The Grammy Awards are supposed to be “music’s biggest night.” 

This year’s 57th edition certainly lived up to the moniker, though not for the reasons it’s supposed to.

The night started out innocently enough. Record of the Year, Song of the Year and even Best Metal Performance went off without a hitch.

It wasn’t until Beck won Album of the Year with “Morning Phase” that Kanye West felt the need to interrupt the award presentation. Thankfully, he chose not to pull another “I’ma let you finish” moment for the allegedly snubbed Beyoncé.

It is unclear whether Kanye was kidding or serious, but that’s not the point. Back in 1958, the people who started the Grammy Awards set out with a goal: to refine pop music and hold it to a higher standard.

Today’s Grammys still promote a wide variety of music. A quick glance at past Record of the Year winners reveals artists from Coldplay to Daft Punk. The Grammys have actually done a swell job of promoting a wide range of styles instead of catering to media darling pop stars like Kanye West.

Far from West’s contention that the Grammys are “diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in their face after they deliver monumental feats of music,” they’re actually keeping the awards prestigious and not catering to popular artists’ wishes.

Kanye threatened, “If they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We ain’t gonna play with them no more.”

I couldn’t have expressed my hope for the future direction of popular music better myself.