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Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious and significant awards in the music industry worldwide. They were originally called the Gramophone Awards, as the trophy depicts a gilded gramophone.

The Grammys are the first of the Big Three networks' major music awards held annually, and are considered one of the four major annual American entertainment awards with the Academy Awards (for films), the Emmy Awards (for television), and the Tony Awards (for theater). The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4, 1959, to honor the musical accomplishments of performers for the year 1958. After the 2011 ceremony, the Recording Academy overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012. The 66th Annual Grammy Awards, featuring a total of 94 categories, was presented February 4, 2024.

History
The Grammys had their origin in the Hollywood Walk of Fame project in the 1950s. As recording executives on the Walk of Fame committee compiled a list of significant recording industry people who might qualify for a Walk of Fame star, they realized that many leading people in their business would not earn a star on Hollywood Boulevard. They determined to rectify this by creating awards given by their industry similar to the Oscars and the Emmys. After deciding to go forward with such awards, a question remained what to call them. One working title was the 'Eddie', to honor Thomas Edison, the inventor of the phonograph. Eventually, the name was chosen after a mail-in contest whereby approximately 300 contestants submitted the name 'Grammy', with the earliest postmark from contest winner Jay Danna of New Orleans, Louisiana, as an abbreviated reference to Emile Berliner's invention, the gramophone. Grammys were first awarded for achievements in 1958.

The first award ceremony was held simultaneously in two locations on May 4, 1959, the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, and the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City, New York, with 28 Grammys awarded. The number of awards given grew, at one time reaching over 100, and fluctuated over the years with categories added and removed. The second Grammy Awards, also held in 1959, was the first ceremony to be televised, but the ceremony was not aired live until the 13th Annual Grammy Awards in 1971.

Latin Grammy Awards
The concept of a separate Grammy Awards for Latin music recorded in Spanish or Portuguese began in 1989, as it was deemed too large to fit on the regular Grammys ceremony. The Recording Academy then established the Latin Recording Academy in 1997, and the separate Latin Grammy Awards were first held in 2000. The Latin Grammys honor works recorded in Spanish or Portuguese from anywhere around the world that has been released either in Ibero-America, the Iberian Peninsula, or the United States.

COVID-19 Impact (2021–2022)
The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards were postponed from its original January 31, 2021, date to March 14, 2021, due to the music industry impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards were also postponed from its original January 31, 2022, date to April 3, 2022, due to health and safety concerns related to the COVID-19 Delta cron hybrid variant. The ceremony was also moved from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas due to the former having scheduling conflicts with sports games and concerts nearly every night through mid-April.

Gramophone trophy
The gold-plated trophies, each depicting a gilded gramophone, are made and assembled by hand by Billings Artworks in Ridgway, Colorado. In 1990, the original Grammy design was reworked, changing the traditional soft lead for a stronger alloy less prone to damage, making the trophy bigger and grander. Billings developed Grammium, a zinc alloy which they trademarked. Trophies engraved with each recipient's name are not available until after the award announcements, so "stunt" trophies are re-used each year for the ceremony broadcast.

By February 2009, some 7,578 Grammy trophies had been awarded.

Categories
The "General Field" are four awards which are not restricted by music genre.

 * The Album of the Year award is presented to the performer, featured artists, songwriter(s), and/or production team of a full album if other than the performer.
 * The Record of the Year award is presented to the performer and/or production team of a single song if other than the performer.
 * The Song of the Year award is presented to the songwriter(s) of a single song.
 * The Best New Artist award is presented to a promising breakthrough performer (or performers) who in the eligibility year releases the first recording that establishes their public identity (which is not necessarily their first proper release).

To date, three artists have won all four awards, two won all four at once: Christopher Cross (1981) and Billie Eilish (2020). Adele won the Best New Artist award in 2009 and her other three awards in 2012 and 2017. At age 18, Eilish is the youngest artist to have won all four awards.

As of 2024, an additional two awards were added to the "General Field".

 * The Producer of the Year, Non-Classical award is presented to a producer for a body of work released during the eligibility period. It was first presented in 1974 and was not previously part of any specific field.
 * The Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical award is presented to an individual who works primarily as a songwriter for a body of work released during the eligibility period. It was first presented in 2023 and was not previously part of any specific field.

Other awards are given for performance and production in specific genres and for other contributions such as artwork and video. Special awards are also given for longer-lasting contributions to the music industry.

Because of the large number of award categories (94 as of 2024), and a desire to feature several performances by various artists, only awards with the most popular interest – typically about 10 to 12, including the four general field categories and one or two categories in the most popular music genres (i.e., pop, rock, country, and rap) – are presented directly at the televised award ceremony. Most other Grammy trophies are presented in a pre-telecast "Premiere Ceremony" in the afternoon before the Grammy Awards telecast.

2012 category restructuring
On April 6, 2011, the Recording Academy announced a significant overhaul of many Grammy Award categories for 2012. The number of categories was cut from 109 to 78. The most substantial change was eliminating the distinction between male and female soloists and between collaborations and duo/groups in various genre fields (pop, rock, rhythm and blues [R&B], country, and rap). Additionally, several instrumental soloist categories were discontinued; recordings in these categories now fall under general categories for best solo performances.

In the rock field, the hard rock and metal album categories were combined. The Best Rock Instrumental Performance category was also eliminated.

In R&B, the distinction between best contemporary R&B album and other R&B albums has been eliminated, consolidated into one Best R&B Album category.

In rap, the categories for best rap soloist and best rap duo or group have been merged into the new Best Rap Performance category.

The roots category had the most eliminations. Up through 2011, there were separate categories for regional American music forms, such as Hawaiian, Native American, and Zydeco/Cajun music. A consistently low number of entries in these categories led the Recording Academy to combine these music variations into a new Best Regional Roots Music Album, including polka, which had lost its category in 2009.

In same-genre fields, the traditional and contemporary blues categories and the traditional and contemporary folk categories each were consolidated into one per genre due to the number of entries and the challenges in distinguishing between contemporary and traditional blues and folk songs. In the world music field, the traditional and contemporary categories also were merged.

In the classical field, its main category Best Classical Album, was discontinued because most recipients in the category had also won in other classical categories for the same album. Classical recordings are now eligible for the main Album of the Year category.

A few minor name changes were also made to better reflect the nature of the separate categories. The Recording Academy determined that the word "gospel" in the gospel genre field tends to connote images and sounds of traditional soul gospel to the exclusion of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). Therefore, the field and some categories were renamed as Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music.

Since 2012
Since 2012, small adjustments have been made to lists of categories and genre fields. The number of categories has risen from 78 in 2012 to 84 since 2017. In 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, several urban, rap, and Latin music categories were renamed. In 2022, the number of awards was increased from 86 to 91. Performance categories were added for the Americana and alternative music genres alongside new categories for video game score and spoken word poetry albums. A songwriter category (non-classical) and a song for social change category were also added and several categories were adjusted slightly.

In 2023, several key changed were announced for the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, set to take place in 2024. Three new categories were announced, bringing the total number to 94, the highest since the peak of 109 in 2010. In addition, both Producer of the Year, Non-Classical and Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical, were moved to the General Field, the first time new categories had been added to this field since the concept of the Big Four was established. The total number of fields was consolidated from 26 to 11 to ensure that all voting members would be able to exercise their allocated ten genre votes, as some members were prevented from doing so previously due to some fields only containing one category.

Entry process and selection of nominees
Members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), both media companies and individuals, may nominate recordings for consideration. Entries are made and submitted online. When a work is entered, review sessions are held that involve over 150 recording industry experts, to determine that the work has been entered in the correct category.

The resulting lists of eligible entries are then circulated to voting members, each of whom may vote to nominate in the general fields (Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist) and in up to nine out of 30 other fields on their ballots. The five recordings that earn the most votes in each category become the nominees, while in some categories (craft and specialized categories) review committees determine the final five nominees. There may be over five nominees if a tie occurs in the nomination process.

Although members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences generally are invited to screenings or are sent DVDs of films nominated for Oscars, NARAS members do not receive nominated recordings, but instead receive access to a private online listening service.

Final voting
After nominees have been determined, final voting ballots are sent to NARAS voting members, who may then vote in the general field and cast ten votes in various genre categories spread to three of the eleven fields. Members are encouraged, but not required, to vote only in their fields of expertise. Ballots are tabulated secretly by the independent accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. After vote tabulation, winners are announced at the Grammy Awards. The recording with the most votes in a category wins, and it is possible to have a tie (in which case the two [or more] nominees who tie are considered winners). Winners are presented with a Grammy Award; those who do not win receive a medal for their nomination.

In both voting rounds, Academy members are required to vote solely based on quality, without consideration for sales, chart performance, personal friendships, regional preferences or company loyalty. Gifts may not be accepted. Members are urged to vote in a manner that preserves the integrity of the academy and their member community. Although registered media companies may submit entries, they have no vote.

The eligibility period for the upcoming 66th Annual Grammy Awards is October 1, 2022 – September 15, 2023. The 2024 Grammy Awards, unveiled by Recording Academy chief Harvey Mason Jr., are set to be held on February 4, 2024.

Certificates
In many categories, certificates are presented to those ineligible for a Grammy Award but who did contribute to a winning recording. These certificates are known as Participation Certificates or Winners Certificates. Those eligible for a certificate can apply for one in the weeks after the Grammy ceremony.

Grammy Legend
A special Grammy Award of merit is occasionally awarded to recognize "ongoing contributions and influence in the recording field". It has come to be known as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Living Legend Award at different ceremonies. fourteen solo musicians and one band have received this award.

Salute to Industry Icons Award
The Grammy Salute to Industry Icons Award honors those who have made innovative contributions to the music industry. Recipients include:

 * Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss
 * Irving Azoff
 * Martin Bandier
 * Richard Branson
 * Clive Davis
 * Prince
 * Ahmet Ertegun
 * David Geffen
 * Berry Gordy
 * Lucian Grainge
 * Jay-Z
 * Debra L. Lee
 * Doug Morris
 * Mo Ostin
 * L.A. Reid
 * Sean Diddy Combs
 * Julie Greenwald and Craig Kallman
 * Rob Stringer
 * Jon Platt

Venue

Before 1971, Grammy Award ceremonies were held in different locations on the same day. Originally New York City and Los Angeles were the host cities. Chicago joined as a host city in 1962 and Nashville became a fourth location in 1965.

The 1971 ceremony at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles was the first to take place in one location. In 1972, the ceremony was then moved to Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum in New York City, then moved in 1973 to Nashville's Tennessee Theatre. From 1974 to 2003, the Grammys were held in various venues in New York City and Los Angeles, including New York's Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall; and Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium, Staples Center and Hollywood Palladium.

In 2000, the Crypto.com Arena (known as the Staples Center from 1999 to 2021) became the permanent home of the award ceremonies. The Grammy Museum was built across the street from the Crypto.com Arena in LA Live to preserve the history of the Grammy Awards. Embedded on the sidewalks on the museum streets are bronze disks, similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, to honor each year's top winners, Record of the Year, Best New Artist, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year. Since 2000, the Grammy Awards have taken place outside of Los Angeles only three times. New York City's Madison Square Garden hosted the awards in 2003 and in 2018, while the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas hosted in 2022.

The annual awards ceremony at the Crypto.com Arena requires the local sports teams such as the Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Sparks to play an extended length of road games.

Leading winners
With 32 Grammy Awards, Beyoncé is the artist with the most Grammy wins. U2, with 22 Grammy Awards, holds the record for most awards won by a group.

Commercialism
When Pearl Jam won a Grammy for the Best Hard Rock Performance in 1996, the band's lead singer Eddie Vedder commented on stage, "I don't know what this means. I don't think it means anything." In 2008, Glen Hansard, leader of the Irish rock group The Frames, stated that the Grammys represent something outside of the real world of music "that's fully industry based". He said he was not particularly interested in attending that year's ceremony, even though he had been nominated for two awards. Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of progressive rock band Tool, did not attend the Grammy Awards ceremony to receive one of the band's awards, explaining that:

"I think the Grammys are nothing more than some gigantic promotional machine for the music industry. They cater to a low intellect and they feed the masses. They don't honor the arts or the artist for what he created. It's the music business celebrating itself. That's basically what it's all about."

The Grammys have also been criticized for generally awarding or nominating more commercially successful albums rather than critically successful ones. In 1991, Sinéad O'Connor became the first musician to refuse a Grammy, boycotting the ceremony after being nominated for Record of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance. O'Connor would go on to win the latter award. She said her reasoning came from the Grammys' extreme commercialism. In 2024, Rhiannon Giddens described the financial strain of attending the ceremony for middle and working class musicians. She criticized the Recording Academy for introducing a policy of charging nominees $1200 for a plus one, saying the policy "makes it ever more obvious who is valued, and more specifically what (that would be lots of money, for the folks in the back)." A Billboard article clarified that the new policy was a tiered system, ranging from $375 to $2000 for a ticket to attend the pre-telecast ceremony.

Reactions to nominations and awards
The Grammys also have been criticized for snubbing awards to some nominated artists. The organization's awards journey states that nominees and winners are determined solely by voting members of the Recording Academy and that voting members are active creative professionals involved in the recording process, such as performers, songwriters, producers, and engineers.

Nomination review committees, composed of anonymous industry figures, were established following the 37th Grammy Awards, which attracted criticism for the slate of Album of the Year nominations. The winner, Tony Bennett's live album MTV Unplugged, competed against the live classical album The Three Tenors in Concert 1994, Seal's second eponymous album, and the twelfth albums from Bonnie Raitt and Eric Clapton, both longtime musical mainstays. Not nominated that year were several albums that would later be recognized as classics, including Nas's debut album Illmatic, Oasis's debut album Definitely Maybe, Hole's album Live Through This, Jeff Buckley's Grace, and the debut album from Wu-Tang Clan. The nomination review committees would be disbanded in 2021 following criticism of the lack of nominations for The Weeknd's album After Hours.

At the 38th Annual Grammy Awards, artist Mariah Carey was nominated for six awards for her album Daydream, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for her single "One Sweet Day". Although critics believed Carey would be "cleaning up" that year, Carey ultimately lost in all her nominated categories that night, much to the shock of critics and Carey herself. In 2011, Los Angeles Times journalist Randall Roberts criticized the exclusion of Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy from Album of the Year nominations for the 54th Grammy Awards. He described West's album as "the most critically acclaimed album of the year, a career-defining record". Roberts went on to criticize the Grammy Awards for being "mired in the past" and out of touch with "new media" and trends among music listeners such as music sharing, stating:

"The major nominations for the 54th annual awards clearly show that the recording academy has been working overtime to be all-inclusive, but more significantly, they also reveal a deep chasm between its goals and the listening habits of the general population...The focus is still on the old music industry model of cash-cow hits, major label investments and commercial radio..."

In an article for Time, journalist Touré also responded to the snub and expressed general displeasure with the awards, stating "I don't pretend to understand the Grammys. I have never been able to discern a consistent logic around who gets nominated or who gets statues. I comprehend the particular logic of the Oscars, but not the big awards for music. My normal state of confusion around what drives Grammy decisions was exponentialized this week when, to the shock of many, Kanye's masterpiece My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was not nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year." He went on to compare understanding the Grammy Awards to Kremlinology and commented on The Recording Academy's exclusion of more "mature" hip hop albums as Album of the Year nominees, noting that it occasionally opts to nominate "pop-friendly" hip hop albums instead.

In a 2011 profile for The New York Times after the 53rd Grammy Awards, frontman Justin Vernon of indie band Bon Iver was asked about the Grammys and how he would react to a nomination for his group, to which he responded:

"You know, I was thinking about that a couple of months ago, someone asked me that, and I was like 'I would go and I would' – and I don't think the Bon Iver record is the kind of record that would get nominated for a Grammy – 'I would get up there and be like, 'This is for my parents, because they supported me,' because I know they would think it would be stupid of me not to go up there. But I kinda felt like going up there and being like: 'Everyone should go home, this is ridiculous. You should not be doing this. We should not be gathering in a big room and looking at each other and pretending that this is important.' That's what I would say."

He reaffirmed this sentiment and commented about the Grammys, saying:

"[Ninety-eight] percent of the people in that room, their art is compromised by the fact that they're thinking that, and that they're hoping to get that award. And who is that award given by? It's like they think it's literally handed down by the musical-history gods. And I don't know who the voters are. Like, I have a friend who's a voter who was like, 'I had to be a voter because I don't trust the other voters.' And I was like, 'Me either!' And it's just not important and people spend too much time thinking about it."

Bon Iver subsequently received four nominations in November for the 54th Grammy Awards. After winning, Vernon said in his acceptance, "It's really hard to accept this award. There's so much talent out here [...] and there's a lot of talent that's not here tonight. It's also hard to accept because you know, when I started to make songs I did it for the inherent reward of making songs, so I'm a little bit uncomfortable up here."

In his article "Everything Old Is Praised Again", Jon Caramanica of The New York Times criticized Grammy voters for being "conservative" and disregarding more "forward-looking" music and wrote in response to the 54th Grammy Awards, "for the umpteenth time, the Grammys went with familiarity over risk, bestowing album of the year honors (and several more) on an album that reinforced the values of an older generation suspicious of change." He cited the Grammy successes of Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998), Norah Jones' Come Away with Me (2003), and Adele's 21 (2011) as examples of "the Grammys drop[ping] a boatload of awards on a young female singer-songwriter and her breakthrough album". Of Kanye West's absence from the ceremony, Caramanica stated, "He didn't even bother to show up for the broadcast, which was well enough because hip-hop was almost completely marginalized."

In an article for The Huffington Post, music executive and author Steve Stoute criticized the Recording Academy and the Grammy Awards for having "lost touch with contemporary popular culture" and noted "two key sources" for it: "(1) over-zealousness to produce a popular show that is at odds with its own system of voting and (2) fundamental disrespect of cultural shifts as being viable and artistic." Stoute accused the academy of snubbing artists with more cultural impact, citing respective losses by the critical and commercial successes in Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) and Kanye West's Graduation (2007) in the Album of the Year category. Stoute asserted:

"As an institution that celebrates artistic works of musicians, singers, songwriters, producers and technical specialists, we have come to expect that the Grammys upholds all of the values that reflect the very best in music that is born from our culture. Unfortunately, the awards show has become a series of hypocrisies and contradictions, leaving me to question why any contemporary popular artist would even participate. [...] While there is no doubt in my mind of the artistic talents of Steely Dan or Herbie Hancock, we must acknowledge the massive cultural impact of Eminem and Kanye West and how their music is shaping, influencing and defining the voice of a generation. It is this same cultural impact that acknowledged the commercial and critical success of Michael Jackson's Thriller in 1984."

In 2020, Canadian artist Abel Tesfaye, known by his stage name The Weeknd, was shut out from the Grammys when his fourth studio album, After Hours, received no nominations at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards. This came as a surprise to critics, fans, and Tesfaye himself, who had a successful run in 2020 with the success of both his album and the single "Blinding Lights". Tesfaye responded by social media calling the Grammys "corrupt". Speculation arose that the announcement of his then-upcoming Super Bowl performance, as well as the discrepancy of being nominated as pop music versus R&B, contributed to the snubs. Harvey Mason, Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, responded by saying:

"We understand that The Weeknd is disappointed at not being nominated. I was surprised and can empathize with what he's feeling. His music this year was excellent, and his contributions to the music community and broader world are worthy of everyone's admiration. We were thrilled when we found out he would be performing at the upcoming Super Bowl and we would have loved to have him also perform on the Grammy stage the weekend before. Unfortunately, every year, there are fewer nominations than the number of deserving artists. But as the only peer-voted music award, we will continue to recognize and celebrate excellence in music while shining a light on the many amazing artists that make up our global community. To be clear, voting in all categories ended well before The Weeknd's performance at the Super Bowl was announced, so in no way could it have affected the nomination process. All Grammy nominees are recognized by the voting body for their excellence, and we congratulate them all."

Formatting
The Grammys' eligibility period runs from October 1 of one year until September 30 of the next year. Records released in the fourth quarter of a given year are not eligible for that year's awards (the submissions and first round ballots are underway at that time). This is despite the quarter falling during the Christmas and holiday season, when many physical albums have been traditionally released and are heavily purchased for holiday gift giving, and when Christmas music is at its natural peak.

Fans unfamiliar with the Grammys voting window perennially hold a mistaken notion that a favorite artist has then been snubbed; for example, Adele's album 25 was released in November 2015 and thus was ineligible for nomination for the 2015 awards, despite its massive sales, earning its Grammys (including Album of the Year) instead in 2017. Conversely, the Grammys often recognize work more than a year after it was released. Taylor Swift's 1989 won Album of the Year in 2016, even though the album came out in October 2014.

Accusations of racial bias
The Grammys have also been accused of a racist bias against black recording artists. In a 2017 interview Canadian artist Drake accused the awards of seeing him only as a rapper and not as a pop-music artist due to his previous work and heritage. He criticized the snubbing of "One Dance" for the Record of the Year award and the nomination of "Hotline Bling" for Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Performance, despite it not being a rap song. The Atlantic's Spencer Kornhaber accused the Grammys of "sidelining a black visionary work in favor of a white traditionalist one". Drake did not attend the 2017 awards ceremony where he was nominated. He had a performance in Manchester, England on February 12, 2017, the same night as the ceremony. Frank Ocean was vocal about boycotting the same Grammy Awards and did not submit his album Blonde for award consideration as a protest.

The Grammys were also criticized after the 59th Annual Grammy Awards when Adele's 25 (as mentioned above, released in late 2015) won Album of the Year over Beyoncé's album Lemonade (released in April 2016), which many music publications believed should have won the award. Steve Knopper of Rolling Stone magazine believed that she lost due to the Grammy voters being all white males and for her pro-Black performance during the Super Bowl 50 halftime show. USA Today also criticized Beyoncé's loss stating that "Black artists have struggled to win album of the year". They also felt 25 won only due to the album's record-breaking sales rather than having cultural significance and the large impact that Lemonade had in 2016. Adele also expressed that Lemonade should have won over her for Album of the Year, stating in her acceptance speech:

"I can't possibly accept this award. And I'm very humbled and I'm very grateful and gracious. But my artist of my life is Beyoncé. And this album to me, the Lemonade album, is just so monumental. Beyoncé, it's so monumental. And so well thought out, and so beautiful and soul-baring and we all got to see another side to you that you don't always let us see. And we appreciate that. And all us artists here adore you. You are our light." In 2019, for the first time since Outkast won Album of the Year in 2004, rap artists won major award nominations outside the rap categories when Childish Gambino won the first Song and Record of the Year awards ever for a rap song. Hispanic and Latino Americans (the largest minority in America) are also considered to be under-represented at the Grammy Awards, and their music is prone to be shifted to the categories of the Latin Grammy Awards unless they have a mainstream following.

In April 2022, the late Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar was omitted from the In Memoriam segment, and the nation's domestic media criticized the Grammys and Oscars for their Western-centric view of artists receiving attention over those throughout the rest of the world.

Issues with women
The Grammys have also been criticized for their treatment of female artists specifically. Notably at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in 2018, New Zealand singer Lorde made headlines after turning down an offer to perform at the ceremony. She suggested that she was invited to perform alongside several other artists in a tribute to Tom Petty but was refused a solo slot, despite being nominated for the Album of the Year award and stated that each male nominee was allowed a solo performance. Lorde's mother Sonja Yelich also criticized the Grammys, pointing out an article that only nine percent of the nominees at the previous six Grammy ceremonies were women. After the 60th ceremony, several media outlets reported that the ceremony had failed women, specifically pointing to the most nominated female artist SZA who failed to win in any of her five nominated categories, and to the Best Pop Solo Performance category which included four female nominees but was won by Ed Sheeran. Neil Portnow, president of the Recording Academy, sparked controversy after stating in an interview that female artists needed to "step up" in order to win awards. Portnow's comments were criticized by many female musicians including Pink, Katy Perry, Vanessa Carlton, Sheryl Crow, Iggy Azalea, Halsey, and Charli XCX. They also caused the hashtag #GrammysSoMale to trend on social media.

Before the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019, singer Ariana Grande decided not to perform or attend that year's ceremony over a disagreement about the song choices for her performance. An anonymous source told Variety that Grande felt "insulted" when producers refused to let the singer perform her latest single "7 Rings". They compromised by having her perform the song as part of a medley, but the condition that the producers choose the second song led Grande to withdraw from the show. The source said that the same stipulations were not imposed on other performers. Grande later accused Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich of lying about why she dropped out of the show. Ehrlich had said that Grande "felt it was too late for her to pull something together". Grande responded: "I can pull together a performance over night and you know that, Ken; it was when my creativity and self expression was stifled by you, that I decided not to attend. I hope the show is exactly what you want it to be and more."

Despite the controversy, Grande won for Best Pop Vocal Album and in 2020 performed at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards when nominated for five awards, including Album of the Year, but won none. Despite past controversies, female artists dominated the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, with the big four awards being awarded entirely to women. Several women also broke records at that ceremony.

In May 2018, it was revealed that money intended for the Recording Academy charity MusiCares was siphoned off to pay for the cost overruns of hosting the 60th Annual Grammy Awards at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Concerning the controversies of hosting that year's Grammy Awards in New York, Dana Tomarken, the former executive vice president of the MusiCares foundation claimed wrongful termination. She alleges that she was fired for pushing back against the academy's "boys club". She claimed that by having the MusiCares Person of the Year Tribute to Fleetwood Mac at Radio City Music Hall, the event had to forgo its traditional VIP dinner and silent auction. She had already been offered a deal to have the event at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The Barclays Center is owned by AEG, which competes directly with The Madison Square Garden Company which owns Madison Square Garden and Radio City. Irving Azoff who then had a joint venture with the Madison Square Garden Company told Tomarken that the event can not be held at Barclays and had to be held at Radio City. Oak View Group which is associated with Azoff received 300 of the highest price tickets to the MusiCares event at Radio City. Oak View Group was supposed to sell them as a package deal which also included tickets to the Grammy Awards itself. MusiCares was promised to receive $1.5 million from those tickets according to Tomarken. Those 300 tickets were never sold and were then returned to MusiCares, which resulted in a loss.

In June 2019, rapper Nicki Minaj spoke up against the Grammy's for allegedly blackballing her after her controversial performance of "Roman Holiday" at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards. Minaj claimed that producer Ken Ehrlich, who had previously accepted the performance, wanted her to cancel it last minute due to what he excused as the passing of Whitney Houston. Minaj however refused his request and performed anyway. She accused that shortly after the performance, Ehrlich had snubbed her from winning the Best New Artist category, which was awarded to Bon Iver. In October 2022, Minaj went after the Grammy's again for snubbing her song "Super Freaky Girl" from the rap categories at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards and instead placing it in the pop categories. By way of comparison, Minaj mentioned Latto's 2021 song "Big Energy" being potentially considered for the rap categories, saying that if Minaj's own single is not being qualified as a rap song, neither should be Latto's. She also accused the Grammy's of purposely placing her in those categories to favor other artists over her, such as Adele and Harry Styles. After Minaj's comments, Latto later responded to her in a series of tweets, leading them into a back-and-forth argument. Subsequently, Minaj's song was not nominated for any categories for the ceremony, while Latto received nominations for the Best New Artist category as well as the Best Melodic Rap Performance category for the latter song.

Recording Academy CEO Deborah Dugan was placed on leave on January 16, 2020, after a complaint of bullying from a member of staff (according to an anonymous New York Times source), ten days before the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. Dugan had complained internally, alleging a broken system of voting that was subject to conflicts of interest and unnecessary spending. On the nominations for the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, she stated that the voting process was an "outrageous conflict of interest" with several nominated artists sitting on the voting boards of their prospective categories. She claimed that "one artist who initially ranked 18 out of 20 in the 2019 'Song of the Year' category ended up with a nomination". She also claimed that a few artists like Ed Sheeran and Ariana Grande had the votes to be nominated for the category, but were ultimately omitted.

In 2020, comedy star Tiffany Haddish turned down the invitation to host the 63rd Grammy pre-telecast premiere ceremony when they said that she would have to pay her own way. In an exclusive interview with Variety, Haddish revealed that she was told to cover the cost of hair, makeup, and wardrobe for the three-hour event, adding, "I don't know if this might mean I might not get nominated ever again, but I think it's disrespectful". When contacted, The Recording Academy explained that the premiere Ceremony is not a CBS program and is hosted by the academy, a not-for-profit organization, meaning that artists, hosts and performers have to perform free every year. They also noted that the issue would have no impact in Haddish's future nomination.

In 2022, the Grammys were criticized for nominating, and subsequently awarding, Louis C.K. a Best Comedy Album prize for his comedy special Sincerely Louis C.K. The album made light of, and included jokes about, the multiple sexual misconduct revelations he had admitted to years earlier. In 2023, the Grammys faced significant backlash for debuting a new award called the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award, due to the rapper's history of violence against women.

TV broadcasts and ratings
Before the first live Grammys telecast in 1971 on ABC, a series of filmed annual specials in the 1960s called The Best on Record was broadcast on NBC. The first Grammy Award telecast took place on the night of November 29, 1959, as an episode of the NBC anthology series NBC Sunday Showcase, which normally was devoted to plays, original TV dramas, and variety shows. Until 1971, awards ceremonies were held in both New York and Los Angeles, with winners accepting at one of the two venues. Television producer Pierre Cossette bought the rights to broadcast the ceremony from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and organized the first live telecast. CBS bought the rights in 1973 after moving the ceremony to Nashville, Tennessee; the American Music Awards were created for ABC by the late Dick Clark as a result.

The Recording Academy announced on June 21, 2011, that it had reached a new deal with CBS to keep the awards show on the network for another 10 years. As part of the new contract, the network would also air a "nominations concert" special in the last week of November, where nominations would be released during a special exclusive to CBS, rather than at a traditional early-morning press conference to a multi-network press pool. This was ended after the 2016 concert due to low ratings and criticism about the announcement format, and as of the 2017 nominations, they have been revealed in a roundtable conversation with Recording Academy representatives during CBS Mornings, though since 2020, it has returned to a traditional noontime Eastern press release statement and highlight of in-show award nominees on social media. In 2016, the Grammys became the first awards show to regularly air live annually in all U.S. territories, and for decades, alongside the Academy Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards and Tony Awards, the shows have aired live in over 150 countries worldwide.

From 2004 to 2019, the Grammys were held on the second Sunday of February (the week after the Super Bowl), with two exceptions: if that day was February 14 (Valentine's Day), it was moved to the following day; if it was a Winter Olympics year, it was held earlier on the last Sunday of January (the week before the Super Bowl). Starting in 2020, the Academy Awards ceremony would move back to the second Sunday of February, forcing the Grammys to move back to the last Sunday of January to avoid conflict with either the Oscars or the Super Bowl. To allow enough time for preparation, the cutoff date for eligible recordings would move from September 30 to August 31. This change reduced the eligibility period for the 2020 awards to eleven months (October 1, 2018 – August 31, 2019), a month shorter than usual.

title: Grammy Awards


text:
Grammy Award for Song of the Year

The Grammy Award for Song of the Year is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. The Song of the Year award is one of the four most prestigious categories at the awards (alongside Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Album of the Year), presented annually since the 1st Grammy Awards in 1959. According to the 54th Grammy Awards description guide, the award is presented: "to honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position."

If a winning song contains samples or interpolations of existing material, the publisher and songwriter(s) of the original song(s) can apply for a Winners Certificate.

Song of the Year is related to but is conceptually different from Record of the Year or Album of the Year:

 * Song of the Year is awarded for a single or for one track from an album. This award goes to the songwriter who actually wrote the lyrics and/or melodies to the song. "Song" in this context means the song as composed, not its recording.
 * Record of the Year is also awarded for a single or individual track, but the recipient of this award is the performing artist, the producer, recording engineer and/or mixer for that song. In this sense, "record" means a particular recorded song, not its composition or an album of songs.
 * Album of the Year is awarded for a whole album, and the award is presented to the artist, songwriter, producer, recording engineer, and mastering engineer for that album. In this context, "album" means a recorded collection of songs (a multi-track LP, CD, or download package), not the individual songs or their compositions.

History and description
The Song of the Year awards have been awarded since 1959. It is one of the four most prestigious Grammy Awards. Despite both the Record of the Year award and Song of the Year being awarded for a single or for one track from an album, this award goes only to the composer(s) of the song whereas the Record of the Year award goes to the performer(s) and production team for a particular recording of the song. According to the 54th Grammy Awards description guide, the award is given to the songwriter(s) of a song that "must contain melody and lyrics and must be either a new song or a song first achieving prominence during the eligibility year. Songs containing prominent samples or interpolations are not eligible".

The award has not always been restricted to new or newly prominent songs; for instance, in 1992, when the winner was Natalie Cole's cover of "Unforgettable" (a song that had first been recorded by Nat King Cole and achieved prominence in the 1950s), the rule was merely that the song had to have been recorded during the eligibility year and not previously nominated for the award.

Since the late 1960s other songwriter's awards have been presented for genre-specific categories, including Grammy Award for Best Country Song (since 1965), Grammy Award for Best R&B Song (since 1969), Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media (since 1988), Grammy Award for Best Rock Song (since 1992), and most recently Grammy Award for Best Rap Song (since 2004), Grammy Award for Best Gospel Song (from 2006 to 2014), Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Song (from 2012 to 2014), Grammy Award for Best American Roots Song (since 2014), Grammy Award for Best Gospel Performance/Song (since 2015), and Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song (since 2015).

The category was expanded to include eight nominees in 2019 and 10 nominees in 2022. The number of nominees was reverted to eight starting with the 2024 ceremony.

As of 2023, a distinct category to honor songwriters was established: Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical.

Achievements
In many cases, the songwriters were also the performers (Domenico Modugno, Henry Mancini, John Lennon & Paul McCartney, Joe South, Paul Simon, Carole King, Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel, Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Sting, Michael Jackson & Lionel Richie, Bobby McFerrin, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Seal, Shawn Colvin, Rob Thomas, U2, Alicia Keys, Luther Vandross, John Mayer, Dixie Chicks, Amy Winehouse, Coldplay, Beyoncé, Lady Antebellum, Adele, Fun, Lorde, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Childish Gambino, Billie Eilish, H.E.R., Anderson .Paak, and Bonnie Raitt).

Dernst Emile II is the only songwriter to win Song of the Year in two consecutive years: in 2021 ("I Can't Breathe") and 2022 ("Leave the Door Open").

Other multiple winners in this category include Henry Mancini ("Moon River" and "Days of Wine and Roses"); Johnny Mercer ("Moon River" and "Days of Wine and Roses"); James Horner ("Somewhere Out There" and "My Heart Will Go On"); Will Jennings ("Tears in Heaven" and "My Heart Will Go On"); U2 ("Beautiful Day" and "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own"); Adele ("Rolling in the Deep" and "Hello"); Christopher Brody Brown ("That's What I Like" and "Leave the Door Open"); Bruno Mars ("That's What I Like" and "Leave the Door Open"); Billie Eilish ("Bad Guy" and "What Was I Made For?"); and Finneas O'Connell ("Bad Guy" and "What Was I Made For?"), winning two times each. However, songs written for Andy Williams, Roberta Flack, Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler have received this award twice.

American singer/songwriter Taylor Swift is the most nominated songwriter in this category with seven nominations. Swift has never won the award.

The first woman to win the award was Carole King in 1972, for "You've Got a Friend". Adele was the first female songwriter to win the award twice, winning for "Rolling in the Deep" and "Hello".

Lorde is the youngest songwriter to win in the category, winning for "Royals" in 2014 at the age of 17.

Irving Gordon is the oldest songwriter to win the award, winning for "Unforgettable" in 1992 at age 77.

Christopher Cross and Billie Eilish are the only artists to receive the Grammys for Song of the Year as well as Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best New Artist in a single ceremony. Adele was the first artist to win the awards for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best New Artist on separate occasions. Only six artists have won the Song of the Year and Best New Artist awards the same year: Christopher Cross ("Sailing" in 1981), Alicia Keys ("Fallin'" in 2002), Amy Winehouse ("Rehab" in 2008), Fun ("We Are Young" in 2013), Sam Smith ("Stay with Me (Darkchild Version)" in 2015) and Billie Eilish ("Bad Guy" in 2020); Marvin Hamlisch is the only composer to win the Song of the Year and Best New Artist awards the same year in 1975, for "The Way We Were".

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Lionel Richie, Diane Warren, Billie Eilish, H.E.R, and Finneas O'Connell are the only songwriters to receive three consecutive nominations for Song of the Year.

The song "Nel blu, dipinto di blu (Volare)", winner in 1959, written by Domenico Modugno and performed in Italian, is the only foreign-language song to win this award, although the 1967 winner "Michelle" penned by Lennon–McCartney for The Beatles to perform, has a critical part of its lyrics in French.

The Ernest Gold song "Theme of Exodus", which won in 1961, is the only instrumental song to ever receive this award.

The first and only tie in this category in Grammy history took place in 1978, when both Barbra Streisand's & Paul Williams' "Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star Is Born)" and Joe Brooks' "You Light Up My Life" won the award.

The first time in Grammy history that two different songs with the same title have been nominated in this category happened with "Hello" written by Lionel Richie in 1985 and "Hello" by Adele & Greg Kurstin in 2017.

The song with the most writers to win this award is "That's What I Like", which won in 2018 with eight writers. The song with the most writers nominated in this category is "Peaches", which had 11 co-writers nominated for the 2022 ceremony.

Thirty-two of the winning songs have also won the award for Record of the Year.

Process
From 1995 to 2018, members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences nominated their choices for song of the year. A list of the top twenty records was given to the Nominations Review Committee, a specially selected group of anonymous members, who then selected the top five records to gain a nomination in the category in a special ballot. The rest of the members then vote a winner from the five nominees. In 2018, it was announced the number of nominated tracks would be increased to eight. In 2021, it was announced that the Nomination Review Committees would be disbanded, and the final nominees for song of the year would be decided by votes from members. Starting in 2022, the number of nominees in the category increased to 10. However, the decision to expand the number of nominees in this category was made 24 hours before the nominees were announced after an early version of the nominations list had already been circulated. This allowed "Kiss Me More" by Doja Cat featuring SZA and "Right on Time" by Brandi Carlile to be nominated as they were the songs that received the most votes besides the other eight nominees. As of the 2024 ceremony, the number of nominees has been reduced back to eight.

Recipients

 * An asterisk (*) indicates this recording also won Record of the Year.

2020s

 * undefined Each year is linked to the article about the Grammy Awards held that year.
 * undefined The performing artist is only listed but does not receive the award.

Songwriters with multiple awards

 * Two awards
 * Adele
 * Bono
 * Brody Brown
 * Adam Clayton
 * D'Mile (consecutive)
 * The Edge
 * Billie Eilish
 * James Horner
 * Will Jennings
 * Henry Mancini
 * Bruno Mars
 * Johnny Mercer
 * Larry Mullen Jr.
 * Finneas O' Connell

Songwriters with multiple nominations

 * 7 nominations
 * Taylor Swift

 * 6 nominations
 * Paul McCartney
 * Lionel Richie

 * 5 nominations
 * Burt Bacharach
 * Beyoncé
 * John Lennon
 * Bruno Mars

 * 4 nominations
 * Adele
 * Alan Bergman
 * Marilyn Bergman
 * Jack Antonoff
 * Bono
 * Brody Brown
 * Sammy Cahn
 * Brandi Carlile
 * Adam Clayton
 * The Edge
 * Billie Eilish
 * Will Jennings
 * Billy Joel
 * Philip Lawrence
 * Hillary Lindsey
 * Max Martin
 * Larry Mullen Jr.
 * Finneas O'Connell
 * Ed Sheeran
 * Jay-Z
 * Sting
 * Jimmy Van Heusen

 * 3 nominations
 * Carole Bayer Sager
 * Jeff Bhasker
 * Justin Bieber
 * Hal David
 * D'Mile
 * Phil Hanseroth
 * Tim Hanseroth
 * Don Henley
 * H.E.R.
 * Michael Jackson
 * Alicia Keys
 * Greg Kurstin
 * Lady Gaga
 * Kendrick Lamar
 * Robert John "Mutt" Lange
 * John Legend
 * Ari Levine
 * Henry Mancini
 * Lori McKenna
 * Johnny Mercer
 * Tim Rice
 * Liz Rose
 * Paul Simon
 * Bruce Springsteen
 * Tricky Stewart
 * Jule Styne
 * SZA
 * Diane Warren
 * Paul Francis Webster
 * Kanye West
 * Paul Williams
 * Andrew Wyatt

 * 2 nominations

 * Caroline Ailin
 * Peter Allen
 * Ruby Amanfu
 * Johntá Austin
 * Corinne Bailey Rae
 * Glen Ballard
 * Louis Bell
 * Benny Blanco
 * Leslie Bricusse
 * Mariah Carey
 * Tracy Chapman
 * Lauren Christy
 * Dave Cobb
 * Phil Collins
 * Christopher Cross
 * Lana Del Rey
 * Neil Diamond
 * Dr. Luke
 * The-Dream
 * Fred Ebb
 * Graham Edwards
 * Eminem
 * Dino Fekaris
 * Eric Fredericks
 * Barry Gibb
 * Robin Gibb
 * Norman Gimbel
 * Howard Greenfield
 * Marvin Hamlisch
 * Kuk Harrell
 * James Horner
 * Rodney Jerkins
 * Elton John
 * John Kander
 * Josh Kear
 * R. Kelly
 * Kris Kristofferson
 * Carter Lang
 * Avril Lavigne
 * Michel Legrand
 * Dua Lipa
 * Lizzo
 * Barry Mann
 * Michael McDonald
 * Alan Menken
 * Julia Michaels
 * Anthony Newley
 * Dan Nigro
 * Freddie Perren
 * Linda Perry
 * Ricky Reed
 * Olivia Rodrigo
 * Mark Ronson
 * Nate Ruess
 * Bobby Russell
 * Neil Sedaka
 * Shellback
 * Eddie Snyder
 * Stephen Sondheim
 * Sounwave
 * Joe South
 * Scott Spock
 * Tiara Thomas
 * Shania Twain
 * Jimmy Webb
 * Cynthia Weil
 * will.i.am
 * Dan Wilson
 * Stevie Wonder

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Grammy Award for Song of the Year


text:
User:Knapspank

Please, the Wiki isn't a dictionary--one-sentence entries like "ex-policeman turned Jack the Ripper expert" aren't very useful, and don't give us good handles on expanding them.

title: User:Knapspank


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Led Zeppelin (album)

Led Zeppelin (sometimes referred to as Led Zeppelin I) is the debut studio album by English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was released on 13 January 1969 in the United States and on 31 March 1969 in the United Kingdom by Atlantic Records.

The album was recorded in September and October 1968 at Olympic Studios in London, shortly after the band's formation. It contains a mix of original material worked out in the first rehearsals, and remakes and rearrangements of contemporary blues and folk songs. The sessions took place before the group had secured a recording contract and totalled 36 hours; they were paid for directly by Jimmy Page, the group's founder, leader and guitarist, and Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant, costing £1,782 to complete. They were produced by Page, who as a musician was joined by band members Robert Plant (lead vocals, harmonica), John Paul Jones (bass, keyboards), and John Bonham (drums). Percussionist Viram Jasani appears as a guest on one track. The tracks were mixed by Page's childhood friend Glyn Johns, and the iconic album cover showing the Hindenburg disaster was designed by George Hardie.

Led Zeppelin showcased the group's fusion of blues and rock, and their take on the emerging hard rock sound was immediately commercially successful in both the UK and US, reaching the top 10 on album charts in both countries, as well as several others. Many of the songs were longer and not well suited to be released as singles for radio airplay; Page was reluctant to release "singles", so only "Good Times Bad Times", backed with "Communication Breakdown", was released outside of the UK. However, due to exposure on album-oriented rock radio stations, and growth in popularity of the band, many of the album's songs have become classic rock radio staples.

Background
In July 1968, the English rock band the Yardbirds disbanded after two founder members Keith Relf and Jim McCarty quit the group to form the band Renaissance, with a third, Chris Dreja, leaving to become a photographer shortly afterwards. The fourth member, guitarist Jimmy Page, was left with rights to the name and contractual obligations for a series of concerts in Scandinavia. Page asked seasoned session player and arranger John Paul Jones to join as bassist, and hoped to recruit Terry Reid as singer and Procol Harum's B. J. Wilson as drummer. Wilson was still committed to Procol Harum, and Reid declined to join but recommended Robert Plant, who met with Page at his boathouse in Pangbourne, Berkshire in August to talk about music and work on new material.

Page and Plant realised they had good musical chemistry together, and Plant asked friend and Band of Joy bandmate John Bonham to drum for the new group. The line-up of Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham first rehearsed on 19 August 1968 (the day before Plant's 20th birthday), shortly before a tour of Scandinavia as "the New Yardbirds", performing some old Yardbirds material as well as new songs such as "Communication Breakdown", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me", "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" and "How Many More Times". After they returned to London following the tour, Page changed the band's name to Led Zeppelin, and the group entered Olympic Studios at 11 p.m. on 25 September 1968 to record their debut album.

Recording
Page said that the album took only about 36 hours of studio time (over a span of a few weeks) to create (including mixing), adding that he knew this because of the amount charged on the studio bill. One of the primary reasons for the short recording time was that the material selected for the album had been well-rehearsed and pre-arranged by the band on the Scandinavian tour.

The band had not yet signed a deal, and there was no record company money to waste on excessive studio time. Page and Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant paid for the sessions themselves. The reported total studio costs were £1,782. The self-funding was important because it meant they could record exactly what they wanted without record company interference.

For the recordings Page played a psychedelically painted Fender Telecaster – a gift from friend Jeff Beck after Page recommended him to join the Yardbirds in 1965, replacing Eric Clapton on lead guitar. Page played the Telecaster through a Supro amplifier, and used a Gibson J-200 for the album's acoustic tracks. For "Your Time Is Gonna Come" he used a Fender 10-string pedal steel guitar.

Production
Led Zeppelin was engineered by Glyn Johns and produced by Page and Johns (Johns is uncredited on the album cover). The two had known each other since they were teenagers in the suburb of Epsom. According to Page, most of the album was recorded live, with overdubs added later.

Page used a "distance makes depth" approach to production. He used natural room ambience to enhance the reverb and recording texture on the record, demonstrating the innovations in sound recording he had learned during his session days. At the time, most music producers placed microphones directly in front of the amplifiers and drums. For Led Zeppelin, Page developed the idea of placing an additional microphone some distance from the amplifier (as far as 20 ft) and then recording the balance between the two. Page became one of the first producers to record a band's "ambient sound": the distance of a note's time-lag from one end of the room to the other.

On some tracks, Plant's vocals spill onto other tracks. Page later stated that this was a natural product of Plant's powerful voice, but added the leakage "sounds intentional". On "You Shook Me", Page used the "reverse echo" technique. It involves hearing the echo before the main sound (instead of after it), and is achieved by turning the tape over and recording the echo on a spare track, then turning the tape back over again to get the echo preceding the signal.

This was one of the first albums to be released in stereo only. Prior to this, albums had been released in separate mono and stereo versions.

Composition
The songs on Led Zeppelin came from the first group rehearsals, which were then refined on the Scandinavian tour. The group were familiar with the material when they entered Olympic to start recording, a reason the album was completed quickly. Plant participated in songwriting but was not given credit because of unexpired contractual obligations to CBS Records. He was retroactively given credit on "Good Times, Bad Times", "Your Time Is Gonna Come", "Communication Breakdown", "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", and "How Many More Times".

Side one
"Good Times Bad Times" was a commercial-sounding track that was considered as the group's debut single in the UK, and released as such in the US. As well as showcasing the whole band and their new heavy style, it featured a catchy chorus and a variety of guitar overdubs. Despite being a strong track, it was seldom performed live by Led Zeppelin. One of the few occasions it was played was the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert in 2007.

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" was a re-arrangement of a song composed by Anne Bredon in the 1950s. Page had heard the song recorded by Joan Baez for her 1962 album Joan Baez in Concert. It was one of the first numbers that he worked on with Plant when the two first met at Pangbourne in August 1968. Page played both the Gibson J-200 acoustic and Telecaster on the track. Plant originally sang the song in a heavier style, similar to other performances on the album, but was persuaded by Page to re-record it to allow some light and shade on the track.

"You Shook Me" was a blues song with lyrics by Willie Dixon and fitted in with the British blues boom that was ongoing when the album was being recorded. Jones, Plant and Page took solos on Hammond organ, harmonica and guitar respectively. Page put backwards echo on the track, which was then a novel production device, on the call and response between the vocal and guitar towards the end. The song had been recorded by Jeff Beck for the album Truth (1968) and Beck subsequently said he was unhappy about Led Zeppelin copying his arrangement.

"Dazed and Confused" was written and recorded by Jake Holmes in 1967. The original album credited Page as the sole composer; Holmes sued for copyright infringement in 2010 and an out-of-court settlement was reached the following year. The Yardbirds performed the song regularly in concert during 1968, including several radio and television sessions. Their arrangement included a section where Page played the guitar with a violin bow, an idea suggested by David McCallum Sr. whom Page had met while doing sessions. Page also used the guitar solo for one of the last Yardbirds recordings, "Think About It". Led Zeppelin's adaptations of "Dazed and Confused" used some different lyrics, while Jones and Bonham developed the arrangement to accommodate their playing styles.

The song was an important part of Led Zeppelin's live show throughout their early career, and became a vehicle for group improvisation, eventually stretching in length to over 30minutes. The improvisation would sometimes include parts of another song, including the group's "The Crunge" and "Walter's Walk" (released later on Houses of the Holy and Coda, respectively), Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" and Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)". It was briefly dropped from the live set in 1975 after Page injured a finger, but was re-instated for the remainder of the tour. The last full live performance during Led Zeppelin's main career was at Earl's Court in London later that year, after which the violin bow section of the song's guitar solo was played as a standalone piece. It was revived as a complete song performance for the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert in 2007.

Side two
"Your Time Is Gonna Come" opens with Jones playing an unaccompanied organ solo, leading into the verse. Page plays acoustic and pedal steel guitar. The track has a crossfade into "Black Mountain Side", an acoustic instrumental based on Bert Jansch's arrangement of the traditional folk song "Black Water Side" and influenced by the folk playing of Jansch and John Renbourn. The song was regularly performed live as a medley with the Yardbirds solo guitar number "White Summer".

"Communication Breakdown" was built around a Page guitar riff, and one of the first tunes the group worked on. They enjoyed playing it live, and consequently it was a regular part of their set. It was played intermittently throughout the group's career, often as an encore.

"I Can't Quit You Baby" was another Willie Dixon-penned blues number. It was recorded live in the studio, and arranged in a slower and more laid-back style compared to some of the other material on the album.

"How Many More Times" was the group's closing live number in their early career. The song was improvised around an old Howlin' Wolf number, "How Many More Years", and a Page guitar riff, which developed spontaneously into a jam session. The track includes a bolero section similar to Jeff Beck's "Beck's Bolero" (which was written by and featured Page), and segues into "Rosie" and "The Hunter" which were improvised during recording. Page played the guitar with the violin bow in the middle section of the track, similar to "Dazed and Confused".

Unreleased material
Two other songs from the Olympic sessions, "Baby Come On Home" and "Sugar Mama", were left off the album. They were released on the 2015 reissue of the retrospective album Coda.

Artwork
Led Zeppelin's front cover, which was chosen by Page, features a black-and-white image of the German zeppelin Hindenburg photographed by Sam Shere on 6 May 1937, when the airship burst into flames while landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey. The image refers to the origin of the band's name itself: When Page, Beck and The Who's Keith Moon and John Entwistle were discussing the idea of forming a group, Moon joked, "It would probably go over like a lead balloon", and Entwistle reportedly replied, "a lead zeppelin!"

The back cover features a photograph of the band taken by Dreja. The entire design of the album's sleeve was coordinated by George Hardie, with whom the band would continue to collaborate for future sleeves. Hardie himself also created the front cover illustration, rendering the famous original black-and-white photograph in ink using a Rapidograph technical pen and a mezzotint technique.

Hardie recalled that he originally offered the band a design based on an old club sign in San Francisco – a multi-sequential image of a zeppelin airship up in the clouds. Page declined but it was retained as the logo for the back cover of Led Zeppelin's first two albums and a number of early press advertisements. The first UK pressing featured the band name and the Atlantic logo in turquoise. When it was switched to the orange print later that year, the turquoise-printed sleeve became a collector's item.

The album cover gained further widespread attention when, at a February 1970 gig in Copenhagen, the band were billed as "the Nobs" as the result of a legal threat from aristocrat Eva von Zeppelin (a relative of the creator of the Zeppelin aircraft). Von Zeppelin, upon seeing the logo of the Hindenburg crashing in flames, threatened legal action over the concert taking place. In 2001, Greg Kot wrote in Rolling Stone that "The cover of Led Zeppelin… shows the Hindenburg airship, in all its phallic glory, going down in flames. The image did a pretty good job of encapsulating the music inside: sex, catastrophe and things blowing up."

Critical reception
The album was advertised in selected music papers under the slogan "Led Zeppelin – the only way to fly". It initially received poor reviews. In a stinging assessment, Rolling Stone magazine asserted that the band offered "little that its twin, the Jeff Beck Group, didn't say as well or better three months ago… to fill the void created by the demise of Cream, they will have to find a producer, editor and some material worthy of their collective talents", calling Page a "limited producer" and criticizing his writing skills. It also called Plant "as foppish as Rod Stewart, but nowhere near so exciting". Because of the bad press, Led Zeppelin avoided talking to them throughout their career. Eventually, their reputation as a good live band recovered by word-of-mouth.

Rock journalist Cameron Crowe noted years later: "It was a time of 'super-groups', of furiously hyped bands who could barely cut it, and Led Zeppelin initially found themselves fighting upstream to prove their authenticity."

However, press reaction to the album was not entirely negative. In Britain the album received a glowing review in Melody Maker. Chris Welch wrote, in a review titled "Jimmy Page triumphs – Led Zeppelin is a gas!": "Their material does not rely on obvious blues riffs, although when they do play them, they avoid the emaciated feebleness of most so-called British blues bands". In Oz, Felix Dennis regarded it as one of those rare albums that "defies immediate classification or description, simply because it's so obviously a turning point in rock music that only time proves capable of shifting it into eventual perspective". In comparing the record to their follow-up Led Zeppelin II, Robert Christgau wrote in The Village Voice that the debut was "subtler and more ambitious musically", and not as good, "because subtlety defeated the effect. Musicianship, in other words, was really incidental to such music, but the music did have real strength and validity: a combination of showmanship and overwhelming physical force."

The album was a commercial success. It was initially released in the US on 13 January 1969 to capitalise on the band's first North American concert tour. Before that, Atlantic Records had distributed a few hundred advance white label copies to key radio stations and reviewers. A positive reaction to its contents, coupled with a good reaction to the band's opening concerts, resulted in the album generating 50,000 advance orders. The album reached number 10 on the Billboard chart. The album earned its US gold certification in July 1969.

Legacy
The album's success and influence is widely acknowledged, even by publications that were initially sceptical. In 2006, Mikal Gilmore commented in Rolling Stone on the originality of the music, and Zeppelin's heavy style, contrasting them with Cream, Jimi Hendrix, the MC5 and the Stooges, and noting that they had mass appeal. Led Zeppelin was cited by Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "a significant turning point in the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal". According to arts and culture scholar Michael Fallon, it "announced the emergence of a loud and raw new musical genre" in metal. Greg Moffitt for the BBC said that the band was "a product of the 60s, but their often bombastic style signposted a new decade and ... a new breed of rock bands". Sheldon Pearce from Consequence of Sound regarded it as Zeppelin's "ode to rock's progressive metamorphosis" and "the first hard rock domino" for their future accomplishments: "Its orchestration delves adventurously through hard rock and heavy metal with bluesy undertones that often cause the chords to weep poignantly as if struck with malice".

The album was described as a "brilliant if heavy-handed blues-rock offensive" by popular music scholar Ronald Zalkind. Martin Popoff argued that while the album may not have been the first heavy metal record, it did feature what was likely to be the first metal song – "Communication Breakdown" – "with its no-nonsense machine gun between the numbers riff". In 2003, VH1 named Led Zeppelin the 44th-greatest album of all time. The same year, the album was ranked 29th on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (their highest-charting album on the list); an accompanying blurb read: "Heavy metal still lives in its shadow," maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, and ranked 101st in a 2020 revised list. In 2004, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Aerosmith's Joe Perry observed that Jimmy Page "was an incredible producer and he wrote all these great songs. When he was cutting the first Zeppelin album, he knew what he wanted. His vision was so much more global than Jeff [Beck] and Eric [Clapton's]. Playing guitar was just one part of the puzzle… I have to have the first four Led Zeppelin albums on me at all times."

 * denotes an unordered list

2014 reissue
Along with the group's next two albums – Led Zeppelin II and Led Zeppelin III – the album was remastered and reissued in June 2014. The reissue comes in six formats: a standard CD edition, a deluxe two-CD edition, a standard LP version, a deluxe three-LP version, a super deluxe two-CD-plus-three-LP version with a hardback book, and as high-resolution, 24-bit/96k digital downloads. The deluxe and super-deluxe editions feature bonus material from a concert at the Olympia in Paris, recorded in October 1969, previously available only in bootleg forms. The reissue was released with an inverted black and white version of the original album's artwork as its bonus disc's cover.

The reissue was met with widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 97, based on 10 reviews. Q deemed it an improvement over previous remasters of the album and credited Page's contribution to the remaster for revealing more detail. Erlewine found the bonus disc "particularly exciting" in his review for AllMusic, writing that "it's not tight but that's its appeal, as it shows how the band was a vital, living beast, playing differently on-stage than they did in the studio." According to Paste magazine's Ryan Reed, "for years, Zep-heads have tolerated the murky fidelity of the '90s remasters" until the reissue, which "finally punches and shimmers instead of fizzling in fuzz". He was critical of the bonus disc, however, believing it "remains inessential—the very definition of 'for completists only.'... [It] demonstrates Zeppelin at their most bloated, sloppily fumbling through rhythmic cues and extending tracks to their breaking point".

Personnel
Taken from the sleeve notes.

Led Zeppelin
 * Robert Plant – lead vocals, harmonica
 * Jimmy Page – electric, acoustic and pedal steel guitars, backing vocals, production
 * John Paul Jones – bass, Hammond organ, backing vocals
 * John Bonham – drums, timpani, backing vocals

Additional musician
 * Viram Jasani – tabla on "Black Mountain Side"

Production
 * Chris Dreja – back cover photography
 * Peter Grant – executive production
 * George Hardie – cover design
 * Glyn Johns – engineering, mixing
 * George Marino – CD remastering
 * John Davis – 2014 reissue remastering

title: Led Zeppelin (album)


text:
Ferdinand II of León

Ferdinand II (c. 1137 – 22 January 1188), was a member of the Castilian cadet branch of the House of Ivrea and King of León and Galicia from 1157 until his death.

Family
Born in Toledo, Castile, Ferdinand was the third but second surviving son of King Alfonso VII of León and Castile and Berenguela of Barcelona. His paternal grandparents were Count Raymond of Burgundy and Queen Urraca of León and his maternal grandparents were Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence. He had seven full-siblings, of whom only three survived infancy: the later King Sancho III of Castile, Constance (wife of King Louis VII of France) and Sancha (wife of King Sancho VI of Navarre), and two half-siblings from his father's second marriage with Richeza of Poland, of whom only survive Sancha (wife of King Alfonso II of Aragon).

Childhood and early years
Ferdinand's education was entrusted to a Galician magnate, Count Fernando Pérez de Traba, member of the same lineage as the former knights of his grandmother, Queen Urraca, and of the tutors and defenders of his father, King Alfonso VII. Soon he was initiated into the tasks of government. From 1151 he is associated with the throne by his father, along with his older brother Infante Sancho, so in documents from León and Galicia his confirmation with the title of King, or King of Galicia, is common. He was surrounded from the beginning by the Leonese and Galician magnates, such as the Counts Ponce de Minerva, Ramiro Froilaz, Pedro Alfonso and the aforementioned Fernando Pérez de Traba.

In a council begun in Valladolid in the year 1155, were agreed the terms of the division of the domains of the still-living King Alfonso VII. There the Kingdoms of León and Galicia were assigned under Ferdinand's sovereignty, excluding Tierra de Campos, Sahagún and Asturias de Santillana. Ferdinand earned the reputation of a good knight and hard fighter, but did not display political talent or organising ability.

Beginning of reign and first marriage with Urraca of Portugal
In 1157 his father, King Alfonso VII died, and according of his will and the previous dispositions of the council of Valladolid of 1155, his second son inherited the Kingdoms of León and Galicia under the name of Ferdinand II; during the early months of his reign, the new monarch had to resolve his disputes with the powerful local nobles and an invasion by his brother Sancho III of Castile. In 1158 Ferdinand II signed the Treaty of Sahagún with his brother Sancho III, under which they agreed to jointly wage war against the Muslims, to divide up the conquered territories, the provision that in case one of the two brothers died without issue, the survivor would inherit the domains of the deceased brother, and the partition of the Kingdom of Portugal. The death of his brother Sancho III in the same year and the succession of his infant son Alfonso VIII, annulled the clauses of the Treaty of Sahagún.

During the minority of age of his nephew Alfonso VIII, in the Kingdom of Castile began the dispute between the Houses of Lara and Castro to exercise the regency on behalf of the child king. Taking advantage of the anarchic state in which the kingdom of his late brother was found, Ferdinand II invaded Castile at the head of an army, and demanded, in order to restore order, that the Lara surrender him to his nephew Alfonso VIII, whose education he wished to take charge of.

In March 1160 Fernando Rodríguez de Castro, commanding the forces of the House of Castro, defeated the Lara supporters in the Battle of Lobregal, in which his father-in-law Count Osorio Martínez lost his life, and Nuño Pérez de Lara was captured. That same year, Ferdinand II was cured of a serious illness supposedly through the intercession of Saints Martin of Tours and Eufemia of Orense. In 1162 Fernando Rodríguez de Castro was appointed Majordomo mayor of Ferdinand II, a position he held twice: firstly from 15 August 1162 until his dismissal on 6 September 1164 and secondly from 19 October 1165 until 15 May 1166.

The boundary troubles with Castile restarted in 1164: he then met at Soria with the Lara family, who represented Alfonso VIII, and a truce was established, allowing him to move against the Muslim Almoravids who still held much of southern Spain, and to capture the cities of Alcántara and Alburquerque. In the same year, Ferdinand II defeated King Afonso I of Portugal, who, in 1163, had occupied Salamanca in retaliation for the repopulation of the area ordered by the King of León.

In May/June 1165 Ferdinand II married with Infanta Urraca of Portugal, daughter of King Afonso I, as a gesture of reconciliation and alliance between the Kingdoms of León and Portugal. At that time, he restored and repopulated the cities of Ledesma and Ciudad Rodrigo, and this caused the inhabitants of Salamanca who, apparently, had bought the city of Ledesma, took up arms against the king and the magistrates of Ledesma; when Ferdinand II learned of it, he marched with his army against the rebels and forced them to return to their city.

The war against the Kingdom of Castile (1162–1166)
In 1162, Ferdinand II conquered the city of Toledo, snatching it from the Castilians, and subsequently naming Fernando Rodríguez de Castro as Governor of the city. The city of Toledo remained in the power of the Kingdom of León until 1166, when it was recovered by the Castilians. On 27 September 1162, Ferdinand II signed an agreement, known as the Treaty of Ágreda, with Alfonso II of Aragon.

In 1164 Fernando Rodríguez de Castro entered the Kingdom of Castile for the second time with an army and defeated Count Manrique Pérez de Lara at the Battle of Huete, fought in June or July of that year. Four years later he was appointed Mayor of León, being his duty to control and be in command of the existing fortresses in the city, until the year 1182, when he left the office.

Ferdinand II and the members of the House of Lara met in Soria and agreed that, to defend the city of Toledo from the Saracens, they would hand over to the Knights Templar the city of Uclés, located in the current Province of Cuenca, and which would later become the headquarters of the Order of Santiago. The King of León, fearful that the members of the House of Lara would break the agreed peace, allied himself with King Sancho VI of Navarre to intimidate them and, in this way, be able to direct his troops against the Almohads, from whom he snatched the cities of Alcántara and Albuquerque.

Conquest of Badajoz and war with the Kingdom of Portugal
Despite Ferdinand II's marriage to Infanta Urraca of Portugal, the disputes with the Lusitan kingdom continued. Between 1166 and 1168 King Afonso I of Portugal seized cities belonging to the Leonese kingdom. Ferdinand II then repopulated Ciudad Rodrigo, and the Portuguese monarch, suspecting that his son-in-law was fortifying it with the purpose of attacking him in the future, sent an army commanded by his son and heir, Infante Sancho of Portugal, against that city. The King of León came to the aid of the besieged Ciudad Rodrigo and, in a meeting he had with the Portuguese troops, put them to flight, capturing many prisoners. Afonso I then invaded Galicia, occupying Tui and the territory of Xinzo de Limia (former fiefs of his mother), and in 1169 attacked the city of Cáceres. However, as his troops were also besieging the city of Badajoz, which was in the power of the Saracens, Ferdinand II was able to push the Portuguese out of Galicia and to rush to Badajoz. When Afonso I saw the Leonese arrive he tried to flee, but he was disabled by a broken leg caused by a fall from his horse, and made prisoner at one of the city's gates. Afonso I was obliged to surrender as his ransom almost all the conquests he had made in Galicia in the previous year. In the peace signed at Pontevedra the following year, Ferdinand II got back twenty-five castles, and the cities of Cáceres, Badajoz, Trujillo, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Montánchez, previously lost by León. When in the same years the Almoravids laid siege to the Portuguese city of Santarém, Ferdinand II came to help his father-in-law, and helped to free the city from the menace.

At the beginning of the summer of 1169, Geraldo Geraldes Sem Pavor ("without fear"), of the kingdom of Portugal, took the city of Badajoz after a long siege, but the governor of the city took refuge in the Alcazaba of Badajoz, and the siege had to continue. Seeing the opportunity presented to him to add the main city of the region to his dominions at the expense of his Christian and Muslim enemies, Afonso I of Portugal an army to Badajoz in order to replace Gerardo Sem Pavor as conductor of the siege.

The city of Trujillo became the head of the domains assembled by Fernando Rodríguez de Castro. This provoked the opposition of Ferdinand II, who argued that Badajoz belonged to him. The King of León then headed south at the head of an army, at the request of the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, who had already sent a contingent of 5,000 knights to help his besieged governor. Fernando Rodríguez de Castro, as the monarch's Majordomo, was one of the Leonese leaders of the expedition. The Portuguese who besieged the Alcazaba of Badajoz, were then besieged by the Leonese, fighting broke out in the streets of the city. While trying to escape, Afonso I of Portugal was captured by the men of Ferdinand II, after breaking his leg. At the same time, Leonese monarch captured Gerardo Sem Pavor. After the capture of the city and the Alcazaba of Badajoz by the Leonese, the latter left the city in the hands of their Muslim allies. Gerardo Sem Pavor had to surrender several of the towns he had conquered to the Kingdom of León, in exchange for his freedom. Ferdinand II kept the city of Cáceres, but the towns of Trujillo, Montánchez, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Monfragüe became the property of Fernando Rodríguez de Castro. After this donation, Fernando Rodríguez de Castro became the lord of a semi-independent principality located between the Tagus and Guadiana rivers, whose headquarters were in the city of Trujillo. Alfonso VIII realized the strategic importance of the fortresses granted to the Castilian, with a view to a future repopulation, since the fortresses were in the area that according to the Treaty of Sahagún of 1158 belonged to the area of influence of the Kingdom of Castile. Defeated by Afonso I of Portugal, the Muslims attacked the Kingdom of León in 1173, trying to seize Ciudad Rodrigo; but Ferdinand II, who had knowledge of his purposes, entrenched himself in the city of Salamanca with the troops he was able to gather in León, in Zamora, in various places in Galicia and in other parts of the kingdom, at the same time giving order to the rest of his army to meet him asap. The Muslims were defeated and only those who fled could keep their freedom.

In 1170, Ferdinand II created the military-religious Order of Santiago de Compostela, with the task to protect the city of Cáceres. Like the Order of Alcántara, it initially began as a knightly confraternity and took the name "Santiago" (St. James) after St. James the apostle, with the purpose to protect the pilgrims who visited the tomb of the Apostle Santiago.

Second marriage with Teresa Fernández de Traba
In 1175, Pope Alexander III annulled the marriage of Ferdinand II and Urraca of Portugal because they were related in the prohibited third degree of consanguinity as being second cousins (their grandmothers, Queen Urraca of León and Countess Teresa of Portugal were half-sisters), despite the fact that the Queen gave birth a son and heir, Infante Alfonso, in 1171. The gold of Castile and England countered the one that Leon offered to Rome to obtain the Papal dispensation for the marriage, since its validity supposed de facto the alliance of Portugal and León, which did not interest neither Castile nor to England, who had family ties to each other after Alfonso VIII was married to Eleanor, daughter of King Henry II of England.

After August 1177 and certainly before 7 October 1178, Ferdinand II married with Teresa Fernández de Traba, the illegitimate daughter of Count Fernando Pérez de Traba (the king's former tutor) and Countess Teresa of Portugal, and widow of Count Nuño Pérez de Lara; with this marriage, the king cemented his alliance with the powerful Houses of Lara and Traba —although just like his first marriage, Ferdinand II was also closely related with his new wife in not only a prohibited degree of consanguinity but also of affinity (they were not only 1st cousins once removed but also Teresa Fernández de Traba was aunt of Urraca of Portugal), apparently there wasn't any questioning or impediment for this new wedding of the Leonese monarch.

War with the Kingdom of Castile and conference of Tordesillas (1178–1180)
In 1178 Ferdinand II invaded the Kingdom of Castile. He seized the municipalities of Castrojeriz and Dueñas (both formerly lands of Teresa Fernández de Traba's first husband) before Alfonso VIII could have put these fortresses on alert, while the Castilian sovereign allied himself with Afonso I of Portugal, who sent his son, Infante Sancho, to fight against the King of León.

In 1180 the Kings of León and Castile met in the town of Tordesillas, where they agreed to put an end to their differences, sealing a peace agreement. On 6 February of that year, Ferdinand II's second wife Teresa Fernández de Traba died giving birth to their second son, who died at the same time as his mother and was buried together with her in the Royal Pantheon of the Kings of San Isidoro of León.

Ordination of the territory
Ferdinand II granted cartas forales to numerous cities and towns; in 1164, to Padrón and Ribadavia; in 1168, to Noia; in 1169 to Castro Caldelas and to the city of Pontevedra; in 1170 to Tui and in 1177 to Lugo. It also favored numerous monasteries, such as those of Sobrado, Melón, Armenteira, Moraime and San Martín de Xubia. It also benefited the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, granting a life pension to Master Mateo. During his reign the Order of Santiago was founded and Pope Alexander III granted the grace of the Jacobean jubilee holy year (Bula Regis Aeterni, 1181). This privilege granted to the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral favored the heyday of pilgrimages, while promoting the economic, cultural and artistic development of the territories crossed by the Camino de Santiago.

Last years – third marriage with Urraca López de Haro
In 1184, after a series of failed attempts, the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf invaded Portugal with an army recruited in Northern Africa and, in May, besieged Afonso I in Santarém; the Portuguese were helped by the arrival of the armies sent by the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, in June, and by Ferdinand II in July.

In May 1187 Ferdinand II married with Urraca López de Haro, daughter of Lope Díaz I de Haro, Lord of Biscay, and widow of Nuño Menéndez, Lord of Ceón and Riaño, who was had been his mistress from at least May 1180. On occasion of the wedding, the king granted his new wife the Lordships of Aguilar and Monteagudo. The new queen, who was aware that the end of her husband's life was approaching, wanted to elevate her only surviving son, Infante Sancho, to the throne of León, in detriment of the Infante Alfonso, Ferdinand II's first-born son. To achieve her purpose, Urraca López de Haro maintained that the birth of Infante Alfonso was illegitimate, since the marriage of his parents had been annulled due to the existing blood ties between both spouses. Ferdinand II then banished Infante Alfonso, which was a triumph for his stepmother, who made an effort to ensure that her son inherited the throne upon the death of his father.

Death and burial
Ferdinand II died at Benavente on 22 January 1188 aged 51, while returning from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and was succeeded to the throne by his eldest son, Alfonso IX of León. The Primera Crónica General describes the death of the King of León as follows:

"And this King Ferdinand of León, son of the Emperor and brother of King Sancho de Castile, finished already with good progress in the XXI year of his reign in his kingdom, near the town of Benavente: and they buried him in the church of Sant Yague de Gallizia [Basilica of San Isidoro], near his grandfather Count Raymund who lies and, near the Empress Berengaria his mother...This was made by the heir of Leon Infante Alfonso, son of King Ferdinand and Queen Urraca, daughter of King Afonso of Portugal."

Contravening his wishes to be buried at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, Ferdinand II was buried somewhere, possibly in the Royal Pantheon of the Kings of San Isidoro of León, since his widow, Queen Urraca, did not want to transfer the mortal remains to Santiago of Compostela, since its Archbishop, Pedro Suárez de Deza, was a supporter of King Alfonso IX.

Later, his remains were transferred by order of his son Alfonso IX to Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, in which Ferdinand II had stated that he wanted to be buried, since there where buried his mother Queen Berengaria of Barcelona and his grandfather Count Raymond of Burgundy, and, therefore, in a document granted in the city of Benavente on 26 July 1180, confirmed to Santiago de Compostela Cathedral the donations that the sovereign had granted him previously, and that concerned the chaplaincy and the royal tombs of the cathedral, also ordering in said document that no one can build any castle in that territory.

The transfer of the remains of Ferdinand II is mentioned in a diploma granted in Zamora by Alfonso IX dated 4 May 1188, which certifies that the royal remains were transferred to Santiago de Compostela Cathedral by order of his son, who wished to fulfill the last wishes of his father, and buried next to the remains of the Apostle Santiago with royal honors, while confirming in said document the privileges and exemptions granted to the cathedral by the soul of his deceased father, and his own.

The tomb of Ferdinand II is located in the Chapel of the Relics of Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, where the Royal Pantheon is located. On a smooth stone sepulcher is placed the recumbent statue that represents the late king, who appears dressed in a tunic and mantle, his forehead girded with a royal crown, and his head is represented with curly hair and a beard, with the right arm of the sovereign raised and placed at the height of his head, while his left hand rests on his chest. The recumbent statue representing Ferdinand II has been dated to the first half of the 13th century. It was carried out after the death of the king, who died in 1188, which has led to the conclusion that it should have been commissioned by the king's heir, Alfonso IX of León.

Issue
Ferdinand II and his first wife, Urraca of Portugal, had one son:
 * Alfonso IX (15 August 1171 – 23/24 September 1230), who eventually succeeded him as King of León and Galicia

Ferdinand II and his second wife, Teresa Fernández de Traba, had two sons:
 * Ferdinand (1178–1187), who died in infancy and was buried in the Royal Pantheon of the Kings of San Isidoro of León
 * Sancho (born and died 6 February 1180), whose birth led to the death of his mother and also buried in the Royal Pantheon of the Kings of San Isidoro of León

Ferdinand II and his third wife, Urraca López de Haro, had three sons:
 * García Fernández (1182–1184), died before the marriage of his parents, buried in the Royal Pantheon of the Kings of San Isidoro of León
 * Alfonso Fernández (1184–1188), legitimized through the subsequent marriage of his parents, died before his father and was also buried in the Royal Pantheon of the Kings of San Isidoro of León
 * Sancho Fernández (1186 – 25 August 1220), legitimized through the subsequent marriage of his parents, Lord of Monteagudo and Aguilar in succession to his mother, alférez mayor of his half-brother King Alfonso IX on 10 June 1213, and from 8 December 1213 to 16 July 1218, governor of Montenegro and Sarría during 1210–1219

title: Ferdinand II of León