What does the Grammy Award have in common with a helicopter?
Music to the ears
You might not know a single song up for one of the 95 categories in tonight’s Grammy Awards, but let’s talk music.
What’s in a name?
Compared to the Academy Awards (whose 98th edition takes place March 15), the Grammy Awards are young at 68, even though mass distribution of music preceded that of films. The show is presented each year by the Recording Academy, which was founded in the 1950s as a project to present Hollywood Walk of Fame stars to musicians. The academy was officially established in 1957 and is headquartered in Santa Monica.
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The first name considered for the award was the Eddie, after phonograph inventor Thomas Edison. But Grammy was chosen since the gramophone was instrumental in selling records on a massive scale.
The trophies handed out during the Grammys presentation are dummies that are reused each year. Musicians receive their engraved awards after the show.
In 1886, Berliner began experimenting with methods of sound recording and reproduction. He was granted his first patent for the “Gramophone” in 1887. The patent described recording sound using horizontal modulation of a stylus as it traced a line on a rotating cylindrical surface. Berliner opted for the disc format over Edison’s cylinder, which made the engraving step much less difficult.
Berliner was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1851 into a Jewish merchant family. He completed an apprenticeship to become a merchant, as was family tradition. He avoided being drafted in the Franco-Prussian War by coming to the United States in 1870.
He worked for Bell Telephone while experimenting with sound and music machines. Berliner is known for more than his musical invention. He used his concepts for rotating records to invent some of the first helicopter engines and a loom for mass production.
Phonograph
The original phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison in 1877, but Emile Berliner perfected the disc-playing gramophone in the 1890s.
Gramophone
Sound horns on gramophones came in many sizes and materials. Some were brass and some were wooden.
Gramophone records spun at 78 revolutions per minute. 33 1/3 rpm vinyl records came in 1948.
Changes in how we listen
In 2025, music business revenue across all formats hit a new high of $5.6 billion in the U.S., with paid subscriptions driving midyear growth up 5.7% to $3.2 billion and climbing 6.4% to 105 million accounts. Vinyl held steady, accounting for more than three-quarters of all physical music revenue following a nearly two-decade resurgence.
Headwaters of the stream
The basics of music streaming were pioneered in 2001 by peer-to-peer file sharing system Napster. Apple’s iTunes followed a couple of years later. Spotify, in an attempt to combat music piracy, was founded in 2006 by Swedish duo Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon.
Gold and diamond
With the rise of streaming and decline in sales of physical copies, the recording industry has modified its criteria for gold record status. There are two categories, album and single.
Albums: Gold – 500,000 units sold
Platinum – 1 million units (increments of 1 million thereafter)
Diamond – 10 million units
Units are defined as follows:
Each permanent digital album or physical album sale counts as one unit for certification purposes.
10 permanent track downloads from the album count as one unit for certification.
1,500 on-demand audio and/or video streams from the album count as one unit for certification.
Singles:
Each permanent digital download counts as one unit for certification.
150 on-demand audio and/or video streams will count as one unit for certification.
There are different criteria for what the Recording Industry Association of America calls the Latin program.
The first gold single was earned March 14, 1958, with Perry Como’s “Catch a Falling Star.”
Most gold and platinum records are actually vinyl records that have been plated with metal and tinted. In initial years, trimmed and plated metal “masters,” “mothers” or “stampers” (metal parts used for pressing records out of vinyl) were used.
About the awards
The Grammy is the only music award in which nominees and winners are determined solely by creators themselves: the peers of those being judged.
In 1959, at the first presentation ceremony, 28 trophies were awarded. For tonight’s ceremony there are 95 categories, an increase of two from last year.
To be eligible, recordings must have been released between Aug. 31, 2024, and Aug. 30, 2025. Recording Academy members and media companies submit recordings and music videos/films. Typically around 20,000 entries are submitted each year. The two rounds of voting (nominees and winners) are done online. The screening committees, comprising more than 300 experts across various musical genres, meet to ensure that recordings are placed in the proper categories. The first round of voting selects five nominees.
Sources: Recording Industry Association of America, Spotify, YouTube, Musically.com, explodingtopics.com, The Associated Press