2015's looking promising but they still have a pretty lousy history with dance music

 

With the 57th Grammy Awards taking place this Sunday at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, we take a look back at the often chequered history between dance music and the world's most famous music awards. The huge award ceremony is broadcast around the world each year and often courts more than a little controversy.

With dance music featuring so heavily in the mainstream charts, more and more recognition has been awarded the genre in recent years by the awards, but the old criticisms still remain - the dance categories aren't broadcast at the main event and are often dominated by artists deemed more traditionally pop than electronic. Also despite dance dominating the Top 40 for several years now, few dance artists make it out of their specialised groups (a notable exception being Daft Punk).

 

So with that in mind, here's everything you need to know about the biggest music awards in the world.

 

History

The Grammy awards have been held annually since their inception in 1959 and are presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

 

Dance Categories

The official dance categories are broken down into:

Best Dance Recording - which is awarded to "recording artists or works containing quality vocal performances in the dance music genre." It was first awarded to Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer in 1998 for "Carry On" and so far the only artists to win it twice are Skrillex (2012 & 2013) and Justin Timberlake (2007 & 2008).

Best Dance / Electronic Album - which is awarded to "recording artists for quality albums in the dance music and electronica genre". This is the first year they've dropped the "a" from the category name, presumably because they've realised that the word "electronica" hasn't been used IRL since Clinton was in the White House.

Best Remixed Recording - this started life as the 'Remixer of the Year' and was awarded to the likes of Frankie Knuckles, David Morales and Deep Dish before being rebranded for a specific work. Winners since included Justice, Louie Vega, David Guetta and Roger Sanchez.

 

2015 Nominees

Best Remixed Recording

Tiesto - John Legend - "All Of Me" (Tiesto's Birthday Treatment Remix)

MING - Crossfingers Featuring Danny Losito - "Falling Out" (Ming Remix)

Audien - Bastille "Pompeii" (Audien Remix)

Eddie Amador - Five Knives - "The Rising" (Eddie Amador Remix)

Kaskade - Galantis - "Smile" (Kaskade Edit)

Robin Schulz - "Waves" (Mr Probz)

 

Best Dance / Electronic Album

Aphex Twin - Syro

Deadmau5 - While (1<2)

Little Dragon - Nabuma Rubberband

Röyksopp & Robyn - Do It Again

Mat Zo - Damage Control

 

Best Dance Recording

Basement Jaxx - "Never Say Never"

Clean Bandit Featuring Jess Glynne - "Rather Be"

Disclosure Featuring Mary J Blige - "F For You"

Duke Dumont - "I Got U"

Zhu - "Faded"

 

Past Controversies

Where do we start? While the Best Dance Album category has generally gone to deserving dance artists, it was still only brought in in 2005. 2005! That's 28 years after Levan at the Paradise Garage, 14 years after Ministry of Sound opened and four years after Daft Punk - Discovery. To say the academy was a little late to the party is an understatement. The Best Dance Recording category is the worst.

Then we have the main offender, Best Dance Recording. Looking through the previous winners and categories, it's hard to pick the worst offender from this long list of WTF moments. Madonna - "Ray of Light" beating Daft Punk - "Around the World" in 1999? Britney Spears - "Toxic" beating Basement Jaxx AND The Chemical Brothers in 2005? The Baha Men not only being nominated, but WINNING in 2001? But if we had to pick just one travesty it has to be, the entire nomination list for 2010 - Madonna, Britney Spears, The Black Eyed Peas, David Guetta and the eventual winner, Lady Gaga!(?!)

 

Our Predictions

Best Remixed Recording: It has to be Tiesto. He lost out on best album in 2008 to The Chemical Brothers, but aside from that he deserves it just for staying power alone. The man's been at the forefront of the scene for over two decades now, give him some love already!

Best Dance / Electronic Album: A tough one to call, Aphex has the heritage and artistry angle covered, but that's not traditionally been a prerequesit for an award before. If it was a UK thing, the smart money would be on little dragon, but given the previous successes of Skrillex and Guetta, we think the Mau5 might just nab it.

Best Dance Recording: The Grammys are obsessed with Mary J, throwing her an astounding nine awards over the years, so Disclosure are looking good. That's not to discount Clean Bandit, who's "Rather Be" could never be considered anything but a heavyweight contender. Sorry but we can't call this one folks, you guess is as good as ours!

 

So will this year see dance music emerging from the shadows? Well, probably - the three dance categories are filled with predominantly dance artists, but they still haven't made the main show and it remains to be seen how much coverage the dance winners will get in the wider music press.

 

You can tune in to the Grammys online on Grammy.com from 9PM GMT