Bye-bye Milli Vanilli. Hello 50 Cent.

Welcome to the "Total Request Live" Grammys.

OK, maybe that's an overstatement. But even a cursory glance at this year's big nominees, which include OutKast, 50 Cent, White Stripes, and Evanescence, seems to hint that the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has spent more time watching MTV's frothy weekday countdown show than listening to classic-rock stations.

Despite nominations and wins in recent years for such contemporary, youth-leaning artists as Eminem and Christina Aguilera, the Grammys are still often regarded as out-of-touch, especially when compared to the MTV Video Music Awards.

This year, while there are nods toward the late George Harrison (best pop vocal album for the posthumous "Brainwashed") and the late Warren Zevon (song of the year for "Keep Me in Your Heart"), the graybeards who often get Grammy nominations and wins have mostly been shunned from the big categories such as record of the year, song of the year, and album of the year.

In fact, there's nary an album of the year nominee who was alive when the Beatles called it quits in 1970, let alone when they first arrived on American shores 40 years ago.

Have the Grammys, scheduled to be handed out at 8 tonight on CBS, finally gotten a clue?

"In the top four categories, yes -- but what about those other 100 categories?" says Tom O'Neil, author of "The Grammys," an unofficial guide to the history of the music awards. "What they've done is a little cosmetic window dressing in the top four races that people pay the most attention to."

There are more than 100 categories representing 30 varied fields of music, including pop, alternative, rap, classical, Latin, and jazz. Music released between Oct. 1, 2002, and September 30, 2003, is eligible.

As O'Neil sees it, the problem is the Grammys' "stubborn reliance" on a system that mostly pays attention to "favorites from the Top 40, not the best music." Despite numerous telephone calls and e-mails, NARAS representatives could not be reached for comment.

Griping about Grammys is as much a February ritual as Punxsutawney Phil's appearance. And perhaps even more than the Oscars or Emmys, the Grammys, the premier music awards, have always been a fairly easy target. The academy is still trying to live down Jethro Tull, with its flute-playing leader Ian Anderson, winning best hard rock/metal performance over Metallica in 1988. More recently, many groused when Steely Dan, which had its greatest success in the 1970s, saw a comeback CD, "Two Against Nature," score album of the year over Eminem's heavily favored "Marshall Mathers LP" in 2001.

Five-time Grammy-winning vibraphonist Gary Burton, executive vice president of the Berklee College of Music, has been a Grammy voter for nearly 30 years. In casting his ballot, he says, he prefers artists "who are plowing new ground" rather than "an artist doing something familiar and polished.

"I respect that, but when I see an artist who's come up with an unusual concept, something no one else has tried before, and they've pulled it off and done a great job of it, I will reward that."

As with all of the academy's 11,000-plus voting members, Burton can vote in the four big categories (which include best new artist) and can then select up to nine other fields in which to cast a ballot.

"I vote mostly in the jazz categories. I don't fill up my ballot much, and I try to be selective," says Burton, who plays on Chick Corea's "Rendezvous in New York," nominated for the award for best jazz instrumental.

"But I know there are people who essentially vote for the artist they know, more than the actual record," he adds. "They may say, `Well, I've heard of her, and I liked her last two or three records, so I'll vote for her new one even though I haven't heard it.' So to some extent, there's something of it being a bit of a popularity contest."

This year, the Grammys almost seem like the hottest party to which the coolest kids are invited -- none more so than OutKast. Though the innovative Atlanta rap group has already won three Grammys, and its 2000 album, "Stankonia," was nominated for the album of the year award, its 2003 release, "Speakerboxxxx/The Love Below," may become only the second hip-hop album to win best album. (Lauryn Hill's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" was the first in 1999.)

In fact, tonight's Grammy ceremony could be a hip-hop coronation, with rap artists OutKast, Eminem, Missy Elliott, Black Eyed Peas, and 50 Cent claiming major awards.

Absent in the big categories, for the most part, are what O'Neil calls "Grammy grabbers," automatic winners "year after year after year." One perennial winner who is nominated again? Polka master Jimmy Sturr, who has won 13 Grammys since 1986. He'll vie for his 14th best polka album Grammy tonight with "Let's Polka 'Round."

"If you are a young polka genius who comes out with a career masterpiece and are lucky enough to be nominated for best polka album, you don't have a prayer of beating Jimmy Sturr," O'Neil says. "The category should be renamed the Jimmy Sturr award, and you could say just about the same thing for Gloria Estefan, who dominates the Latin categories, and Yo-Yo Ma, who dominates the classical category. A lot of people vote for the name that's most familiar, not the most deserving music and artist."

This, some contend, is why the Grammys have tended to play it safe with nominees and winners. And if one wanted to be cynical about it, the argument could be made that little has changed. Most of this year's big nominees -- OutKast, Eminem, Beyonce (with Destiny's Child), and Missy Elliott -- are all past Grammy winners. (Eminem alone has seven awards.) And while these are Timberlake's first nods as a solo artist, he was nominated as a member of 'N Sync.

If there is a problem with the Grammys, it's the emphasis "focused on a small sliver of what's taking place in terms of who gets nominated," says Dave Samuels, a past Grammy winner and a nominee for best Latin jazz album tonight for "Birds of a Feather" with his group, Caribbean Jazz Project.

"There are 100-and-some categories, but you only see 20 on TV," says Samuels, who teaches in the ensemble department at Berklee and is a voting NARAS member. "Those are the categories designed to keep advertisers happy."

To be eligible to vote, people must have creative or technical credits on six commercially released tracks or their equivalent. That means not only musicians and singers are qualified to vote, but also composers, engineers, album-notes writers, music video directors, and art directors.

If the Grammy nominees in the major categories seem more youth-oriented, it may reflect a shift in the average age of voters, Burton suggests.

"We used to get criticized all the time that the big winners tended to be 50-year-olds like Billy Joel and Sting. And we always said that reflects the fact that the people in the industry aren't teenagers," he says. "They tended to be in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and they were more likely to resonate with music that reflects their age group. Some people believed that was why Norah Jones did so well last year; a lot of voters in midlife connected with it.

"But gradually, that age thing keeps shifting as more and more young people come in," Burton says. "This may be a real sea change of a year."

Renee Graham can be reached at graham@globe.com.