Welp, here we are once again. Another year in music has come to an end with the music industry’s multi-hour, televised collective stroking of its’ own “ego”, also known as the Grammys. I don’t know why I subject myself to indulging in the shocking banality and tone-deafness of the Grammys every year, but I do. Whatever the reason, I indulge in the spectacular gaudiness of the night every year because, as a fan of many of the acts nominated, I feel as though I have some stake in either seeing their efforts rewarded or, in most cases, rage when they are wrongly denied validation in the form of a tiny, gold gramophone.

With all things considered, this year’s ceremony could have been a lot worse. Many of the picks (or should I say pick in the case of the four major categories) seemed pretty appropriate. Seeing Tyler, the Creator go from industry pariah to delivering the best performance of the night and claiming one of the most coveted awards is a come-up story for the ages.

Lil Nas X’s “Avengers: Endgame”-level crossover performance showed just why “Old Town Road” is as fun and successful as it is. And let’s not forget the biggest winners of the night: Aerosmith and Run-DMC for still having careers after their performance! No, but all jokes aside, Billie Eilish and her producer brother Finneas swept the night to the point where Billie was seen begging to not be given any more awards.

However, the most significant aspect of the entire night wasn’t the Nipsey Hussle and Kobe Bryant tributes or Camila Cabello’s weird daddy anthem. No, the most significant thing was who wasn’t in the room: Deborah Dugan.

I’m not going to go into full detail about the ongoing scandal surrounding her—an article by Pitchfork lays out the whole timeline very well—but the short form of the story is that Dugan exposed what everybody already assumed was true about the Grammys for years: They’re rigged in favor of artists with connections to ranking members of the academy.

Somehow though, the entire ceremony went on unscathed, without acknowledgment that the entire Recording Academy is basically imploding. That in itself is a major accomplishment that I wish wasn’t achieved. By all rights, this show deserved to be a mess for the sake of integrity of the artists and the Academy. Billie’s five Grammys will always have an asterisk alluding to the fact that the entire voting process is rotten to the core, and the legitimacy of those awards will be questioned. Given the nominees in each of the categories she won, I feel she deserved every one of those awards, but to see her actually get them all rubs me the wrong way.

Given her spat with the show last year, Ariana Grande walking away completely empty-handed after being nominated in five categories does seem off. And despite my excitement over Tyler winning best rap album, the relegation of him to that category when the album contains very little in the way of actual “rapping” and being shut out of the general categories does, as he described it, come off as a “backhanded compliment”.

Going forward, Deborah Dugan is going to be the thorn in the side of whoever replaces her as chief executive officer of the Academy. Her ongoing legal battle is going to force the hand of the Grammys to make some very transparent and open reforms to their process lest they slowly fade into irrelevance. Already major acts have been skipping the ceremony entirely, treating what is supposed to be music’s biggest night as worthless.

And that’s the saddest thing about the state of the Grammys: It is supposed to be music’s biggest night. It’s supposed to be a celebration of all the great songs and artists that have broken records and boundaries over the last 12 months. But now all of the scummy insider antics and politics have turned it into something detestable, not just to the plebeians, but artists as well. Let’s hope all of this is resolved and the systems improve before the next batch of talented artists and creative records get caught up in all of this nonsense. As Diddy said, “You’ve got 365 days to get this s— together.”