Ever since Radiohead released "In Rainbows" in 2007 as a pay-what-you-can album, the system of how artists release music has changed significantly. With streaming services like Spotify and Tidal, it seems that buying music is quickly becoming a thing of the past, excluding the hipsters who still buy vinyl because it's "more pure." With this changing landscape, a question has come up in the music industry, should the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences start considering music that was released for free for Grammy nominations? As it stands right now, music must be commercially released and sold either by a label, independent distributor, or over the internet. Recently however, Chance the Rapper, an artist who has released his music for free his entire career, stated his displeasure with the Academy's exclusion of free music. Following that, a group of his fans created a petition on Change.org urging the Academy to change their policy on free music, which gathered over 30,000 signatures in just a few days including a signature from Chance himself. This is forcing the Academy to at least consider the change.
What seems to be needed for the Academy to work this issue out is a way to differentiate between "professional" and "amateur" music. Up until recently that has been commercial viability and sales, but the recent influx of free albums from the hip-hop and EDM communities have proven that sales don't speak to the quality of music. Amongst the rising tide of streaming services like Spotify, traditional distribution of music has fallen in the digital age. Take Kanye West's newest album for example -- it was exclusively released on Tidal, a streaming service, where it could be downloaded by subscribers who pay Tidal's monthly fee before it was ever released for purchase on iTunes or any other store, garnering over 250 million streams in the first 10 days of its release. Does that qualify as free music, even though the streaming service is paid for? If it does, can the Academy ignore the more than 250 million plays it garnered? These questions need to be answered by the Academy as the music industry pushes further into the digital realm. As for Chance the Rapper, he released his third album on Apple's streaming service on May 12 and will remain exclusively on the service for two weeks before being available for free download across the web. With the wide critical acclaim the album is currently getting, I don't see a way for the Academy to ignore this issue much longer.
