With Grammy’s just a few days away is the big question: Who will go away as the biggest winners? The odds of a woman who takes home a golden gramophone in the best categories are relatively high: female artists claim six of the eight nominations for both the album of the year and this year’s record. Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter are also everything for records, this year’s song and album.
Despite this, women make up only 22.7% of the entire nomination list this year. According to a new study on women in music from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative (With support from Spotify), some positive upticks in representation throughout the industry were present in 2024, but there is still not much behind the scenes progress to report.
“The recording academy has shown that it can recognize women’s contributions to the music industry – this is clear through the increase we observed last year and that it has continued this year,” Dr. Smith. “The challenge now is to continue that growth and see more women who are recognized by their talent and effort through prices like Grammys, especially for women in producing roles.”
The inclusion study examines Billboard’s hot 100-year charts and notes artists, songwriters and producers on 1,300 songs from this year’s most popular songs in addition to nominees in six main categories at Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best New Artist, Producer of the Year And this year’s songwriter.
For female artists, the three best artists on this year’s final visit have been Nicki Minaj (27 songs), Ariana Grande (25 songs) and Taylor Swift (24 songs). Women made up 37.7%of the artists over Billboard Hot 100 years final diagram 2024, which is no different from 2023 (35%) but is a total improvement from 2012 (22.7%).
“Female artists in 2024 saw some change,” Dr. Smith. “It is actually the number of men who have decreased, while the number of women in 2024 was compatible with in previous years. This suggests that there are fluctuations in the number of men, not profits for women who drive these results. For those who are interested in seeing changes in the music industry, this is not a sign of progress. ”
As solo artists, women accounted for 38.9% of the chart, which is slightly lower Tally than 2023 and no different from 2012. There were no duos or ties with women in 2024 on the list.
When I looked at producers of popular songs in 2024, there was again no increase for women. A total of 5.9% of producing credits were held by women, compared with 6.5% 2023 and 2.4% in 2012. Of the 14 female producers in 2024, only two were in color. Over all 13 years, 93.3% of the songs missed some female producers.
The proportion of female songwriters in 2024 was 18.9%, which was similar to the percentage in 2023 (19.5%) and significantly higher than 11%of songwriters in 2012 who were women. Women are also largely limited to only two genres while men work over them all.
A total of 26 songwriting credits at Billboard Hot 100 years of final map went to under -represented female writers. This is a significant decline from 2023 (55) but a total increase from 2012 (14). However, the number of white female songwriters was 13 years in 2024 (61). At the same time, female color artists at Billboard Hot 100 decreased, from 61% 2023 to 44.6% in 2024.
“The music industry is a mirror for Film industry“There are a lot of fanfare about supporting women, but a little actual change among the most popular songs,” Dr. Smith. “Although there may be movement in the independent space, the evaluated songs and diagrams represent Agenda setting music that has the greatest opportunity to launch and grow a career. Until the people in the executive rankings and A&R roles take seriously the lack of women in the industry, we will continue to see little change. “
