The Recording Academy announced on June 10th, that it made major changes to the rules and guidelines used for the GRAMMY Awards nominating process to make it more transparent and fairer in the future, starting with the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards.
Some changes are related to the Best New Artist category, Latin, Rap and R&B genres, Best Urban Contemporary Album, Best Rap/Sung Performance and Musical Theater Album. Also, the Recording Academy has made a few changes to the rules used by the Nominations Review Committee; where the term limits have been changed, the National NRC Co-chairs were removed, and people with conflicts of interest regarding under consideration may not participate on the committees. 1. Best Urban Contemporary Album
The Recording Academy has changed the name of this category from Best Urban Contemporary Album to Best Progressive R&B Album, which is a way to appropriately categorize and describe this genre.
The old name wasn’t an accurate definition of the music compositions or performances that were taken into consideration for the award. This category is intended to highlight albums that include elements of R&B, hip-hop, rap, dance, pop, euro-pop, country, rock, folk, alternative, and electronic music. 2. Best Rap/Sung Performance
The category of Best Rap/Sung Performance was renamed Best Melodic Rap Performance, which represents a growing trend of performance and sound within the rap music. This category is supposed to recognize solo and collaborative performances based on elements that can be found in rap music, as well as melodic elements used on modern production. The category requires a strong and clear melodic presence mixed with rap cadence, dialects, and lyrics while containing performance elements found in R&B, rock, country, electronic, or any other non-rap genre.
3. Musical Theater Album
For this category, the Recording Academy added an Award that recognizes as many as four Principal Vocalists that perform in a Musical Theater Album and gives a Winner Certificate to all vocalists that perform on the recording of an ensemble-driven piece.
4. Best New Artist
In the past years, this category had a minimum number of releases to meet eligibility, and a maximum of 30 singles/tracks releases before the current eligibility year. The specified maximum number of releases was taken off the table, giving the committee the freedom to decide whether or not the artist had attained a breakthrough or prominence before the eligibility year to be recognized as Best New Artist.
5. Latin Pop, Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative.
After the Recording Academy had to face a revolution last year created by the Latin artists, the organization decided to create two new category names. Best Latin Pop or Urban Album is a category created to make a distinction in Latin pop or urban music recordings that reflects the style and culture of the Latin-Pop music. On the other side, Best Latin Rock Or Alternative Album intents to highlight recordings that use structures, lyrical content, and musical elements taken from the Latin rock or alternative music. The Recording Academy is always trying to make the industry a better place for musicians and artists, and the changes made this year evidence that. The future is uncertain and so it is the consequence of these changes. However, I think that it opens more opportunities for the new and not-new artist to be nominated and recognized for their job, while their music is categorized correctly.
For the full list of rule changes made for the 63rdGRAMMY Awards, click here.
