Female Music Execs: Grammys Leadership "Out of Touch"

Some of the most senior female executives in the US music industry have co-signed a letter which heavily criticizes Grammys organizer the Recording Academy for being “woefully out of touch with today’s music, the music business, and even more significantly, society”.

According to MusicBusinessWorldwide, the letter, which arrives in the wake of a flurry of controversy surrounding the 2018 Grammys and its lack of female representation, is signed by Jody Gerson (CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group), Julie Greenwald (Atlantic Records COO/Chairman), Sylvia Rhone (President, Epic Records), Julie Swidler (EVP/General Counsel, Sony Music), Michele Anthony (EVP, Universal Music Group) and Desiree Perez (COO of Roc Nation).

According to the New York Times, it calls on the Academy's board to ensure that the organization, and its key event, become more inclusive and transparent.

Neil Portnow

Criticism of the Grammys began before the ceremony even took place (January 28), after a report suggested that the Recording Academy had declined to offer Album Of the Year nominee Lorde the chance to perform her own song on the televised segment of the show.

The volume of this criticism then increased dramatically when Recording Academy chief Neil Portnow used an incendiary phrase during an interview - in which he called on female executives and musicians to "step up" to the higher echelons of the industry.

“It has to begin with… women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level," said Portnow. "[They need] to step up because I think they would be welcome."

Monday's letter, addressed to the Recording Academy’s board of trustees, stops short at calling for Portnow's resignation.

“Neil Portnow’s comments are not a reflection of being ‘inarticulate’ in a single interview. They are, unfortunately, emblematic of a much larger issue with the Naras organization as a whole on the broader set of inclusion issues across all demographics,” the women wrote, referring to the academy by an acronym for its legal name, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.