12.19.2019
ELVIS COSTELLO TALKS ABOUT GRAMMY RULE CHANGE THAT LED TO HIS NOMINATION IN THE TRADITIONAL POP CATEGORY
Billboard: Paul Grein: December 18th 2019.
Costello says he didn’t know his album was entered in the traditional pop category. “I didn’t know anything about it until we got the nomination. I didn’t even know we were eligible.”
The Grammys’ decision this year to expand their definition of traditional pop had a huge impact on that category. For one thing, the number of entries for best traditional pop vocal album jumped significantly, from 55 last year to 81 this year. Also, the change allowed two artists — Elvis Costello and John Legend — to receive their first nominations in the category.
The traditional pop category was introduced in 1991 largely as a way of honoring the Great American Songbook, which is usually taken to mean songs that were written prior to the advent of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s. Only one of this year’s nominees in the category, Michael Bublé’s Love (Deluxe Edition), primarily consists of such songs.
Here’s how the Recording Academy defines the category in its current category description guide: “This category is for performances of a type and style of song that cannot properly be intermingled with present forms of pop music. This includes older forms of traditional pop such as the Great American Songbook, created by the Broadway, Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the period between the ’20s and the end of World War II, as well as cabaret/musical theater style songs and previous forms of contemporary pop.”
The definition continues by spelling out the change they instituted this year: “This would also include contemporary pop songs performed in traditional pop style — the term ‘traditional’ being a reference, equally, to the style of the composition, vocal styling and the instrumental arrangement, without regard to the age of the material.”