The 58th annual Grammy awards happened on Monday. As a true music fan, I can honestly say it is not possible for me to care any less about                        the Grammys.

For many years, the Grammys have been nothing more than music’s annual popularity contest. It seems like the same people are awarded for the same thing year after year. The voting system is so outdated it’s ridiculous.

For the 58th Grammy awards this year, eligibility requirements dictated recordings released between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 30, 2015 were eligible. For the Grammys last year, nominations were open for recordings released between Oct. 1, 2013 and Sept. 30, 2014.

So if those are the requirements, how is it possible that Taylor Swift got nominated for Best Pop Solo performance last year for “Shake it Off,” the first release from her 1989 album, and nominated for that same category this year for “Blank Space,” the second release from the same album, which was released on Oct. 27, 2014? I’m not the smartest man in the world, but I’m quite sure that Oct. 27, 2014 does not fall in between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 30, 2015. The answer to this question is that the single for “Shake it Off” was released in August of 2014, therefore qualifying Swift for a nomination both years.

This is just one of the many loopholes the recording industry uses to keep parading the same people up there year after year. Swift just happens to be one of the more popular puppets on the industry’s strings. Oddly enough, she lost both last year and this year, so she will probably make an album with songs that her puppet masters will string out at just the right pace so that she can be nominated for as many Grammys as possible and clean house next year.

Now that I have described a major flaw in the Grammys voting standards, let me move on to the part of the Grammys that really irritates me: the extremely loose definitions of musical genres. Rock, for example. This year’s winner for Best Rock song is “Don’t Wanna Fight” by Alabama Shakes. I do not want to take anything away from them; it is a decent song. However, it is not rock. In fact, none of the bands that were nominated for Best Rock Song are actually rock songs.  Rock is bands like AC/DC, Aerosmith, Buckcherry and 3 Doors Down.

The band SlipKnot is nominated for Best Rock Album but they are a metal band. And to once again pick on Alabama Shakes, they also won for Best Alternative Music Album. So are they rock or are they alternative? Because when I think of alternative I think of bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Maybe I am overthinking this and the Grammys are like Burger King and they can have it  their way.

So those are just two of the flaws I can see with the Grammys: the requirements for a recording to be eligible and the loopholes it creates. Sadly, most people don’t even care about who wins what, they just want to see what Kanye is going to do.