The Grammy Awards faced controversy long before this year’s ceremony; more than 30 categories faced the axe. With music outside Billboard lists already facing marginalization, the changes angered many artists by combining genders and averaging together genres.

More fundamentally, artists can easily argue that the awards lack direct relevance to music they value, and look instead to validation from other sources.

But watching the acceptance speeches by Skrillex, you see an impression not so much of how the Grammy Awards view Electronic Dance Music as how Skrillex views the EDM community. Winning three awards – Best Dance Recording, Best Electronic/Dance Album, and Best Remixed Recording – Skrillex, aka Sonny Moore, turns attention elsewhere. He acknowledges artists who came before him who seem shoe-ins for Grammy winners in hindsight (Daft Punk, anyone?), and looks to the wider community of artists from which he came. Mentor deadmau5 seemed in on the festivities, too, wearing a t-shirt with Skrillex’s mobile number on it, poking fun at his student.

If anything was newsworthy in 2011, to me it is the reemergence of the notion of a greater, united “Electronic Dance Music community.” Even the very acronym EDM seemed on the comeback. What’s ironic about this, of course, is that those please for unity came in the context of an artist (Skrillex) whose work has proven divisive. But whether or not you like Skrillex’s music, and whether or not you feel the word “dubstep” has anything at all to do with it, the self-identification of EDM communities may be longer lasting than any one artist.

Bizarrely, I’ve read a number of commentaries describing Skrillex’s work as achieving some sort of larger recognition for independent electronic music. This seems not to jive with some of the “facts on the ground,” as the saying goes. Voting Skrillex for the Grammies was an easy numbers game, going after the biggest hit artist. Skrillex achieved an inarguable crossover victory in sales numbers, but you don’t need a Grammy to prove that. Moreover, the video footage you see above wasn’t aired on US TV; Skrillex’s wins all came in dance-specific categories and all aired before the telecast.

At least the marketing of the event featured Skrillex prominently, as did the nomination (if not win) as a new artist. Writing for the Dubspot Blog (no direct relationship to “dub” or “dubstep” in that school), Stefan Nickum points to that and makes a broader argument:

The 54th Grammy Awards: Electronic Music, Skrillex and the Re-Shaping of American Pop [Dubspot blog]

American pop has certainly been reshaped by Deadmau5 and protege Skrillex, though we’ve heard this narrative before, many times. Amidst tectonic shifts in pop music consumption and creation, I think it’s impossible to say whether this time will be different from the much-touted crossover breakthrough of electronics and dance styles in the 80s and 90s in the US.

The artist who did win the Best New Artist nod could himself be called an “electronic” artist, though not a dance artist – Bon Iver. And in a number of ways, I find Bon Iver, with his unique voice (lyrically, compositionally, and literally), a more interesting artist than Skrillex, and one who wasn’t quite so obvious in terms of record sales. Apparently Grammy voters agreed.

Whatever was happening at the Grammies for electronic music or pop or dance music, the line between bedroom and studio is certainly erased forever. And even for Skrillex foes, it’s hard not to feel a little warm and fuzzy as he talks about bedroom music making and working out of an illegal warehouse in downtown LA on a blown speaker.

Even if there’s no surprise whatsoever in the Grammies falling in love with Skrillex, it’d be huge news if a lot of us bedroom-style producers and lesser-known artists found a way to warm our hearts to this much-maligned artist. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Alternative interpretation:

[Christwire]
(Yes, that’s a joke – an especially brilliant one.)

The one thing you probably aren’t thinking while watching the Grammys is “wow, look at this amazing showcase for independent music.” (Last night, I expect you were thinking something more along the lines of, “I was supposed to get 3D glasses for this? Augh! I’m dizzy! Switch it off!”)

But keep score, and independent artists and labels are a huge part of the Grammy Award-winning roster. And with indies invading even the most mainstream of music events, that’s a strong indication of how big a part of the industry independent music is becoming. (Side note: yes, I’m aware that the definition of “indie” is murky at best. But looking at the broad trend, there’s still something here. There’s a difference between an artist self-releasing and being on RCA; examples below. In short, this may not be what most of us would call “indie,” but it’s a big shift away from the traditional role of the “major.”)

Want an example? How about “Album of the Year” Taylor Swift’s Fearless? And it’s not incidental that Taylor Swift thanked said label for allowing her to write all her own songs. (My own personal fandom of Taylor Swift ranks up there somewhere with Kanye West’s, but I think that’s worth noting.)

One of the groups keeping score at the Grammy Awards is A2IM, a not-for-profit that represents the independent music community. This year, says A2IM, some 43 awards can be considered “indie,” including the categories Pop, Rock, Alternative, Country, New Age, Jazz, Gospel, Tropical Latin, Tejano, Norteno, Bando, Americana, Bluegrass, Blues, Folk, Hawaiian, Native American, Zydeco/Cajun, World, Spoken Word, Comedy, Surround Sound, & Classical genres, and also scored for Best Recording Package.

Artists (aside from Taylor Swift) include PHOENIX, Steve Earle, and one of my long-time personal favorites, Buckwheat Zydeco. Looking over the list, I see quite a few indie selections. Rounder Records alone won Best Pop Instrumental Performance (Béla Fleck), Best Bluegrass Album (winner Steve Martin — yes, that Steve Martin — and nominee Rhonda Vincent), and two nominations for a Woody Guthrie re-issue. Rounder last year won best album of 2009 for “Raising Sand.”

Electronic music gets just one category, and that was won by Lady Gaga. (Interscope, her label, is part of Universal so, erm, definitely not indie.) But nominee The Crystal Method went their own way with Divided by Night, releasing on their own Tiny E Records. When I talked to the duo in the spring, they talked about how important it was to focus on their own creative muse rather than the demands of a major label.

Being an independent artist isn’t necessarily the right decision for every artist. Imogen Heap is signed to RCA. But being an artist who’s independently-minded, too, can be important.

I think it’s a really powerful statement that Imogen Heap won a Grammy for “Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical” for her record Ellipse. It’s rare for artists engineering their own albums to win, period, and this is a profoundly dude-dominated category, to boot. Whoever you’re signed to, you know it’s the artists who are motivated who can achieve the most. Imogen Heap’s savvy use of Twitter, her connection with her fans, and her ability to manage her own career must make the folks at RCA and Megaphonic Records very, very happy. And incidentally, even this demonstrates the way the majors themselves have changed: a lot of the majors have gone to small imprints that operate with the agility of the indie labels.

Discussion of Imogen Heap’s win on her fan forums

It’s a new world out there – even if we still have those dorky 3D glasses from the 50s.

The full list:
http://www.grammy.com/nominees

*Disclaimer: I can’t actually stand the Grammys, generally speaking. But that’s why I looked for something interesting to pull out of it, which this, to me, was. It means even at the awards ceremony that’s the greatest expression of major label power, major label power is waning. I’m sure I won’t be misunderstood, of course, that each commenter will read with great care all the nuances of what I’m saying.