Last year, the Latin Grammy Awards were held in Seville and Spanish music was left empty-handed. An award for Quevedo for a song in which he was a collaborator, one for Niña Pastori in a category with only Spaniards, another for the Spanish-Argentinian Nathy Peluso for a music video, and one for a man named Marcos Vidal as the author of the best Christian album in Spanish. Four minor awards to take home.
This Tuesday, the list of nominees for the 2024 Latin Grammy Awards was announced, returning to the US (Miami) after the Seville event, and this time Spanish pop has been left empty-handed even before the ceremony, which will take place on November 14. It is literally impossible for one of our own to be in the spotlight the morning after the gala.
A music industry as important as the Spanish one for the Latin market has only received a few secondary nominations. In fact, Colombian Karol G and Puerto Rican Bad Bunny, each with eight award nominations, have almost more nominations combined than all Spanish music.
And, it's not ironic, it's truly remarkable to have such little significance, to be so irrelevant. There are over 50 categories and the four major awards - for best album, best recording, best song, and best new artist - each have 10 nominations. In other words, there are literally hundreds of possible paths to win a Latin Grammy, or at least secure a seat at the gala. Check out the full list if you don't believe me.
Rozalén, C.Tangana, David Bisbal, Íñigo Quintero, Valeria Castro, Ale Acosta, Mägo De Oz, Quevedo, Diego el Cigala, or Nathy Peluso are some of our hopefuls to win something this year at an event where, regardless, we already know that other artists will steal the spotlight.
Think about the four major awards, the ones that truly define the winner of each edition. How many Spaniards are competing for them? Only one: Íñigo Quintero is nominated for Best New Artist. But, considering the evolution of his career after the brief success of "Si no estás," he might not seem like the favorite.
Perhaps you may wonder, as a person with critical thinking and resistant to patriotic readings: does Spanish music really deserve more than this disregard? Well, one could think that something more was expected, considering that Aitana, Lola Índigo, Dellafuente, Malú, Bad Gyal, Alizzz, Sen Senra, Saiko, Arde Bogotá, or Ralphie Choo, just to name a few, have released successful new music and yet have received a total of zero nominations, while artists like Bisbal or Quevedo only have one nomination each, and that's it.
It is true that quantitatively, Spanish pop has declined in the Latin market in recent years and no longer holds the same relevance as it did four, three, or two decades ago, but, darn it, these nominations do not reflect Spain's importance in Spanish music.
The Latin Recording Academy should reflect on its distribution of members, the interests they represent, and the orientation of their votes in favor of certain genres and territories.