WMC 2008 Panels: The Recording Academy Producers Panel

WMC 2008 Panels: The Recording Academy Producers Panel

27 March, 2008 | 11.00AM

• Written by: Mr Tunes
• Filed under: Music News: carl craig, grammy awards, grammys, kaskade, wmc 2008, wmc 2008 panels

“I got robbed”, were some of the opening remarks muttered by Carl Craig in regards to his losing the Grammy award this year with his remix of the Junior Boys’ track, ‘Like a Child’.

This set the pace for an all-star discussion featuring the likes of Paul van Dyk, Kaskade, Jimmy Douglas and Jason Bentley.

The focus of the discussion was the Grammy award categories for the dance genre and some of the challenges it faces.

Moderator Kurosh Nasseri, an attorney who represents many popular dance producers, suggested that maybe we need a new category to accommodate all the compilation albums being put out, but took great focus on the issue of the remix category.

The problem is that the Grammy’s Recording Academy largely consists of members who are not very familiar with the genre as a whole, so the remix category is particularly nebulous for its voters.

Carl Craig asked whether the process for voting is doing its job, since all that is provided to the members is a thirty second preview of the track on iTunes.

In his case, he was particularly annoyed that they took only the intro of his remix as the basis for members to their votes.

It was discussed that the solution to this problem is that people in the dance side of the industry have to become more involved as voting members in order to prevent further disappointments such as this one from recurring, as most on the panel didn’t feel Benny Benassi’s remix of Public Enemy ‘Bring the Noise’ was a suitable winner.

Another opinion was brought up that maybe too many pop artists are dipping into the dance genre, such as Madonna and Justin Timberlake, and that perhaps they should be limited to the pop world.

That brought up an interesting point, because panel member Jimmy Douglas was awarded a Grammy for working with Timberlake, but was still not in total disagreement about the opinion overall.

The discussion was also dominated by the issue of the idea that if someone remixes their own track, is it eligible for the remix category?

The general consensus from the panel and the audience was that it shouldn’t be eligible, but Kaskade argued that if you completely reinvent your own track, it should be eligible, because you’re doing the same work that someone else gets hired to do, but on your own.

The chat surrounding this topic went on and on ad nauseam, to the point where audience members were getting restless and bored.

On the whole, this panel didn’t live up to its hopes, boasting such strong members while centering on the fairly dull topic of Grammy discussion.

Additionally, Carl Craig was often short on words, which was a disappointment, because it’s safe to say that he is the musician that people wanted to hear from most, being the legend in the dance world that he is.

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