On May 4, 1959, the Recording Academy held the first ever Grammy Ceremony and nominees like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin gathered for a black tie dinner and awards presentation. Now, 66 years later, hidden under its formal appearance, the Grammys has become a game for musicians to beat.
This year’s Grammy nominations were released on November 7, and rather than representing a wide variety of diverse musicians and singers, the same few artists with the same songs were nominated under almost every category, such as Sabrina Carpenter’s Manchild, Lady Gaga’s Abracadabra and Kendrick Lamar’s luther. As much as these artists deserve recognition for their uniqueness and prevalence, nine nominations is just overdoing it.
In past years, this was just as much of an issue as it was now, with Beyonce’s Texas Hold ‘Em taking 11 nominations. One of the Grammys’ main goals is to advocate and celebrate all music creators, but with their current voting system, it’s almost impossible for smaller musicians to reach the nominations list.
The Grammys is the only music awards where nominees and winners are determined solely by creators themselves. However, this just means that connections, forming biases and gaining popularity are the most important aspects in securing a nomination. For the voting system, first, entries are submitted, the numbers usually reaching around 20,000 submissions a year. Then, after the Recording Academy ensures all the entries are in the appropriate categories, voting members are sent a first round online casting ballot.
While members are directed to only vote in their area of expertise, this is where I see a fault in their system. If there are 20,000 submissions, the most popular song, album or artist will stick out most to the voters. And since the nominations are by popular vote rather than an overall consensus from the Recording Academy, lots of worthy entries are most likely completely glazed over. As for this year, even prominent albums were left out of the nominee recognition.
Lorde’s fourth album, Virgin, failed to receive a single nomination this year, despite its critical acclaim and her successful tour that followed it. This comes with little to no surprise as Lorde and the Grammys have had a complicated history. In 2018, when her album Melodrama was in the running for Album of the Year, the Recording Academy declined to offer her a solo performance in the telecast, which led to claims being made about the Academy’s “sexism.” So this snub of Virgin was disappointing yet not unexpected.
Other examples of this would be the Weeknd and Tate McRae. Both artists put out music this year that were discussed by critics as nomination worthy, yet, they were failed by the elite voting members. Although Tate McRae received a nomination for her music video for Just Keep Watching, but not the actual music, the Weeknd received absolutely no recognition despite submitting his album Hurry Up Tomorrow and his collaboration with Playboi Carti, Timeless.
Similar to Lorde, the Weeknd has had a rough history with the Grammys, slamming the nominations and boycotting it in the past. The artists who give the Grammys a bad reputation are shut out from recognition. When these coincidences become patterns, the Grammys begin to seem less genuine.
A different flaw I noticed in this year’s Grammy nominations, was Billie Eilish’s song, Wildflower, being nominated for two Grammys. Initially when I saw this, I thought a mistake was made, since Wildflower was a part of Eilish’s album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, which was released in May of 2024. The eligibility window for the 2026 Grammys is Aug. 31, 2024, to Aug. 30, 2025, so how did Eilish’s song sneak back into this year’s nominations?
Apparently, the song was re-released as a single on Feb. 28 of 2025, which is in the window of eligibility. Since it didn’t win any Grammys at the 2025 ceremony and since it was entered as a track on an album, not a single, in 2025, it follows the official Grammy rules. At this point, it feels more like a game than a deserving nomination.
As much as I loved Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft album and felt that she was robbed from all seven of her nominations at the 2025 Grammys, the comeback route seems unfair to more recent music. There were no changes made to the single and it was initially released over a year and a half ago, which makes it look like Eilish is working around the system.
My final critique revolves around the ‘Best New Artist’ category. While this seems like a great category to celebrate new musicians, many of the “new artists” that the Grammys has chosen to spotlight have been making music for plenty of years. This year’s nominees, like The Marias and Leon Thomas, have been making music since 2018, which in no way establishes them as new artists. Once again, this could be an area to celebrate new, unique musicians, but they fail to prevent popularity taking the lead.
This year, the nominations list lacked representation and diversity and instead chose to grant their favorite musicians yet another spot at their awards presentation for yet another year. But with a further look into it, it just seems that certain musicians have learned to play the game of the Grammys while others are dismissed from the grand celebration of music.