Winning an award in recognition of your skill or talent is a prestige and can be the confidence boost one needs. This especially applies to those in creative fields, where negative reviews or criticism can affect one’s productivity and quality of work, even causing major setbacks.
A recent study explores this, looking specifically at the Grammy Awards. Titled “What’s Next? Artists’ Music After Grammy Awards”, the paper is authored by Prof. Giacomo Negro of Emory University, Prof. Glenn R. Carroll of Stanford University, and Prof. Balazs Kovacs of Yale University.
The authors question if the cultural works artists produce after receiving major awards change in character, and argue that award winners receive more opportunities, gain more autonomy, and are more likely to pursue unique creative paths.
This is important, they say, because any change in the behaviour of award winners can affect the entire field, directly or indirectly. “Award winners garner respect, set trends, and become emulated by many other artists. Learning the post-award fates of winners also promises to offer insight into the often-fraught relationships between artists and their more commercially oriented production partners and recording companies,” the authors explain, adding that they seek to discover whether the lifting of these constraints can lead to greater artistic innovation and novelty.
In an article published on the study, BBC quotes Prof. Negro, who uses the band Fleetwood Mac going from Rumours (1977) to Tusk (1979) as an example, saying: “The song writing is more sparse, and you even have influences from post-punk. It’s a very different album.”
“Or take U2, who won album of the year for Joshua Tree (in 1988). Their next main album was Achtung Baby, which had elements of dance and Krautrock,” Prof. Negro said, adding: “So you begin to see that winning a Grammy has tangible consequences for both the artists and their audience.”
BBC adds that 21 saw a 207% sales increase after Adele won the Grammy for best album in 2012.
However, there is another side to this. What happens when an artist is nominated for an award, but doesn’t win it? Does this impact them?
The study, which looks at five decades of Grammy ceremonies, found that nominated artists who don’t win tend to make records that are less unique and that sound a lot like existing music in the same genre.
“When considering the post-nomination albums of all Grammy contenders, we find that non-winning nominees become less stylistic, distant from other similar but unnominated artists in their subsequent albums,” the study states, adding: “This perhaps surprising result matters because, for any award, there are more nominees who did not win than who did. By implication, the award system apparently exerts a chilling impact on artistic differentiation in a cultural field even though the intentions of award sponsors are often the reverse.”
The authors use various examples and studies to look at the chilling effect of not winning an award. Social psychologist Fritz Heider, for instance, suggests that award effects for winners might not extend to those shortlisted for the prize, pointing to negative affective reactions of “near success” such as “exasperation, heightened frustration”.
V.H. Medvec, S.F. Madey, and T. Gilovich in a 1995 study found that “silver medallists” often express disappointment over almost winning and Bruno S. Frey and Jana Gallus, in a 2017 study, found that employees who do not win a corporate award can feel they have no chance of succeeding and become demotivated.
In the study on the impact of the Grammy Awards, the authors found that consecration leads to subsequent artistic work that may fulfil individual aims, without necessarily appealing to consumers or critics.
Data also showed that award winners follow consecration by innovating in ways that usually do not meet new acclaim. However, moving away from the work that was consecrated may reinforce the winners’ place among the greats.
“After the award, increased differentiation can reduce direct comparisons to an artist’s previous work (and perhaps this is related to artists sometimes resisting being associated with their earlier labels).”
The study adds that other artists who follow in the winners’ steps usually experience lower chances of recognition because certain aesthetic strategies have already been rewarded.
