The Recording Academy has made a few amendments to their guidelines, including one significant rule change dealing with what makes an album eligible for a Grammy nomination.
It used to be that albums had to be for sale to be considered for a Grammy award. , streaming-only albums will be included in the running for Grammy gold.
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This rule change is a giant leap into the future for the award ceremony, which is routinely accused of being out of touch with modern music. (Ahem: Herbie Hancock’s Joanie Mitchell cover album beat out Kanye West and Amy Winehouse for Album of the Year in 2008; Meghan Trainor beat out Courtney Barnett for Best New Artist at .)
It also couldn’t have come at a better time: Two of this year’s biggest hip-hop releases, Kanye West’s and Chance the Rapper’s are streaming-only releases. Under the previous rules, they wouldn’t even be in contention for the award. ( on West’s latest: “He said let’s do a good ass job with Chance three / I hear you gotta sell it to snatch the Grammy.”)
Other changes include reducing the number of categories in which an Academy member can vote from 20 to 15, in addition to the four . Also, the already rule-saddled Best New Artist category’s guidelines have been further tweaked, allowing artists who have released “five singles/tracks” to be considered for the award (formerly, the artist had to have released at least one album).
To see the full list of changes to the Grammys already impossibly dense guidelines, check out the Recording Academy’s official statement .
