Grammy's Best New Artist Category Changes: What It Means for Nominees

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.”

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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 year of eligibility, the academy has emphasized the idea of artist development as continually evolving — particularly at a time when listeners are engaging with new music in an ever-expanding variety of ways. More than ever before, acts may need more time and more releases before achieving the level of impact in the revised category description.

There’s no shortage of such acts vying for nods this year. Slayyyter ­supported Charli xcx on tour as early as 2019 before breaking through at last with her dance-pop album Wor$t Girl in America this spring; Don Toliver scored his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 at the top of the year with his fifth studio album; ­seven years after debut single “3 Nights” cracked the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart, Dominic Fike is enjoying his biggest musical success yet ahead of a new album in October; and Role Model has followed up a 2025 viral breakout that came nearly a decade into his career with his first-ever Hot 100 entry, his latest album’s lead single, “High Hopes 3000.”

“I just know from doing artist development for close to two decades, an artist is never truly developed,” White says with a laugh. “We’re changing as people and therefore their emotions are changing, and how they put their language out into the world and how people receive that is changing.”

The criteria adjustment ultimately allows for a much deeper pool of potential nominated acts in what has become one of the most important categories of the evening for artists, both in the short and long term. Over the past decade in particular, winners outside of the pop realm have seen instant gratification. In the week following Chance the Rapper’s best new artist win at the ceremony in 2017, he had 38.5 million official on-­demand song streams, according to Luminate — a 103% increase from the week prior.

Samara Joy, the jazz singer who took home Grammy gold in the category in 2023, surged 343% in weekly official on-demand song streams, while her album Linger Awhile debuted on the Billboard 200 and reached No. 1 on Jazz Albums for the first time. Jamie Krents, president/CEO of UMe and Verve Label Group, says that the win opened, ­“literally and figuratively, lots of doors” for Joy, who is signed to Verve.

“Things like film opportunities, an ­outpouring of artists wanting to do duets with her, big producers wanting to work with her, doing music for movies and offers to do Broadway,” Krents recalls. “Every possible medium that you would think that kind of prestige would open, it did.”

And pop-leaning winners with more established mainstream followings prior to the show are profiting plenty, too. Roan’s and Dean’s streams spiked following their victories — 70% and 39% increases in the following week’s official on-demand song streams, ­respectively. But perhaps even more importantly, thanks to the Grammys introducing ­performances from every best new artist nominee to the main telecast two years ago, recognition in the category has become that much more valuable.

“Those are the things that really catapult those artists,” Eshak says. “The industry might be recognizing them because we have a different vantage point from the rest of the world. But there are very few unifying, monoculture events that happen anymore. And the Grammys, at least in music, is one of those. Getting that nomination and being able to perform is such an incredible opportunity.”

Adds White: “Our job as a label is to take an artist and reach as many people as possible. You do that far more when you’re featured in the main event in any way.”

Plus, as the lead-up to Music’s Biggest Night becomes increasingly packed with industry events, nominees have opportunities to literally get into rooms they might be shut out of otherwise. Spotify’s best new artist party has given contenders an additional stage over the past decade, and long-standing celebrations like the Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Gala and the MusiCares Person of the Year gala also give some of the competition yet another platform. “Your nomination is kind of your entrée into a weekend,” Krents says.

“BNA has become what takes over the week,” Eshak says. “You have the big categories that are showcased on the telecast, but the scene behind the scene is a celebration of new artists. That’s incredible for the business because our job as frontline labels is to identify, sign and help these artists get to that next stage.”

But as the category expands its eligibility window, so too does the idea that “new” isn’t much confined to the time-­related sense of the word. In the past few years, nominees have included Sabrina Carpenter, Jelly Roll and Khruangbin — all of whom had been officially releasing music for more than a decade at the time of their nomination.

And there’s still no upper limit on the quantity of musical output where eligibility is concerned. In fact, there’s only a minimum: Eligible artists must have released at least five tracks or an album in order to be up for consideration. And while the industry seems to by and large support this year’s criteria adjustment, Krents adds that the onus falls on the show itself to adequately explain how the category works to the general public.

“I think it gets confusing sometimes to the fans because they might say, ‘How is this person a best new artist when I have three or four of their records?’ ” he says. “But the reality is that people are taking very circuitous paths to finding their ultimate [success].”

There aren’t current plans to adjust the name of the category, either. While other ceremonies like the MTV Video Music Awards, BRIT Awards and Juno Awards have all cycled through various equivalent titles over the years (from most promising female and male vocalist of the year to artist to watch), the brand equity of the existing name is too valuable, Marchand contends — even if a term like “breakthrough” may better encapsulate the prize.

“The task force talked this through so, so, so thoroughly,” she says. “There was a feeling, especially talking with the music creators who were able to advise the task force, that best new artist as a category has a particular meaning and value. It is indicative of what it is to rise to that level of impact, as it is now being described, without having to adjust the name of the category. There was a real comfort in acknowledging that there is something truly meaningful and iconic within our awards architecture.”

This story appears in the Oct. 3, 2026, issue of Billboard.

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/music/awards/best-new-artist-grammys-rule-change-analysis-1236351658/)._