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Grammy nominations and the improbability of 2L

svart-hvitt

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This weekend, on February 10th, the Grammys are once again to be awarded to outstanding music productions.

I have followed the productions of 2L, Lindberg Lyd by Morten Lindberg, for about ten years now. And every year, Lindberg has been Grammy nominated, with 2008 as the only exception since 2007.

From 2007 to 2018, Lindberg has been nominated for a Grammy 32 times. Yet he has never won a Grammy Award.

What are the odds, being nominated 32 times without winning? It seems like there are 5 nominations every year in the categories that Lindberg take part in. So the probability of not winning once you are nominated is 80 percent. And reapeating that exercise 32 times, without winning, yields a 7 percent probability.

This year, 2L have two new nominations (http://www.2l.no/grammy/2L_GRAMMY-nominations-history.pdf). If Morten Lindberg doesn’t win this year, it reduces the probability of not winning in the coin-flipping contest from 7 to 5 percent (0.8^34=5%).

These calculations assume a fair coin.

However, is music a fair business? Are Grammy Awards a fair business?

Or is Grammy really showcasing everything that is wrong with music?

Could a hypothesis be that the nominations are fair, but the process of picking winners go through another process which is anything but fair?

Are Grammy Awards a fair coin?

;)
 

amirm

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However, is music a fair business? Are Grammy Awards a fair business?
Likely not at all. Politics are everything here. So not surprising that they have not won. It is not like if they don't give them the award, they will run into them in some fancy restaurant the next week in LA.
 

JJB70

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I think that all of these awards need to be taken with a pinch of salt. They're nice for the winners but they are all subject to politics and other outside factors and even if the nomination and judging panels are completely fair they are considering stuff they are aware of or have been made aware of. I think it is fair to say that music, movies, books etc which stand up well over time do so on merit and not because they won a lot of awards.
 
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svart-hvitt

svart-hvitt

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I think the Grammys show foreigners how corrupt the American society is, and has always been. Nordics are a bit surprised about this, I guess, but it seems like Americans are not. It’s almost as if Americans tell Nordics how naive and stupid they are. Fascinating, isn’t it?

The intriguing thing about 2L is the fact that they represent one single participant over many awards. When prizes are awarded in Grammy and other contests, and accusations about bias are made, the mass of participants is changing, which makes it harder to make a case based on probability that the contest is rigged (because then you need to make an assumption of representativeness).

The 2L case is a strong indication that the final picking of winners is biased (even in the less-important categories that 2L take part in).
 
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JJB70

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I don't this has anything to do with how corrupt American society is (no more so than other developed countries in my experience), it's a characteristic of awards in all sorts of sectors in all countries.
 

Soniclife

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I don't this has anything to do with how corrupt American society is (no more so than other developed countries in my experience), it's a characteristic of awards in all sorts of sectors in all countries.
Absolutely, it's a marketing event designed to get free publicity and drive sales, whilst proving a free jolly for execs, it's a win win for the industry.
 

PierreV

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FWIW, I was involved in a (tech) award process at EU level in the late 90s and witnessed a __huge__ amount of politics behind the scene so that one of the awards could be attributed to a certain EU new member state ( who could that be? :) ), regardless of the technical merits of the solution (which is not to say it had none). Then, a bit later, one of my own tech stuff ended up runner-up in some other award behind the tech stuff of a certain US software giant. Again, I am not saying that the software giant's solution didn't deserve to win, but I saw the rules (no beta release allowed) being rewritten at the last minute. That's just how the word works in general :(
 
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svart-hvitt

svart-hvitt

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I don't this has anything to do with how corrupt American society is (no more so than other developed countries in my experience), it's a characteristic of awards in all sorts of sectors in all countries.

I actually think traditions, habits in Scandinavia are of the more transparent kind. So we’re always a bit amazed by how things are outside of Scandinavia.

It’s been documented that communities with the highest trust in America have more Scandinavian immigrants (see chapter 2.3.2 on page 92 in this document from the Swedish government: https://www.regeringen.se/49bb3f/co...61944e66/naringslivet-och-fortroendet-kap-1-7. Their source is Rothstein and Stolle, 2003).

But this is not my main point. My main point is that Grammy is corrupt beyond doubt, and the 2L case supports that hypothesis.
 
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amirm

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I think the Grammys show foreigners how corrupt the American society is, and has always been.
American society is one of the most honest ones out there. There are many cultures with far, far lower standards. In US being caught lying is a big offense. In many cultures, that is the norm. So let's not go there.

Award business is well, about business. They create their own ceremony, given themselves awards, and increase sales with it! Most clever marketing thing that is being used across many industries for same reason.

In my business dealings with Scandinavian companies, I found them tough to deal with in business context with even less transparency than American ones. As I said, let's not go there. :)
 

Soniclife

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And, pretty much, an irrelevance to music lovers.
Some of the music and art awards that use a shortlist for a single award have some value, not in who the winner is, but if they have enough integrity when putting the list together you know everything on the list has value, regardless of your personal opinion.
 
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svart-hvitt

svart-hvitt

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American society is one of the most honest ones out there. There are many cultures with far, far lower standards. In US being caught lying is a big offense. In many cultures, that is the norm. So let's not go there.

Award business is well, about business. They create their own ceremony, given themselves awards, and increase sales with it! Most clever marketing thing that is being used across many industries for same reason.

In my business dealings with Scandinavian companies, I found them tough to deal with in business context with even less transparency than American ones. As I said, let's not go there. :)

@amirm , you’re not a social scientist and your anecdotes on trust are...anecdotes.

On trust is Scandinavia, I can readily find quotes like this by McGill professor Dietlind Stolle:

«For example, in Scandinavian countries, where we find rather low levels of income and gender inequality, trust levels are significantly higher than in France and the United States».

Another quote:

«As far as we know, generalized trust levels are the highest in Scandinavia and have been maintained there even up to the present day, as opposed to the United States, where they strongly declined over the last decade (Putnam 2000).»
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ive-Perspective.pdf?origin=publication_detail

I find personal anecdotes interesting, but try and be humble when confronted with extensive research on the subject. This is a research-oriented site and I think in general research should have a stronger weight than personal experience.

When confronted with corruption and bias, Scandinavians react stronger, I believe, than people of other cultures. That may explain why I made this thread (I react with disgust when I see corruption). And I think people’s reaction («don’t be naive, this is the natural order of things» etc.) to the corrupt Grammy Awards may be an indication that corruption will flourish in some parts of the world while being confronted and eradicated in other parts of the same world.
 

JJB70

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Corruption and transparency are not necessarily the same thing. One of the most honest and least corrupt countries I've ever visited is Singapore, I'm not sure I'd consider it to be the most transparent (although I would rate it as one of my favourite, terrific food, nice people, safe and clean). I am on the periphery of a transparency organisation which evaluates corruption in an international industry and the results would probably surprise most people and challenge a lot of perceptions.
 
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svart-hvitt

svart-hvitt

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Corruption and transparency are not necessarily the same thing. One of the most honest and least corrupt countries I've ever visited is Singapore, I'm not sure I'd consider it to be the most transparent (although I would rate it as one of my favourite, terrific food, nice people, safe and clean). I am on the periphery of a transparency organisation which evaluates corruption in an international industry and the results would probably surprise most people and challenge a lot of perceptions.

OK, let’s use «trust» as the word then. Sources of trust are:

=> Benevolence
=> Skill/competency
=> Honesty
=> Integrity
Source: For example https://www.jstor.org/stable/258792?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

:)
 
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Purité Audio

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There was an interesting article regarding gender equality, in Sweden it is illegal ( I believe to discriminate on gender) yet Sweden has the lowest percentage of female CEO’s, apologises to Sweden if I have unjustly iabled you.
Keith
 
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svart-hvitt

svart-hvitt

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There was an interesting article regarding gender equality, in Sweden it is illegal ( I believe to discriminate on gender) yet Sweden has the lowest percentage of female CEO’s, apologises to Sweden if I have unjustly iabled you.
Keith

This is going very off-topic, but since you asked: If a society is really «free», you could expect certain patterns to emerge based on nature, as opposed to nurture.

Scandinavian CEO pay is, BTW, much lower than in the UK or America. Maybe a smart person would ask what’s the point of working 24/7/365.25 if you’re not making a life’s fortune in maximum 10 years?
 

amirm

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@amirm , you’re not a social scientist and your anecdotes on trust are...anecdotes.
No they are not. I have travelled all around the world, managed people that worked for me in countless countries, and did business with companies in those countries, and friendships I developed for some 30+ years. I have lived it and my livelihood depended on understanding cross-cultural issues. What do you have for your part? Stuff you have read in books and generalizations as you handed us about America?

I suggest you watch this bit from one of my favorite movies Good Will Hunting:


Social scientist.... One of the most insulting posts I have read in this forum.... I suggest you stay focused on the topic you started, the Grammy's.
 
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svart-hvitt

svart-hvitt

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No they are not. I have travelled all around the world, managed people that worked for me in countless countries, and did business with companies in those countries, and friendships I developed for some 30+ years. I have lived it and my livelihood depended on understanding cross-cultural issues. What do you have for your part? Stuff you have read in books and generalizations as you handed us about America?

I suggest you watch this bit from one of my favorite movies Good Will Hunting:


Social scientist.... One of the most insulting posts I have read in this forum.... I suggest you stay focused on the topic you started, the Grammy's.

@amirm , as soon as a discussion enters the domain of social science, you talk like an audiophile on audio science. This is not the first time, by the way. You sound like Paul McGowan who talks about his experience in audio and waves off the whole body of research in audio (and psychology) because he knows what he hears.

What you do, is that you wave off all social research that goes into our understanding of concepts like trust, transparency etc. Instead of discussing the social research references, you start to talk about your experience and age. Besides, it seems like you deride social science in general. And on top of that you use a film clip to ridicule the one you are discussing with instead of discussing arguments.

My initial point was about the corrupt Grammy Awards where the 2L case serves as a "proof beyond doubt" that the awards are rigged. I pointed to 2L as an interesting case in a statistical sense because we don't need to use assumptions of representativeness to prove bias. And then I commented that the corrupt Grammy may not be so surprising after all given how low America scores on different surveys of trust, transparency etc., especially compared to the Scandinavian, Nordic and Northern European countries.
 
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