Recently, the Recording Academy announced the nominees for the 2024 Grammy Awards. Nominees include artists and groups such as SZA, boygenius and Noah Kahan. Even containing hits from the 2023 summer film “Barbie," the list covered a wide variety of music spaces.

For students at Michigan State University who frequently listen to music — whether during study sessions, between classes or while relaxing with friends — the awards could be a significant representation of the voices of their generation. Yet, arts and humanities freshman Ariana Watson said the awards were hardly on her radar.

“I haven’t like watched them in a long time,” Watson said.

To Watson, the meaning behind a song is what makes it remarkable; she said a focus on that may generate more interest in the famous award show overall.

“I look for songs that just have like a really deep meaning,” Watson said. “Like Taylor Swift— she's great and she has like a lot of songs that have meanings so I understand that (nomination). I love Ice Spice, and yeah, she can win one, but maybe her songs should like have a little bit more meaning— but I get she makes like hype songs.”

Computer science sophomore Devendra Tambat said all music is artistically valid, but made note of how complex pieces can be ruled out prematurely.

While he recognised a few of the nominees, Tambat said, he wished the awards were more inclusive to different types of music.

“With music like 100 gecs and all that, Poppy and Death Grips— it’s like to the untreated eye you can look at that and be like, ‘oh, it's not really real music, right,’” Tambat said. “No, it 100% is. That music is high quality because, as hard of a thing it is to realize, it takes a lot of inspiration from various forms of art.”

Business management sophomore Simon VanderWall said if the Grammys are going to stay relevant, they have to consider what’s wanted by viewers. To him, the nominees felt disingenuous.

“I think it’s a lot of publicity,” VanderWall said. “So it's interesting to see people win awards for, sometimes, not actually being good musicians, but more having good marketing.”

Tambat said music is opinion based, so individuals shouldn’t place so much significance on an award show anyhow. He says people should just listen to what they like.

“One of my favorite musicians is Poppy,” Tambat said. “It doesn't concern me if, you know, Poppy wins an award, doesn't win and award or whatnot. I just like their music.”