As the dust from Wednesday night's Grammy nominations settled, fans of electronic dance music were left scratching their heads at the inclusion of an unknown performer in the Best Dance Recording category.
Al Walser's "I Can't Live Without You" is nominated alongside Avicii's "Levels," Calvin Harris and Ne-Yo's "Let's Go," Swedish House Mafia's "Don't You Worry Child" and Skrillex and Sirah's "Bangarang." While the rest in the category are easily in the top tier of producers and DJs, Walser is a mystery to even avid consumers of EDM. (Watch the video for Walser's track above.)
According to House.net, Walser is a relentless self-promoter who claims to be a "Grammy nominating and voting member." The claim was allegedly made on Walser's Facebook fan page, which has since been taken down. As House.net notes, no variations of Walser's name appear on any of the rolls for the Recording Academy's 12 chapter.
Walser's Twitter account -- which has about 550 followers and includes no tweets about the nomination -- repeats the voting member claim.
The dance music news site quoted an anonymous source who claimed the Grammys were very embarrassed by the situation and speculated that foul play may have been involved. Here's how Walser's representative responded to the House.net story:
we saw the article you posted on al walser and the defamation attempts of his likeness and would not want but would be forced to get this to our attorney shouldn't you take this article down.
to the facts.
also, like so many thousands of other artists, yes, he is a voting member as well in the los angeles chapter.
A number of top DJ's and producers noted their shock at Walser's inclusion in the nominees on Twitter:
[Ed. note: That's not technically true -- nominees are not allowed to vote on their own work.]
When reached by The Huffington Post, a representative of the Recording Academy said she would look into whether or not Walser is a nominating and voting member. We will update this post as soon as more information is available.
For more from the original story, head over to House.net.