KATSEYE's win in the Best New Artist category at the 2026 Grammy Awards was warranted. The group only released its debut album in 2024. They were mostly new. The problem with the category is that many of the artists recently nominated weren't "new."
The excellent Phoebe Bridgers was nominated for Best New Artist in 2020. Her debut record was in 2017. She is just one example of a long history of what the Grammys think just happened, but happened long ago. Maybe the category needs to be renamed Best Breakout Artist because that would be more fitting.
But now the Recording Academy, which is the Grammys, of course, has made issues worse. The academy made a change that an artist can submit themselves in the Best New Artist category four times now, not just three. If one is having to submit themselves to a category that implies freshness more than once, there is a problem.
Grammy Awards change the Best New Artist requirements
The thinking seems to be that new music is heard many different ways now, which it is, and not all of that means an album is released by a record company. An artist could put their music online for all to hear, but maybe they don't get noticed until a record company picks up their music years later, and then the artist hits it big.
That still should be considered a "breakout" artist and not a "new" one. Being unheard by the masses doesn't make a musician a new one if they started making music that could be heard by the masses years before. This has caused the Grammy category to become meaningless.
In theory, though, the category is needed. Not everyone who has a hit album for the first time is going to be grouped into the Album of the Year category, for instance. Breakthrough artists deserve to be noticed, which implies the category is simply misnamed.
While some artists are relatively new, some nominees in the category recently include Japanese Breakfast, who was given a nod in 2022, but released their first record, Psychopomp, in 2016. If more than a half-decade has gone by after a musical act's first record, they are no longer new.
Some good news came from the announcement, including the Best New Artist category submission changes from three chances to four, though.
The academy also reinstituted the Best R&B Collaboration or Duo/Group Performance and Best Traditional Folk Album categories, and will start handing out awards for Best Asian Pop Music Performance, Best Latin Song, and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance.
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