What Does the Big Change to the Best New Artist Grammy Mean for Nominees?
Categoria: Musica
Artists’ paths to success are longer and more varied than ever before — so the Recording Academy adjusted the best new artist criteria to better reflect how they break today.
Por Billboard | 01/10/2026
When Chappell Roan took the stage in 2025 to accept her best new artist Grammy and give an impassioned plea for labels to provide their rosters with a livable wage and healthcare, she paused before emphasizing “especially to developing artists” — an ever-widening catch-all term in today’s industry. “There’s so much out there vying for people’s attention,” says Justin Eshak, co-chairman/co-CEO at Island Records, which in 2026 became the first label to have back-to-back best new artist wins (with Roan followed by Olivia Dean) in decades. “Rare is the case that someone’s going to bust through in 12 months. It takes four to five years for that to happen.” The Recording Academy has taken note of that trend as well. In June, among a slew of changes and new categories set to take effect at the 69th annual Grammy Awards, the academy announced a significant shift to best new artist’s eligibility criteria: The number of times an act may be submitted for consideration has increased from three to four. “It’s not the first time there’s been a decision by our awards and nominations committee to take a deeper look at best new artist,” says Ruby Marchand, the Recording Academy’s chief awards and global industry officer. A category-specific task force created last year “met multiple times and even convened a special meeting of artists from all genres within the confines of the task force to talk through different points of view. We wanted to make sure that the creative community was fully involved.” Related 6 Artists Who Lost the Best New Artist Grammy Could Be Nominated for Album of the Year at 2027 Awards ‘Every Moment Is Massive and Magnificent’: Noah Kahan Reflects on a Monumental Year — And Eyes a Grammys Breakthrough Why Madonna, The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney Could Be Grammy Dark Horses The change could have a defining impact on this year’s field of potential nominees. Ella Langley — a likely front-runner, with the pull of her record-breaking 24 weeks (and counting, at press time) at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for “Choosin’ Texas” — would’ve been ineligible for the category prior to the shift. The same goes for Megan Moroney, fueled by her Billboard 200 -topping album, Cloud 9 , as well as for Geese, the New York rockers who played big stages around the world, from major festivals to Saturday Night Live . “That category is ultimately about the impact on culture,” says Zena White, COO of Geese’s label home, Partisan Records. “It shouldn’t always be about the number of sales, the number of streams or the amount of radio play that an artist is getting because culture is way more nuanced than that.” To wit, Marchand notes that the Recording Academy has now revised the category description’s language from looking for acts that have achieved “prominence” to seeking ones with “significant cultural and community impact upon the industry and musical landscape.” Explaining its rationale for an additional yea