The Grammys are always political, but Best New Artist is the most political category of all.
Whatever the present set of rules governing eligibility for this category—number of releases over what period of time, previous nominations, when the artist “came to prominence” and so on—what remains uncertain is how the Academy will decide to apply those rules to nominate, you know, whomever it likes.
The marketplace has undergone yet another revolution over the last year, and now the streaming charts look quite different, filled with indie breakouts, many of them in country and música Mexicana. Then there are artists who’ve been making music for years but only recently had breakthroughs. And there are artists who might not fit the Academy cabal’s idea of a worthy contender.
It's also interesting that just as this influx of big arrivals from independent channels transforms the landscape, the Academy decides to contract the Big 4 categories from 10 nominees back down to eight (they were all upped to 10 in 2018). That’s a 20% reduction in potential contenders, which means the Secret Chamber will have less leeway to accommodate its various agendas.
Here are some of the issues we see developing this year:
As you can see from just this handful of examples, the Academy has considerable leverage with its eligibility rules to include or exclude whomever it likes. Whether it will apply them in a way that respects the present direction of the culture and the marketplace remains to be seen.
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