hopefully, we have enough experts based on our new membership to say, hey, you know what? K-pop is really doing its thing. We need a category for K-pop. They write a proposal. The proposal comes into the board. And the board says, you know what?

36:00I think you're right. Let's have a new category. And so that process happens every year. So I would imagine with what's been happening recently with K-pop artists and K-pop music, the prevalence and the popularity of it, there is going to be more and more momentum both in the music community and in the Academy elected leadership to discuss that and think about it. So we'll see what happens. Yeah. I feel like K-pop is so strange because it's really hard to define what it is. It's like, do you want to put everyone who is a pop artist from Korea into K-pop? That might not be fair, but also is something like Cat's Eye, which is based in the States, but using the K-pop model, is that K-pop or is it regular pop?

36:40I don't know. Well, the good thing, again, is we have people within our reach and our membership and our elected leadership who are immersed in K-pop and immersed in pop and they're experts. There's no way I could or you could or any one person could tell everything about a genre and be able to determine whether it's this kind of music or that kind of music. So we rely heavily on people who are working in the space, even executives, label people, managers, lawyers, to get together and to talk about these kind of things. And that's the beauty of the academy is we have so much expertise and knowledge across our 15 ,000 voting members to tell us, here's how we're going to define K-pop.

37:16Here are going to be the rules of how we talk about it. Here's the description. Here's what it has to have in it to make sure that it's in that genre. And that is hard. It is so difficult because it is music. It's subjective. and it hits everybody differently. Yeah. And when I think of the Grammys, I think of it as an American award show, but I know y 'all are increasingly adding more global genres. Like we were just talking about K-pop, not a category, but, you know, that is a global genre. You do now have a category for African music. How do you think of the Grammys? Is it an American award show or is it representing the globe's music, the world's music?

37:55I like to think that we're representing music, regardless of where it comes from, regardless who makes it. And we never ask where you were born when you send in a submission. We just make sure that the music is available to consumers. And as long as it used to be, if it was on a record or if it was on a CD or a cassette, it was eligible. Now if it's on a streamer and available to consumers, it's eligible. So we represent music, and we want to honor music. And we realize borders are falling figuratively, and languages don't matter when it comes to music. I've been singing along to music in Spanish.

38:26I don't know, a lick of Spanish. I'm singing the words. And same for K-pop. You're seeing people enjoy music from different parts of the world. Now with Afro Beats and I'm a Piano and other types of music from the continent, you're seeing stuff from the Middle East coming in. I just went to an artist from India that was playing at the Crypto the other night, and it was amazing how incredible this music is. And to me, it doesn't matter where it comes from. So my hope is that we continue to just celebrate excellence in creativity and music, and we'll see where that leads us. Yeah. Yeah. So recently you did an interview.

39:01I don't know where it was with, but you talked about how you're seeing from your friends who are songwriters and producers that pretty much everyone is using AI in some way in the studio. I was wondering if you could expound upon that. Like exactly what are you seeing? How are they using it? It runs the gamut of people texting lyrics or ideas or how they feel when they wake up and it generating an entire track and lyrics and melody. That's the far end of the spectrum. The other side of the spectrum is somebody just has produced an entire song, but they can't figure out the bridge section or they can't figure out one line or they can't figure out a melody to finish the chorus.

39:39And they ask one of the platforms to create that, to supplement what they've already done. That's the other end of the spectrum. Everything in between is what I'm seeing in the studio. People having one of the platforms writing lyrics where they've already played all the chords and they love the music but they don't know what to say. Or taking lyrics that have been generated and building songs around that. Or having AI vocal a song that you wrote because you can't sing. Or I know one person who writes on acoustic guitar and whistles the melodies and puts that into one of the platforms, one of the models.

40:14and the model spits out songs. I know another person who is a poet who just writes poetry, and they put that into the model and it spits out a fully produced demo. So it's all over the map. People that are professionals that I've been seeing are generally somewhere in the middle where they're using it as a tool. They're unlocking something or they're stuck on a lyric or they're trying to find 15 things that rhyme with this. How do you say things in a clever way? Here's a lyric. How can I make it better? Here are some drums, a bass, and a piano. Now make it sound like a fully produced song. Those are some of the ways I'm seeing professionals use it.

40:52Also, people are using it as inspiration, not just taking what it gives you and just using it. But, oh, I never thought about that. That's a cool way of thinking about this section or that beat or this rhythm. And then launching from there. Yeah. I'm starting to see that a lot, too. So I'm covering AI for us all the time. So this is something I watch really closely. And I have a few friends who are rising songwriters right now and producers who are just trying to get their start. So they're in that grind phase where they're like every day is a session, if not two sessions. Are they using AI? Yeah.

41:24A lot of them are using AI and they're super talented. Like they don't need to, but they're doing so many sessions that like I've heard this from quite a few people that they're just like sometimes the well runs a little dry and you need something to kind of like kickstart it. Yeah. And then they won't end up using almost any of it. But it's interesting because sometimes there are bits and pieces from that initial kickstart that might end up in the resulting song. But they probably won't disclose it because, I mean. No one will. The self-disclosure thing, I don't know. I have a hard time with it.

41:59I know there's like no really better option right now. But, yeah, I don't really feel like anyone's going to really disclose if they use Suno to like try to help them start. but you know i think we're in kind of like this wild west phase where ai detection isn't so great so we're relying on people just disclosing whether or not they've used ai i think we're also seeing a lot right now and we have in the past few years this idea of you'll see a headline where it's like an ai song it's number one yeah yeah yeah and didn't you just have a number one yeah song it It was on the country song sales chart.

42:36Okay. I'm going to fact check myself on the screen if I'm wrong about that. But yeah. And, you know, I can't really speak to like what goes on on our charts, but I do think like the idea of calling things AI songs is a little bit reductive at this point. I don't know what the better solution is, but a lot of times it's more of a gray area than just it's an AI song. It was just made by a prompt. You often have the things in the middle like you were describing. And, yeah, I don't really think we have the terminology yet to describe that. The next question I would ask you, and I wish I could ask all the consumers and fans of music, do people really mind if AI was involved in the creation of the song?

43:21I'm not saying an AI artist because that's different. As I spoke on earlier, I think you want to feel something from the artist that you love or that you're a fanatic for because of that human connection or the shared experience. But if you use generative AI to make some drum beat or a chord progression or a track, do you think people will mind that if their favorite artist is singing it? I think if they know, yes. If they don't know and it tricks them, I mean Deezer just put out a really interesting stat where they said 97 % of people cannot tell the difference between AI-generated songs and human-made songs, which is a pretty shocking stat at this point.

44:01I guess that just proves how good things have gotten. But do you think fans care if their favorite artists use autotune? They don't care about autotune. I think what they care about with AI is the ethics of the training. I think that's a huge part of it. So consumers are in the weeds around that, you think, to that level? They care about sampling? They don't care about sampling. Yeah, I do wonder if I was not in the industry at the time and sampling became a thing, but I know that it was extremely controversial at that time. And streaming. They know the ethics and the finances around streaming.

44:34So there's a lot of things that have happened, technological disruption and advancements that have happened that have affected the creative community. But at the end of the day, I'm trying to figure out, and this is the toughest part of my job and where I sit is I obviously represent overall beyond just the voting members, 40 ,000 members of the academy. And they're all humans, by the way. And we're trying to figure out what's the best place to sit. And I'm coming on your podcast to talk about it, and it probably sounds a little crazy, like this guy doesn't have his position together. But it's really tough because I want to advocate for our human members and human creators.

45:08But I also realize that this technology is here, much like other technologies that have happened all the way since piano players were angry when the piano roll came out. And live bands were mad when tape recorders came out, and you could record music and listen back to it. Everybody was mad, up in arms about it. All the orchestras were angry when somebody invented a synthesizer or a sampler. And so there's always been this technology that's come and changed how we create and make our art. So I'm struggling between resisting it and saying, no, this is bad, no AI, and knowing that it's happening with trying to understand how we can utilize it as a tool and use it to benefit our members and our human creators.

45:52in a way that is not eliminating people's opportunity to express themselves or their opportunity to monetize their art. Yeah. I know you've been thinking about this for a long time. I remember back in 2023, when I feel like AI music really actually became a headlines, was the Ghostwriter Heart on My Sleeve, fake Drake song. At that time, I think, again, using the term AI song is a little confusing. that song actually was entirely made by a guy in a, in a bed sheet and some sunglasses. Um, and he used AI to adapt his vocals into sounding like deep baking Drake in the weekend. Um, and at that time you made a statement to the New York times that because the song was made by a person that it could be eligible in song categories.

46:39Um, is that still the stance? Like if something has AI in the recording, but the song itself is human made, that it could still be nominated in a songwriting category? Yes. And, and converse, it can still be nominated in a performance category if AI created or wrote the music or performed all the music, but somebody, a human sang it. So using AI does not make your entry ineligible. It just kind of makes you have to choose the right categories to be considered in. And like, what about when something has an element of deep faking, like something where it's potentially offensive to another member of the Academy or something.

47:14Like in that instance where, you know, Drake and The Weeknd didn't give their permission for their voices to be used. Are things like that disqualifying? There are things that can disqualify a recording. Absolutely. If you're doing something illegal or something that affects an artist in a way that is protected, then there are things that we can do to avoid that. But all that is starting to look really blurry and needs clarification more now than ever. Yeah. And what are you guys up to on Capitol Hill? I know y 'all are behind the No Fakes Act, right? No Fakes Act, right? Yeah. No Fakes, No Frauds, it used to be called.

47:51I think now it's just No Fakes. We've got a lot of support federally, and that is legislation to prevent people from being able to do what you're talking about, which is take someone's voice and use it in a way that they don't approve or they don't have any monetary interest in. So that is getting a lot of support by camera, bipartisan, it's kind of, I think, undisputed almost. We just need to get it through and get it happening and get it signed off. But I'm confident we'll get that to happen. There are some states that have adopted it already, but we really need that on a federal level. Yeah.

48:23I mean, the statewide thing is just so patchy. It's so hard to do it on the state level. But yeah, I mean, we need the government to stay open so they can get to work and maybe think about actually passing that one. So it was funny because I was, I guess not funny, but it was interesting. I was on the Hill and we were meeting with members of Congress and I gave a talk and I said, how would you guys be okay if somebody used your voice and delivered a campaign promise with things that you didn't even believe in and were completely opposite to the way you felt. So that's how as an artist, we feel when somebody sings a lyric that we didn't write or raps a section that we don't believe or we don't live.

49:02it's inauthentic and it could really do harm to the artist brand and to the fans. So I think that hit them. And I think they realized, oh, we can't have people running around using our voice or our likeness in ways that we don't approve. Yeah. I do think that like the Recording Academy, the RIAA, like given you guys have such tight relationships with artists that senators and congressmen actually do really care about, it's touched everyone's lives. Like we were saying before at the very beginning, music is a very universal thing. My hope is that when artists actually speak up, they might actually mean something to these people and have some sort of positive impact.

49:43That's the coolest thing. You go to the Hill and you bring one of these artists and the members of Congress look out. And they're celebrities in their own right. But when they look out and they see an artist that they like, they turn into kids. And then you have their ear. Then you can spend the time talking to them about your concerns. And I think they're listening as much as they're looking at the artist and wanting them to sing or perform in their office. is they're listening to that artist and telling them the story of how they came up or how they make a living or issues they're having. And that is, I think, I guess I was going to say secret weapon is not even a secret, but that's the most powerful weapon that we have in making change is the artist community and them showing up and advocating for their peers.

50:20So the Grammys are going to be moving next year, not this year for 2026 and that award ceremony, but next year it's going to be moving over to ABC, Hulu, and Disney+. and I know we're now in this age where so many people are looking to watch the Grammys on streaming services. Does that evolve the way you're thinking about putting on the show, that it's not a traditional, that we're moving further and further away from traditional broadcast and moving more towards streaming? And what are some of the effects of streaming on a broadcast like the Grammys? Obviously the ability to reach more people in different parts of the world.

50:52But it is going to make or cause us to rethink and reimagine. If you're building a show now, what would it look like? Like, do you have to account for commercial breaks? Do you have to account for different segmented audiences? Or there's so many considerations when you're programming a show and you're trying to make a show for linear broadcast that maybe you wouldn't have if you were doing it for just streaming. The thing for us is we are still going to be on ABC. So we will still be making a show built for ABC, but also Disney+. So finding that sweet spot is going to be the challenge. It's really exciting for us.

51:26We've been with CBS for many, 50-plus years. So it's an opportunity for us to do some different things. Wow. I didn't know it was 50 plus. That is, that's crazy, man. Big changes ahead. Yeah. So Harvey, to end things off, I'm going to do a little bit of a Grammys rapid fire. Okay. Here we go. All right. So you can have your phone out for this one. Cause I know this is going to be hard to memorize. Okay. First things first, who is the artist with the most Grammy nominations? I know that one. That's Beyonce. Cool. I think she's got a hundred or 99, something like that. It's incredible. Okay. Who's the artist with the most Grammy wins?

52:00I know that one. It's Beyonce. How many wins? Do you know? 36, 35, 37, somewhere in there. And I know that Jay, her husband, has quite a few. And then her daughter has a couple. So I think between all of them, they probably have 70 Grammys. They probably are the family with the single. Oh, not even close. Yeah. Not even close. They probably have an entire room in their house with just floor to ceiling statuettes. Man, I want to see it someday. I want to see it. I want to get one. Hopefully they'll reveal it. I know. You should go in and steal a couple. They won't even notice. They won't notice, but I want to earn it.

52:33I want to earn it. Next one is the producer with the most wins for producer of the year. Wow. This is a great category and a good question because all these are my peers who have turned into my friends, which is crazy for me to say, because these are the people I looked up to when I was coming up as a songwriter and producer. So Babyface and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Those, I think they have four each, if I'm not mistaken. Babyface has four wins. Jimmy and Terry have the most nominations with 11. So I was close. Whoa. 11 nominations. That's crazy. Isn't that crazy? I love that. Who is the artist with the most wins for album of the year?

53:09I know that one because it just happened, I think, last year, two years ago. It was Taylor, who won four. Wow. Okay. She's breaking records everywhere she goes. Everywhere she goes. It was so funny when the nominations came out and people were like, where's Taylor? I know. Like next year. I'm like, it's an eligibility window thing, guys. Yeah. She did not get shut out this time. It's weird. I think she released on the first day of voting. So obviously it's not eligible, but so she released on voting day. So. That's pretty crazy. Yeah. Do you see people adjust their timelines for the voting window?

53:42No question. Because if you release too early, then it's out of the consciousness by the time voting comes around the following year. So you got to time it the right way, which is too bad. But that is a function of how people listen to music and then other things come in and they like that and they listen to that for a while. So you see a lot of that. Yeah, I think that makes sense. I do think that there's quite a few artists who will adjust their album release window if they think that maybe they can have a better shot at like a number one on the charts or something. For sure. It's just how it goes.

54:10The politics are real, you know. Well, it's like when they release movies, they don't want to release them on other weekends where there's other blockbusters or things. I can get it. I understand. The stats are important and the Grammys are definitely important more than just saying number one, like having an actual trophy and having the opportunity for that is way bigger. And what I love is when you see somebody performing or you see somebody on a news broadcast or a podcast or doing the national anthem, it always says Grammy nominated or Grammy winning artist. Yeah. And on a sad side, you see it on an obituary.

54:42And that's the thing that somebody does that stamps them forever for as long as they live as someone who's been honored by their peers as a Grammy nominee or a Grammy winner. I mean, that gives me chills. Yeah. Defining achievement. How often do you get asked, do the Grammys still matter? I used to get asked that a lot when I first took this role. And my answer was a little more tentative. And it was, I think the Grammys really matter. I've always wanted to win one. I think my family's always respected. Everybody I've ever worked with has always wanted to win one. But I understand that there were some people that didn't feel the same way.

55:17But now four or five years later, I can tell you for sure the Grammys matter. And people, I think, respect the Academy and the Grammys. Not everybody. I wish everybody did because of what the Academy stands for and what the Grammys stand for. But I do think it's something people aspire to because of the fact that it is your peers. It's not just the popularity contest or who's got a bunch of streams. It's your peers, the people you work with, the people that you respect, the people that you've looked up to maybe your whole career. Them saying, those are the people that I want to nominate or those are the people that I want to win.

55:53To me, I look back at people like Quincy Jones, who is somebody that I always respected and wanted to be like. And when I would think about him doing his Grammy ballot and voting for me as a songwriter, as a producer, I don't know if he ever did or if he didn't, but that was what was in my mind. My peers, the people that I admired evaluating my work, that just means so much to me. And the final one for our rapid fire is an artist who's been nominated in two extremely different categories. There's a lot of people that do that. Justin Bieber's done it. I know John Batiste does it quite often. He's nominated in, you know, across the ballot in folk and pop and R &B and gospel.

56:35So I would say John Batiste probably holds the world's record for being nominated in so many different categories in a given year, same year. Yeah. Oh, wow. I think Justin's nominated in a couple of different genres this year. Is he? I think so. I think he's got an R &B thing and I think he might have a pop thing. I need to check. Yeah. I love that album. Swag. Swag. What a name for such like a critically acclaimed album. I love it. Swag and swag too. I was going to say, is this album title swag too, better than swag one? I think so. Swag on twos. Yeah. Like we have so much swag. We need a second swag.

57:09He had so many songs. I can't imagine how long he was working on it just because there's two albums worth that are fuller than most albums. It's pretty crazy. But I was so excited to see that album because Dijon is one of my faves. Yeah. I went to the concert last week. Oh, really? Did you see it at the Greek? Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. He really pushes the arrangements live too, which is really fascinating. He goes for it. I love him. He really does. Well, I could definitely sit and talk to you about all my favorite artists, but I guess I'm not supposed to do that now. Because then people think, oh, you're supporting one, you're advocating for something.

57:44But I get so excited to listen to music, to talk about music, and there's so much great stuff happening. That's why I said earlier it's such an exciting time to be in this business because you can see on any given Tuesday a show that just blows you away and something like you've never seen before. Very cool time. Also the best part about living in LA for me as an adult, because I'm from Fort Worth, Texas. Not many concerts go through there. Not as many choices. Yeah. My parents were like, you're not driving to Dallas for that. Did you sneak out? You know, I didn't. Your parents are probably watching this.

58:17I know. My mom does listen to every episode. So she's going to be like - Kristen never snuck out to a concert, mom. Never. I would never do that. Sorry, mom. But okay. So Harvey, we also end off every episode of On the Record with a segment that we call Make Me a Playlist. And so we ask everyone to pick three songs based on some prompts. And OK, so the prompts are, first one, what's a song you can no longer? Gatekeep. So a lesser known song. I have so many deep cuts in my playlist, but I'm going to go with a personal response as a songwriter and a producer, some songs that maybe one that I've written and produced.

58:55And the reason I've always been a gatekeeper of the song is because I'm singing on the song. And I don't tell people that I sing. So I'm letting the cat out of the bag here publicly for the first time. Breaking news. Breaking news. Breaking on Billboard. Why Won't You Love Me, Toni Braxton. Wow. Are you in the background vocals? I am in a small feature in the fade, the second half of the song, which I never publicly talked about. But I can't gatekeep any longer. Okay. Okay. It's no longer gatekeep. The secret is out. Okay. So what is a favorite throwback for you? Anything over 10 years old? Michael Jackson, take your pick.

59:31Every song, every record. Maybe I would start with Thriller, and some of the songs on that album are my favorite. So influential for me as a young kid listening to music, watching MTV, seeing those first videos come out. And still some of the throwbacks that I go to are Michael Jackson throwbacks. Can't go wrong. Thriller ended up in the top 10 very recently for Halloween. Pretty crazy how that song keeps coming back. And the movie's coming. Oh, yes. Yeah. Played by Jafar. Jafar Jackson. Jafar Jackson. Yeah. Exciting. And lastly, what is a guilty pleasure for you? I'm assuming you're asking about a musical guilty pleasure.

1:00:08Yes. And not my food. Yes. I was going to say pizza, ice cream. No, guilty pleasure for music. I don't have a guilty pleasure because I'm never guilty about listening to any genre of music. I listen to everything. No, it's true. because is one genre of music more elevated and refined than the other? I think not. I love all music. There's not a genre that I don't listen to. It's honestly classical, EDM, pop, rock. There's some really cool things happening. And what I love right now and why I guess maybe there's no guilty pleasures is because it's all coming together. There's mashups of stuff, different types of music that you've never heard and you've never expected.

1:00:43One artist that just came out with a record, I won't say her name, but she blew my mind with just going left. They'd been doing one thing for so long and now all of a sudden I'm going to do this over here and it was the coolest work of art I've heard in a long time. Can I guess? Nope. I think I know who it is. I think I know who it is and I did love that record if I'm right. I did love that record as well. Well, Harvey Mason Jr., thank you so much for coming to On The Record. Kristen, thank you. That was a lot of fun. I love talking music with you and you're so knowledgeable about so many things.

1:01:11So thank you for having me. Thank you. I paid him to say that. Another very special thank you to Harvey Mason Jr. for coming on the show and talking to us about all things Grammys 2026. And now on to the charts. As we do every week, we're going to give you a countdown of the Billboard Hot 100 chart top 10. Here's your top 10 countdown for the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of December 6th. Coming in at number 10 is Opalite by Taylor Swift. Number nine this week is Mutt by Leon Thomas. Christmas music makes a big re-entry this week, starting with Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms in the 8th slot.

1:01:51Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee comes in at number 7. Last Christmas by Wham! comes in at 6th. Number 5 this week is All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey. Man I Need by Olivia Dean is number 4 this week. 3 is Ordinary by Alex Warren

1:02:202 is Golden by Huntrix And finally, for its 8th week at the number 1 spot on the Hot 100 chart, it's The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift Thanks for listening to this week's episode of On the Record and another special thank you to my guest, the one and only Harvey Mason Jr. from the Recording Academy for coming by the show and talking to us about the Grammys. If you like today's show, please consider hitting us with a rating, a follow, a thumbs up, all those good things. They really help a show like ours to grow and to reach new audiences. Again, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and tune in next week for another peek behind the curtain of the music business.

1:02:58I'll see you then.

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