(This post is for you all you EGOT wannabes who are having trouble grabbing the “G” in that acronym.

As I watched Hadestown deservedly grab this year’s Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, I couldn’t help but wonder . . . did winning the Tony Award for Best Musical give the album an edge?

So, whenever I’ve got a burning question, I dug into the data and analyzed all the Grammy Award Winning Best Musical Theater Albums in the last 10 years.

Here’s what we found out:

In the last 10 years, the Best Musical Tony Award winner has won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album seven (7) times.

Using 2nd grade math . . . that’s 70% of the time.  (Oh, and get this, one of the 3 times the Best Musical winner did NOT win, the Tony Award Winning Best REVIVAL of Musical won – so, in the past 10 years, 80% of the Grammy Winners were Tony Winners.)

Maybe that’s a fluke, right?  I guess we could just be on a strange run.

So we dug deeper and looked at the last 20 years.

The result?

65% of the Best Musical winners won the Grammy.  (70% if you add in that revival.)

So there she is.  No doubt about the statistical advantage here.  Simply stated, if you win the Tony Award for Best Musical, you are more likely to win the Grammy Award.

Now we have to ask ourselves . . . why?

Is it because a Best Musical is a higher quality show and that quality translates to an album? I’d certainly like to think that this is the case.

But could this trend exist because of the marketing and attention that Best Musical Tony winner gets influences the Grammy voters?  Is it Grammy by Association?  I’d certainly like to think that this is NOT the case.

Not sure if anyone will do anything about it, or anyone even cares . . . except for those folks that really want to win a Grammy.  Because if you want one, the answer seems to be to get involved with a Tony Award-Winning Best Musical.

(Side note:  The Grammy have changed the rules about who wins these awards now, fyi. Although I’m not sure those rules are even written down. Producers like me, even when we initiate them, plan them, pay for them and the original material on which the album is based, etc. are no longer eligible.  But that’s a different post.)

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