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Reuters is reporting that in a move to cut what they say is a “bloated” award, the GRAMMYs are eliminating 31 categories all together, thus making the music industry’s top award have more value.  Organizers said yesterday that they would cut the categories from 109 to 78.

Some of the categories will be merged while other artists, writers, producers and industry personnel will have to compete against one another in multi-purpose categories.

For starters, the top awards — album, record and song of the year, and best new artist will remain unchanged.  However, most other categories will see adjustments.

Recording Academy president Neil Portnow said changes came about after, ”some pretty passionate discomfort” was expressed by members of the Academy in discussions, however, he acknowledges that there would still be “a little unsettling” sentiments coming from some musicians.  He went on to say that the changes were necessary in order to maintain the integrity of the only “peer-recognized award in music”.

The TV broadcast of the awards would remain relatively unchanged since only 10 awards are handed out during the show with the majority distributed prior to the presentation on television.

The R&B category felt the most with a reduction in half, from eight to four.  The three R&B vocal performance awards for males, females and groups have been merged into one award.

Vice President of Awards Bill Freimuth said that some of the R&B categories hadn’t received many submissions lately and thus required trimming.

Also, the separate awards for male and female vocal performance will now be combined into a new pop solo performance category.

Additionally, a new award, rock performance, will replace the two separate awards for rock solo vocal performance and rock performance by a duo or group with vocals.

The two metal and hard rock categories have also been merged. In pop, rock and country fields, awards for instrumental performance have been done away with.