The 64th annual Grammy Awards are set to take place Sunday night, where the biggest and brightest artists in the industry will take home coveted golden gramophones for their achievements in music. But once an artist is able to collect one of the most high-profile honors in music, how does it benefit the rest of their career?
Artists will often see a boost in album sales and streaming numbers after taking home a Grammy in what’s called a “Grammy bump,” but the size of the bump often correlates with how many awards are collected and when in the ceremony the wins occur. Generally, primetime award wins and showstopping performances during the main telecast will yield bigger gains. In the case of Taylor Swift, Folklore won the night’s album of the year award and later saw a 53 percent increase in earnings in the week of and week following the ceremony. But the bump didn’t stop there: Swift’s entire catalog also saw a 12 percent increase in revenue.
Bumps are not limited to the Taylor Swifts of the music industry, though: For any artist, winner, nominee or performer at the Grammys, surges in earnings range from 4 to 400 percent after the ceremony. Appearing at the Grammys often guarantees an artist an influx of opportunities — like Koffee, who leveraged her best reggae album win into signing a U.S. record deal just days after the 2019 award, or Kendrick Lamar, who saw a 349 percent jump in his Instagram following after his first Grammys.
Ultimately, the Grammys works wonders to help an artist with their visibility, as Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. puts it: “The attention and excitement around a Grammy win always translates to people more curious, especially if it’s a newer artist. It impacts your ability to attract attention thereby getting you better deals, better contracts…hopefully more people are excited to see you and want to listen to what you’ve done.”
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