CLIP ReadWriteWeb Guide to Following The Grammys

The music industry and the Web industry have always had a contentious relationship. But it's hard to resist the drama of awards. This Sunday, the music world will be focused on the 51st annual Grammy Awards, the annual recognition of artistic achievement in music. And the Web is sure to be chock full of opinions and criticism about the final choices. We've worked to grab some resources to help you get the most out of the event, no matter what your musical tastes.

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For the basics, you can peruse the official Grammy site. It feels dated (and we're slightly confused by the poll "sponsored by Waste Management") but it's up-to-date on all of the Grammy info. And for as low-tech as the site looks, they have released a Grammy iPhone app.

Fortunately, we found some beautiful and compelling content buried beneath the surface: artist tag clouds. While they might not be entirely accurate, they're still an interesting - and artistic - visualization of the musician's work.

If you're interested in a little more interaction, you can follow TheGRAMMYs on Twitter where they're retweeting Grammy mentions and sharing trivia. Or you can always tune in to see what the Twitter crowd is saying about the event.

Given its predilection toward musicians, you'd expect MySpace to be a veritable treasure trove of Grammy info. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Apart from an official Grammy page and Katy Perry's call for videos to show during the CBS broadcast there's little beyond individual artists mentioning their nominations. Although something tells us the users Grammy and Grammys are getting irregularly high page views as of late.

Not to be outdone, Facebook is offering two Grammy-oriented areas, the official 51st Grammys page and the page for the Recording Academy.

Rolling Stone has ongoing Grammy coverage. If you're interested in their take, see their Grammy predictions or take your turn with prognostication and fill out your Grammy ballot. If you're into the new artists, the LA Times has a write up on the nominations for Best New Artist. Or, if you're interested in a more cutting-edge perspective, reading Spin's predictions might be more your speed.

For some history, Time has gathered videos of the Top 10 Grammy Moments. Or spend some time with a beautiful infographic detailing who the music industry has rewarded with Grammys throughout history.

Finally, if the awards themselves don't provide enough drama, you might want to dig into the accusations about song stealing. Currently, there's the ongoing Coldplay-Satriani saga and recent allegations of Bruce Springsteen stealing tunes from KISS. (Yes, you read that right.)

For many, the Grammys aren't half as interesting as other artists who receive far less recognition. So if you're interested in finding some new tunes, why not thumb through some of the music services ReadWriteWeb has reviewed recently? Check out our tips on music recommendation services or take a look at the 50 most blogged about albums from 2008.