The Grammys finally appear to be taking music made for TV seriously

Variety

"After years of second-class citizenship, it appears that music for television is finally being taken seriously by Grammy voters, based on this year’s unprecedented number of TV nominations in the visual media categories," says John Burlingame. "Seven of the 18 nominations, or more than one-third of the total in the score soundtrack, compilation soundtrack, and original song categories, originated in projects for the home screen. By comparison, during the previous 20 years of Grammy nominations, Grammy voters chose only seven scores, 13 compilation albums and seven songs to compete in those three categories. And only three won: a song from Malcolm in the Middle (2001), the soundtrack from Boardwalk Empire (2011) and the score for Chernobyl (2019)." Burlingame adds: "For Grammy’s 2020-2021 eligibility period, with so many people watching TV instead of going to the movies during the pandemic, music written for the home screen has emerged from the shadows to take center stage. It’s most obvious in the score soundtrack category, where three of the five nominees are from TV: Kris Bowers’ music for Bridgerton, Ludwig Goransson’s for the second season of The Mandalorian and Carlos Rafael Rivera’s for the miniseries The Queen’s Gambit. Goransson and Rivera won Emmys for those scores just three months ago." As Burlingame notes, "Curiously, only one TV project made it into the compilation-soundtrack category: the album for the first episode of Schmigadoon!, the Apple TV Plus sendup of Golden Age movie musicals."