So … did you watch the Grammy Awards? My family watched most, and with expectations set suitably low it was not a bad time. Spirited performances by Kendrik Lamar and Imagine Dragons easily offset the awful Katy Perry vocals, bland Taylor Swift showing, and plainly lip-syncing Pink. But the real question is … how did Spotify do predicting winners?
As a reminder, last week I had written about Spotify using their streaming data to predict the winners in top categories. Here were the main predictions:
• Record of the Year: Radioactive, Imagine Dragons
• Album of the Year: The Heist, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
• Best New Artist: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
• Song of the Year: Just Give Me a Reason, Pink feat. Nate Reuss
• Best Pop Solo Performance: Royals, Lorde
• Best Pop Duo/Group Performance: Get Lucky, Daft Punk Feat. Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers
Here is the list with the Spotify Grammy Predictions in italic and the winner in bold … and bold & italic when Spotify picked correctly.
• Record of the Year
1. Radioactive, Imagine Dragons
2. Blurred Lines, Robin Thicke feat. T.I. and Pharrell
3. Locked out of Heaven, Bruno Mars
4. Royals, Lorde
5. Get Lucky, Daft Punk Feat. Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers
• Song of the Year
1. Pink feat. Nate Reuss – “Just Give Me a Reason”
2. Bruno Mars – “Locked Out of Heaven”
3. Katy Perry – “Roar”
4. Lorde – “Royals”
5. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Mary Lambert – “Same Love”
• Album of the Year
1. The Heist, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
2. Random Access Memories, Daft Punk
3. Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, Kendrick Lamar
4. Red, Taylor Swift
5. The Blessed Unrest, Sara Bareilles
• Best New Artist
1. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
2. Kendrick Lamar
3. Ed Sheeran
4. James Blake
5. Kacey Musgraves
• Best Pop Solo Performance
1. Royals, Lorde
2. Mirrors, Justin Timberlake
3. Roar, Katy Perry
4. When I Was Your Man, Bruno Mars
5. Brave, Sara Bareilles
• Best Pop Duo/Group Performance
1. Get Lucky, Daft Punk Feat. Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers
2. Blurred Lines, Robin Thicke feat. T.I. and Pharrell
3. Just Give Me a Reason, Pink feat. Nate Ruess
4. Suit & Tie, Justin Timberlake & Jay-Z
5. Stay, Rihanna feat. Mikky Ekko
So you can see they got 50% right, which is better than random chance between 5 nominees and 6 categories. How did their predictions compare to what you thought?
I had mentioned that my big hope was that the “Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album” award go to “Brooklyn Babylon” from Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society. Of course, any non-pop awards are awarded in a separate show that allows the televised show to keep the focus on mainstream pop as if that is the entire breadth of music … so I had to look it up. Sadly “Brooklyn Babylon” was passed over, but I was still happy the award went to the deserving Randy Brecker.
What did you think?