Grammy chief Harvey Mason tries to address Justin Bieber's grievances

The Recording Academy Chair and Interim President Harvey Mason has responded to Justin Bieber's claim about his album 'Changes', saying 'we always want to respect the artist’s wishes'.

Justin Bieber - who picked up four nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album for 'Changes', Best Pop Solo Performance, Best Pop/Duo Group Performance, and Best Country Duo/Group Performance - was unhappy with the pop classification of his latest album.

The 'Yummy' hitmaker claimed: 'I am very meticulous and intentional about my music. With that being said I set out to make an R&B album.'

In his response, Grammy Chief Harvey Mason: 'We try really hard to make sure people’s art is respected and evaluated in the right category.'

'We always want to respect the artist’s wishes. Art’s a funny thing because it’s so subjective, and at the Academy our goal is to honour excellence, he added.

He went on to say: 'At some point, decisions have to be made as to how to compare different things, and it is a very tough process and one I don’t think we get right every time.'

The chief concluded: 'We use our best efforts to get people where they wanna be and where they should be and try to evaluate them as best as we can. If he felt that was that type of a record, then, you know… I’ll just leave it at that.'

Another artist The Weeknd, whose songs dominated 2020, accused the Recording Academy of corruption and a lack of transparency.