If you haven’t heard about the big upset at the Grammy Awards this week, the beatles won four awards for best…um…the best at being former beatles? Some say the judges have to give out a few every year or else face a firing squad made up of disgruntled billionaire stockholders, and to back this theory up they cite Ringo’s nine awards.

Its tough to debunk this theory, even for professional beatle apologists. While theres undoubtedly a lot of truth here, its not quite the whole story. It leaves out the section of the formula which awards random American Idol winners and pop singers who’ve decided to shill iPods and shiny pants in order to sell enough albums to qualify as talented enough to become cash cow of the year.

To demystify this complicated process we’ve devised a flowchart to highlight the main points and make it easier to understand.