Following the first Black artist win for the “Best Country Album” in 60 years, the Grammys are changing the rules

 Don’t You Love the Meritocracy!

The Grammys are splitting the Best Country Music Album Award into two categories, Best Traditional Country and Best Contemporary Country, just months after Beyoncé, the highest-awarded artist in Grammy history, became the first black woman to win the award since it started in 1965.

The CEO in charge of the Grammy Awards stated this change came from longstanding requests within the Country community. 

According to the CEO, artists have been asking the show to introduce a Contemporary Country category to address the expanding art styles within the Country genre. 

Billboard notes that Pop, R&B, and Jazz also make distinctions between traditional and contemporary music and performances. 

The Grammy’s CEO stated the recent change “makes country music parallel with what’s happening in other genres.”

However, is Country truly paralleling other categories ?

In 2020, Tyler the Creator criticized the Grammy’s for their “Best Urban Contemporary Album” award, the category was seen by many as ambiguous and racially charged.

After backlash,  the award show renamed the category “Best Progressive Rap Album”.

So both these genres have new labels: Rap has a Progressive category, and Country has a Contemporary category.

Still, the Billboard CEO pointed out that Country music once encompassed genres such as Americana, Folk, and Roots styles of music.

These sub-genres have each gained awards for Best Album.

Once labeled Country artists, these musicians now have four different album awards categories, all derived from Country music. 

Now there are 5.

The Best Americana Album category, honoring a style deriving from Country music, was created in 2023. 

This recent change from the Grammys’ marks the two additional Country Album awards category , three news awards for Country sub-genres have been added to the show in the last 3 years.