GRAMMYS RULE BOOK UPDATES

The Recording Academy has passed some new amendments tweaking the Grammy categories during its semi-annual Board of Trustees meeting. They will be go into effect for the 2025 awards.

The list of changes is lengthy, so we'll just touch on a few, especially since the cocktail hour has already commenced.

In the Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical category, the submission guidelines were amended to allow "a wider representation of artists from the songwriting community," to cite the inimitably institutional prose of the Academy release. Songwriters must be credited as writer or co-writer on at least four songs to be eligible. Songs on which the writer is also credited as a primary or featured artist or producer do not satisfy the minimum song threshold for consideration.

Other changes include:

• The Best Remixed Recording category moved from the Production, Engineering, Composition & Arrangement Field into the Pop & Dance/Electronic Field.

• Conjunto music was moved from the Best Música Mexicana Album category to the Best Regional Roots Music Album category to be recognized as a Roots music genre separate from its descendant, Tejano music.

• The Best Pop Dance Recording category was renamed Best Dance Pop Recording. This reordering of words, "to align with the established sub-genre of Dance," is sure to cause a firestorm.

• The Best Dance/Electronic Music Album category was renamed Best Dance/Electronic Album and the category criteria were amended "to ensure the category correctly reflects Dance/Electronic recordings rather than a majority of Dance Pop tracks." OK, but we just hope this doesn't further escalate the already fearsome tension between the Dance/Electronic and Dance Pop communities.

• The number of genre fields was consolidated from 26 to 11.

For the entire rundown, head here. Also, we could use a refill—not so much ice this time.