Last fall, after the nomination of Louis CK and others such as Marilyn Manson – who is facing an investigation into multiple sexual assault charges – sparked public anger, Harvey Mason Jr., the director of the Recording Academy, defended the right to sue anyone. as long as they meet the organization’s eligibility rules.
“We don’t look back at people’s histories, we don’t look at their criminal records, we don’t look at anything other than legality within our rules of, does this recording qualify for this work based on date and other criteria,” he said. to the trade journal The Wrap. (Marilyn Manson was later removed from the nomination list as the songwriter of Kanye West’s song “Jail,” but remained eligible as one of West’s collaborators on “Danda,” which topped the list for album of the year.)
Rather than weigh in on who might be nominated, Mason said the Grammys would instead draw a line around who was invited to the ceremony, which will be held in Las Vegas this year. The comedy award was one of dozens presented at a ceremony held before the primetime broadcast and shown online only. Louis CK was not present. Representatives of the Recording Academy did not return requests for comment.
On the album, amid bits about religion, aging, and sex, Louis CK addresses his misbehavior a few times, mostly jokingly. “Man, I was in trouble,” he says in the opening. “Just wait till they see those pictures of me in blackface. That’s going to make it much worse. Because there are many, there are thousands of photos of me in blackface. I can’t stop. I just like it. I love how it feels.”
This trophy is Louis CK’s third Grammy in the comedy albums category.
The Recording Academy does not release details about how the more than 11,000 eligible members vote. Members are limited in the number of categories they can vote in as the academy tries to encourage them to vote in their various areas of expertise. The nomination process for this year’s awards was modified after complaints about secret agendas and uneven playing fields, and boycotts by major artists such as The Weeknd.
In recent years, the Recording Academy has also been inundated with accusations that it did not include or recognize enough women or people of color, and the organization has promised to do better. But a report last month from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California found that the number of women credited to pop songs has remained largely unchanged for a decade, and that a Grammy-led effort to recruit more female producers and engineers to employ almost nothing.