By Lisa Respers France, NCS
(NCS) — When the nominations for the 68th Annual Grammy Awards are introduced Friday, the focus will be on extra than simply the stars whose names get learn aloud.
This week’s nominations will present us if a extra various voting membership could have a significant impact on the awards, past trying good in a press launch.
Five years in the past, CEO Deborah Dugan filed a lawsuit against the Recording Academy. In it, she mentioned she was wrongfully fired after elevating allegations of sexual harassment and irregularities with Grammy nominations.
Dugan mentioned she was placed on administrative depart three weeks after she despatched an e-mail to the Recording Academy’s managing director of human assets outlining quite a few bombshell allegations in opposition to the group and its “historically male dominated leadership,” in response to the EEOC grievance at the time. She was pushed out, she mentioned, after elevating issues about numerous “irregularities and conflicts” with the academy’s nomination and overview course of, and that she found quite a few conflicts of curiosity made attainable by a “boys’ club mentality.”
The Recording Academy, in flip, mentioned in a assertion to NCS at the time that Dugan raised her allegations solely after authorized claims have 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.
The greatest change they might 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.”
What to search for in the nominations
Music business insiders and music followers alike will be watching to see how the new class of voters will assist form the nominations. Here’s the place you might see the results — and word 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 plenty of cultural dialog that can warmth up as that sport approaches.
Next week, the performer is about to see if his 12 Latin Grammy nominations – the most of any artist this year – translate into award {hardware}. A heap of Grammy nominations would be a superb accent going into that crimson carpet. A 3-time Grammy winner, Bad Bunny has been nominated for 10 Grammys in the previous, together with album of the year in 2022 when “Un Verano Sin Ti” grew to become the first 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 lengthy-charting single “Luther,” and for album of the year, with “GNX.”
One quirk to look out for: it’s attainable HUNTR/X will change into the first Kpop artists to be nominated in the prestigious report 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 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 greatest new artist class.
Performers like Olivia Dean and PinkPantheress have just about offered the soundtrack for TikTok this previous year, and are being considered as robust 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 dwell on CBS on February 1, 2026. The ceremony will be held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
The-NCS-Wire
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