With the Grammys going down Sunday, EDM is definitely the talk of the town. No matter how you slice it, Al Walser trolled the nominations and is now running up against Skrillex, Calvin Harris, and Swedish House Mafia. The dust settled for a while, but Billboard drudged it back up, and while many of the DJs they reached out to did not have any words on the issue, Tommie Sunshine, one of DAD's favorite out-spoken DJs, had the following to say on this:
"Al Walser's inclusion as a nominee makes people take the Grammys less seriously and if they expect younger people and fans of EDM to pay attention or care about what they are doing, they better start being more upfront with their process"
Which is definitely how many people feel about the situation. It's one thing to have some secret society dictating things behind the scenes, but that Grammy360 social media site can potentially cause more harm than good. This doesn't really deter anyone with swing, though; American Association of Independent Music President Rich Bengloff had this to say about the ordeal:
"We believe in fairness, access and a level playing field... And those other artists could have also worked the Grammy365 platform if they were so inclined, and I bet a lot of them did. ... We just like the fact that The Recording Academy is very inclusive and that they give independents the same access and treat them with the same respect as every other artist that's out there."
That's be all well and good, but we don't have nearly enough hands to count on the acts that got bypassed because of Walser's trolling. As long as he doesn't win the award... right?
