Grammy Awards To Cut Categories

I am a big fan of award shows, especially any involving music. The CMA's, The ACM's,The AMA's, Etc. The Grammy's however don't interest me as much because there are just way too many awards. That is about to change.

Today it was announced that the number of categories for next year's award show will be cut to 78, which is 31 fewer than were presented at this past February's event.  The biggest change will be the elimination of Gender Based Categories. So instead of Best Female or Male Country Vocal Performance, there will just be a Best Solo Country Vocal Performance award. Some Instumental categories have been removed or combined into another category and some categories that basically no everyday Joe knows exists will be combined into other genre categories or eliminated all together. The Recording Academy posted the changes on the official Grammy Website.

Another change deals with rules on entries and voting. Each category must have at least 40 artist entries to move forward. If a category receives between 25 and 39, only three recordings will receive nominations. If there are less than 25 submissions, the category will not be presented. The category will be discontinued if there are fewer than 25 entries for three consecutive years.

What are your thoughts on some of these changes? Do you like the fact that, for example, Miranda Lambert will go against Keith Urban in the best solo category or do you think there should be categories for the guys and gals. I think this will make the competition that much better and I applaud the changes.