When the nominations for the 68th Annual Grammy Awards are introduced Friday, the focus will be on extra than simply the celebrities whose names get learn aloud.
This week’s nominations will present us if a extra numerous voting membership may have a significant impact on the awards, past wanting good in a press launch.
Five years in the past, CEO Deborah Dugan filed a lawsuit against the Recording Academy. In it, she stated she was wrongfully fired after elevating allegations of sexual harassment and irregularities with Grammy nominations.
Dugan stated she was placed on administrative depart three weeks after she despatched an e-mail to the Recording Academy’s managing director of human sources outlining quite a few bombshell allegations in opposition to the group and its “historically male dominated leadership,” based on the EEOC grievance on the time. She was pushed out, she stated, after elevating issues about varied “irregularities and conflicts” with the academy’s nomination and assessment course of, and that she found quite a few conflicts of curiosity made doable by a “boys’ club mentality.”
The Recording Academy, in flip, stated in an announcement to NCS on the time that Dugan raised her allegations solely after authorized claims had been made in opposition to her by one other worker who alleged she “created a ‘toxic and intolerable’ work environment and engaged in ‘abusive and bullying conduct.’”
In any case, Recording Academy chairman and then-interim CEO Harvey Mason Jr. shortly thereafter announced a series of new initiatives.
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The greatest change they may make? Growing the awards voting inhabitants. Days in the past, the Recording Academy introduced that “more than 3,800 diverse music creators and professionals” had joined the Academy as a part of its 2025 new member class.
“Of those in the accepted class, 50 percent are 39 and under, 58 percent are People of Color, and 35 percent identify as women,” a press release introduced. “For the first time ever, invitations were also extended to all Latin Recording Academy Voting Members, helping to build a more globally representative voting body.”
Music trade insiders and music followers alike will be watching to see how the brand new class of voters will assist form the nominations. Here’s the place you might see the consequences — and notice that music launched between August 31, 2024 and August 30, 2025 is eligible for the awards, so don’t count on Taylor Swift to dominate.
Bad Bunny’s selection as the next Super Bowl halftime show headliner powered a lot of cultural dialog that can warmth up as that recreation approaches.
Next week, the performer is ready to see if his 12 Latin Grammy nominations – probably the most of any artist this year – translate into award {hardware}. A heap of Grammy nominations would be a superb accent going into that pink carpet. A 3-time Grammy winner, Bad Bunny has been nominated for 10 Grammys prior to now, together with album of the year in 2022 when “Un Verano Sin Ti” turned the primary Spanish-language album to be nominated in that class.
Kendrick Lamar won in that category at last year’s Grammy Awards for his Drake diss observe “Not Like Us,” and he might probably be nominated once more, this time with collaborator SZA for his or her long-charting single “Luther,” and for album of the year, with “GNX.”
One quirk to look out for: it’s doable HUNTR/X will turn into the primary Kpop artists to be nominated within the prestigious file of the year class for his or her “Golden” from the Netflix megahit “KPop Demon Hunters.” It would be an oddity for a fictional band to interrupt this new floor.
The expectation is that Sabrina Carpenter might convey all of the girlie pop energy to safe an album of the year nod for “Man’s Best Friend,” and that she might be joined by Lady Gaga for her “Mayhem.”
Women may reign supreme in the most effective new artist class.
Performers like Olivia Dean and PinkPantheress have just about supplied the soundtrack for TikTok this previous year, and are being seen as sturdy contenders in that class, together with Ravyn Lenae and Megan Moroney. For context, Chappell Roan clinched that trophy final year.
Nominations arrive at 11 a.m. ET on November 7. Then, the 2026 Grammy Awards will air stay on CBS on February 1, 2026. The ceremony will be held on the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.