Steve Jobs Wins Grammy For 'Significant Contribution To The Field Of Recording'

Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs posthumously won a Grammy award during a Special Merit Awards ceremony held over the weekend.

Eddy Cue, who heads iTunes, accepted the Trustees Award in Jobs' place, reports The Washington Post. According to the official Grammy website, the Trustees Award is given to individuals "who have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording." Up until 1984, recipients could include performers.

The Trustees Award was announced together with Lifetime Achievement Award and Technical Grammy Award during the Grammy's Special Merit Awards Ceremony. In addition to Jobs, Dave Bartholomew and Rudy Van Gelder were also honored with Trustees Awards.

In December The Recording Academy announced in a statement that Jobs would receive the award because his "innovations such as the iPod and its counterpart, the online iTunes store, revolutionized the industry and how music was distributed and purchased."

In his acceptance speech (see video above) Cue talked about how Jobs' love for music spawned products like the iPod and iTunes that would go on to revolutionize the music industry. CNET quotes Cue as saying:

Steve was focused on bringing music to everyone in innovative ways. We talked about it every single day. When he introduced the iPod in 2001, people asked 'Why is Apple making a music player?' His answer was simple: 'We love music, and it's always good to do something you love.'

This wasn't the first Grammy award honoring Apple's contributions to the music industry. In 2002 the company received a technical Grammy for being "the leading architect in bringing computer technology into the studio and revolutionizing the way music is written, produced, mixed, recorded and creatively imagined," reported CNET.

Past Trustees Award recipients include The Beatles, Dick Clark and Walt Disney.

Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer. He was 56.

Comments

[Salvador Lara Jr]

04:55 PM on 02/14/2012

EGOT!

[Barbarian At The Gate]

01:52 AM on 02/14/2012

I thought it was ironic that he was honored considering the music industry has changed so much because of digital downloads. Record stores like Tower records are gone. I was under the impression that most people in the recording industry are unhappy with the new distribution channels of their music.

[Virulancer]

01:14 AM on 02/14/2012

Would he have gotten this if he hadn't passed away? If not, doesn't that mean he got this because he passed away?

[weareas1]

07:28 PM on 02/13/2012

BTW, almost all movies and television shows are edited and post-produced on Macintosh computers. While we're at it, let's give Steve Jobs some respect for that, as well.

Also BTW, I am certain that Dave Grohl will be back to recording on a computer as soon as he gets the tiny bit of mileage that he wants from the holier-than-thou pronouncements he has made of late. That will happen within another record or two -- as soon as he starts getting frustrated with what he can't do with tape, and with the constant headache of maintaining the operation of those beastly, unreliable, antiquated, extremely expensive machines.

One more thing -- Apple created the iPod. Kind of important. Seriously.

[Barbarian At The Gate]

01:58 AM on 02/14/2012

Here is some history on the portable media player:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_media_player

Yes, Apple brought the iPod to the world, that is their brand. They did not invent the portable media player or the MP3 format.

[Footwarrior]

03:17 PM on 02/14/2012

Your are correct, Apple didn't invent the portable player. Apple's real contribution was the iTunes software and online store that made it easy to purchase music for the iPod portable media player. Jobs insistance that the record companies sell music as individual songs was a key factor in making this system work.

[weareas1]

07:28 PM on 02/13/2012

Those of you who doubt the significance of Apple's contribution to music and recording need to visit a few thousand professional recording studios. You will find that almost every last one of them uses an Apple computer as the very center of their recording activities. As someone who has been producing records since the 1970's, I do not in the least miss the analog tape recorders that used to do the job (poorly) that computers do today.

As I write this, I am editing and mixing a live album that I recorded on a Macbook laptop using Apple's fantastic Logic Pro software just two days ago. This recording sounds freaking amazing, and the gear it took to make it fit into a small suitcase and my backpack. I use PC's in the studio, too -- but the PC's use in studios is far overshadowed by the Mac, and almost all PC music/studio applications have always struggled just to keep up with the absolute dominance of the Mac in that field.

If we can give Steve Jobs a lot of credit for creating the Macintosh, then we can also give him credit for creating the modern recording studio. The first uses of Macs in the studio happened in 1984, the same year the first Mac was introduced. Most of us hopped on board soon after that, and have never looked back.

[Catalina hime]

03:26 PM on 02/13/2012

Ok this is just ridiculous. I like my ipod, but really? A grammy? They may as well give me a grammy for singing in the shower and not breaking the glass.

[StinkyPete0279]

03:02 PM on 02/13/2012

He contributed nothing to the field of recording, only the field of monetizing recordings.

[AnnoyedCanuck]

08:54 PM on 02/13/2012

Wrong. Go into any recording studio almost anywhere, and you will see Apple computers and Apple software being used as integral tools to record, edit and mix music tracks. Same with film sound, film and video footage, animation and special effects. Same at film schools.

You can do it all on a Mac - and many people do. Macs, the Mac OS, QuickTime, Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro are standard tools for producing recorded media.

[StinkyPete0279]

11:11 PM on 02/13/2012

Final Cut Pro owes more to Video Toaster than it ever will to Steve Jobs. It's adorable that you think QuickTime is anything to brag about too.

When you can name me a single thing a Mac can do with *any* of the above (or even any of it that Steve Jobs had anything to do with) that a PC can't, get back to me.

[Rhancheck]

02:53 PM on 02/13/2012

typical.. not like they would have given any kudos to the group that created the mp3 format in the first place starting this big ball o wax rolling....

[MIKEinNYC]

02:46 PM on 02/13/2012

I don't know about his significant contribution to the art of recording but I am cognizant of St. Stevie's significant contribution to ripping off the music buyer.

[Pectin]

10:11 PM on 02/13/2012

Nonsense.

[Azieran]

01:02 PM on 02/13/2012

Moronic

[GonzoFactor]

12:46 AM on 02/14/2012

Look in a mirror.