Or are the Grammys a corporate sham of an event created for pageantry and self-indulgence within an industry with a long history of marginalising and extorting creativity?

First off, Beck is most definitely an artist. 'Morning Phase' was a great album, beautiful and profound. Plus it was an honourable mention in my Top 10 of 2014. That’s money right there.

Secondly, I’m not gonna debate the virtues of Beyonce’s album either. The fact that millions of people around the world idolise her should be enough on that matter.

And I’m absolutely not gonna start comparing her to Beck.

Now, Kanye West is an artist supreme himself. He’s on one of the most killer winning streaks of great albums in history (‘Watch The Throne’ doesn’t count), and he may be about to add to that too. However he’s also one of the strangest, weirdest, most deluded people on the planet. Hey, if that’s what makes him so good, then all the more to him. But worrying about awards has never been a recipe for art, some of the greatest artists in human history died starving and penniless, their creations never well known until long after their deaths. Awards are stupid.

It’s hard to tell a musician not to be grateful for an award. That’s a profession where you really have to sacrifice to get anywhere. There’s so much competition, so many hours that need to be dedicated. From learning to evolving to playing live to recording to travelling to whatever else. As rich and glamorous as most of the musicians there may have looked strolling down the red carpet, plenty of them probably once lived in and out of rickety tour buses for months on end. Winning a Grammy must bring an enormous sense of gratification.

But it really doesn’t mean anything. The music should speak for itself.

Some of these pretentious awards shows have merit. The Oscars, for example, are an important marketing tool for the film industry at a time when it finds itself at a crossroads. It may still be all suits and ties and pretty wives but movies depend on studio backing/banking. Sure, there are indie collectives – these days more than ever – and they do great work. But they do what they do knowing that they were never in it for any decorative recompense. The 2015 Oscars screwed more than a couple things up, as is the nature of prizes based objectivity and not subjectivity, yet you look at the ones that got nods and there is some wonderful, stunning, powerful art on display. Stuff that people need to see.

Meanwhile the only reason to ever watch the Grammys is to see the live performances, and even then most of them are past their peak by the time the industry finally comes around to them. As soon as I hear a musical act introduced as ‘__-time Grammy Winners’, I’m instantly reticent. That’s as sure a sign as any that a band or singer has jumped the shark. The creative peak almost always comes before the commercial peak and what follows the commercial peak? Once you’ve been sucked up into the black hole of commerciality it’s tough to escape from. Suddenly you’re making music to sell stocks. You’re at the mercy of the public beast. It’ll chew you up and spit you out and leave you broken.

Not to say that wonderful musicians aren’t this week happily polishing their new mantle-wear. Countless of them are. But I completely object to the idea that Grammy winning puts you on a higher plane of creativity. Or that you can’t make a grand artistic statement that is also highly commercial. It’s just that more don’t than do.

In the old days the record companies controlled everything. They paid for albums and singles to be made, they promoted them (therefore deciding what would sell) and they made all the money from them. They dictated every corner of the industry. That’s not the case anymore. Anyone can make and distribute an album, and audiences no longer have to be told what they’ll hear and what they’ll like. We have agency! So in a world full of endless sounds and beats and solos, how can there ever be a decisive ‘Album of the Year’?

Immediate Clue That The Grammys Are Trash: The awards are split into genres.

Genres are not real. They are imagined by corporations in order to organise different demographics into easily arranged groupings. Oh, you like The Ramones? Well, you’ll enjoy this new Green Day album. Keep all the different cliques to different aisles of the record store, everyone goes home happy. Except that isn’t how music works. It’s universal. It’s subversive. It defies categorisation.

There’s no way I’m getting stuck down in the rabbit hole of what song is which genre is which album and what artist. No way. Nuh-uh. All that the Grammys reward is popularity among the mainstream merchants. The type of people who manipulate and suffocate true artistry.

So, Kanye got that much right at least. Where he strayed is in thinking that it’s somehow the Grammys responsibility to ‘respect artistry’. It’s not. They’re a sham and a meaningless farce. Who even cares?