• The Grammys are awarded for excellence in recorded music.music image by Markus G??tze from Fotolia.com
  
  The Grammy Awards are a yearly event that gives awards on the basis of artistic achievement and technical precision in the music industry. The voting members are members of the Recording Academy, an advocacy group for musicians worldwide. In a sense, the Recording Academy is the "trade union" of musicians.
  
  

Dates

• The record in question must have been released in the prior year. Normally, the release date must be between October 1 of two years prior to August 31 of the previous year. In other words, the 2010 Awards accepted entries from October 1 of 2008 to August 31 of 2009.
  
  

Entries

• All entries (entries are different from nominations) must be mainstream records, that is, must be distributed by nationally known networks. The product itself must be (at least) of national distribution, which means, effectively, that it must be a major record firm that creates the product, since they have access to national distribution networks. The main requirement, therefore, is based on the nature of the recording's distribution.
  
  

Nominations

• An entry is merely a record that passes all criteria. All entries are voted on by a board made up of Recording Academy members. Those entries that receive the most votes become nominees.
  
  

Votes

• Only members of the Recording Academy can vote. Of these, only those who have released six or more "nationally distributed" songs or some equivalent can sit on the board that rates all entries. Voting members can include musicians and songwriters, but also professional studio technicians, art directors, or writers. Anyone involved with any aspect of the recording industry can be a member---including record company executives---and hence a voter in the Recording Academy.
  
  

Slant

• Since only major releases qualify for nominations, most winners, if not all, are or have been major players in the record industry. Over the last 50 years, winners have overwhelmingly been major performers and songwriters. As a result, the Grammy winners are already dominant personalities.