By Patrick Morey, News Correspondent

As the lights went down at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Sunday night, millions of music lovers sat with bated breath waiting for their favorite artists to perform on stage at the 56th Grammy Awards.

While the show lacked the element of controversy it has been widely known for in recent years, electric performances by renowned artists like Daft Punk, and former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr entertained fans who have waited all year to witness this annual celebration of the music industry. Artists and celebrities also announced winners of various awards throughout the night. As with any awards show, however, the outcomes produced some ire amongst those with differing opinions. With so many worthy artists to choose from, who actually picks the winners?

Whether it’s the Grammys, American Music Awards, or MTV’s Video Music Awards, music award shows have the difficult responsibility of rewarding a select few artists for their work. Along with owning its own tone and traditions, each show has its own voting process as well.

New York-based Newsday’s chief pop music critic Glenn Gamboa, “[The Grammys] provide people with music that is worthy of seeking out and listening to,” and that the Academy attempts to represent “what is happening in music.”

The American National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has been awarding Grammys to deserving artists since 1959, when the first annual Grammy Awards transpired with historic attendees such as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. Though the formerly black-tie affair has morphed into the eccentric celebration of arts it is today, the complex voting process has not changed one bit.

According to the Academy’s website, this process begins with record companies and Academy members submitting songs, albums and other content that they wish to be acknowledged. Over 150 experts from various professions in the music industry then review each submission to ensure they all meet entry standards and are placed in the correct category, making certain distinctions such as rock versus pop.

Next, the Academy issues ballots to all members who then nominate content released during the current eligibility period that they wish to see up for awards. After a special nomination review committee decides on the nominees for special awards outside of the normal categories, final ballots are sent out to Academy members to determine what artists will actually win each award. To guarantee the integrity of the voting process, all ballots are collected and recorded by an independent accounting firm, Deloitte, who then delivers the final results in the sealed envelops seen on awards night.

“The body [of voters] is changing, and therefore the Academy’s reactions to music are changing,” Gamboa said. Artists such as Daft Punk and Macklemore are taking home awards because “the Academy is now rewarding risk and music that is interesting.”

Unlike the Grammys, both the American Music Awards (AMAs) and Video Music Awards (VMAs) choose the winners for their awards based on voting by the general public.

The Grammys ran without competition for over a decade before legendary TV personality and producer Dick Clark founded the AMAs in 1973 after ABC’s contract to air the Grammys expired. Much like the VMAs, the AMAs changed their voting process four years ago and now call upon the public to vote for its preferred winners.

On ABC’s website, one only needs to create an account with their email address to vote for the nominees in each category. The nominees are chosen by their volume of sales and popularity on social media sites then presented on the AMA website for public deliberation. The winners are announced on their live broadcast, which takes place each year in late November.

After 25 years of formal award presentations, MTV shattered the mold in 1984 with the first Video Music Awards show and has been offering younger audiences an irreverent alternative to the Grammys and AMAs ever since. For a month leading up to the VMAs, any American citizen over the age of 13 can login to the MTV website and cast their votes for their favorite artists.

In addition to their website, MTV also tallies votes sent via text. As the “Official Voting Rules” issued by MTV state, “The total number of votes … will be tabulated by [MTV] and the ‘Nominee’ with the most votes in its applicable category … will be declared the winner of such category.”

This excerpt certainly depicts a pure democratic process, yet the same document later explains that MTV maintains the right to declare its own winners if the voting process is disturbed in anyway. There is no evidence of MTV tampering with the actual voting results, but the statement that MTV “reserves the right in its sole discretion to determine the winners” opens the door for speculation.

According to Gamboa, the VMAs are nothing more than a popularity contest, and “MTV doesn’t try to hide that. The only important decisions are made during nominations.”

While the Grammys reveal up-and-coming artists, the VMAs center around what is popular right now.

“We expect to see winners such as Austin Mahone and One Direction because those are the acts that appeal to teenagers who are into voting,” Gamboa said.

Though each awards show varies in its origins and voting processes, they share the same innate conflict in awarding artistic endeavors: objectifying something that is judged subjectively. Programs such as the Grammys, AMAs and VMAs hold the unenviable position of choosing the best songs in each category, as there will inevitably be many who disagree with their choice simply because they prefer one song over another.

Each show’s voting process, however, compensates for the subjectivity by awarding artists through different criterion. People within the music industry have an opportunity to declare which music is the best by voting for the Grammy Awards.

Since professionals with years of first-hand experience in the industry choose these awards, Grammys have a more prestigious aura about them, as peers select whom they believe to be the best amongst themselves based on their artistic achievements.

“It’s their job and they are more educated about what they are voting on [than the general public],” Gamboa said. “They are not always right, but they take it seriously.”