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From The Daily Swarm:
Independent artists and labels had a banner year at the 2009 Grammy
Awards winning 56 of the 110 awards given or just over 50% of the total
prizes.
Most of this is simply major artists releasing music independently of the big four major labels. But Album of the Year and Record of the Year both went to an independently released album (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss), and Radiohead took home Best Alternative Music Album for their (famously) independently released album In Rainbows.
Neither of these acts, nor many of the other “independent” artists who won, are products of independent labels. Most spent the majority of their careers on major labels. This is, however, a bad sign for the relevance of the major labels. Many have been watching their influence wane for years, but now it is getting to the point at which it is no longer even worth mentioning.
I still agree with Stephen Colbert that it is funny how irrelevant the Grammys are.
