How are the Grammys’ rock nominations determined? : NPR

The Beatles and The Rolling Stones successful massive on the 67th Grammy Awards speaks to the Recording Academy’s strategy to rock.

Picture by Matt Cowan/Getty Pictures. Graphic by Jackie Lay

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Picture by Matt Cowan/Getty Pictures. Graphic by Jackie Lay

At this yr’s Grammy Awards on Feb. 2, the rock classes seemed like a time capsule for an additional period. Whereas awards in different genres went to rising stars reminiscent of Doechii, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, the prize for greatest rock efficiency went to The Beatles. And the winner in 2025 for greatest rock album? The Rolling Stones.

Upon nearer inspection, rock on the 67th annual Grammys appeared much more dated. The opposite rock award recipient, St. Vincent for greatest rock tune, isn’t any octogenarian, however she’s nonetheless a well-known, multi-Grammy-winning presence on the ceremony, going again to her first win… a decade in the past. As Stereogum famous, simply two of the acts nominated for rock awards this yr — UK band IDLES and Dublin-based Fontaines D.C. — launched their debut albums previously 20 years, and each are already second-time nominees on this class. And the opposite rock nominees are bands which have saved exhibiting up many times — like Inexperienced Day, The Black Keys and Pearl Jam, who’ve all been nominated over a dozen instances.

In 2025, rock as a style is probably not a lot of a pressure commercially, nevertheless it stays important creatively. Indie-label artists reminiscent of Mk.gee, Hurray for the Riff Raff and Jessica Pratt launched rock or rock-adjacent albums final yr that apparently did not measure as much as the — Googling rapidly — thirty first full-length by the Stones. On one degree, the problem of the Recording Academy’s strategy to rock is as outdated because the Grammys, which began handing out awards in 1959 however did not choose rock for album of the yr till Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Membership Band on the 1968 ceremony. The present rock-specific classes are variations on awards first launched solely within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties. And whereas newer artists have been nominated throughout rock, together with acts like Large Thief, The 1975 and Alabama Shakes in greatest rock tune and greatest rock efficiency, the winners have traditionally tended towards legacy acts, particularly within the album class — the first-ever winner, in 1995, was additionally the Stones. And as rock’s recognition has waned, the classes appear all of the extra scattershot: Beck‘s decidedly un-rockin’ Morning Part received for greatest rock album in 2015. Rock classes have additionally been absent from the primary telecast since Muse’s win a yr later, and regardless of wins for critics’ darlings The Conflict on Medication and Paramore within the time since, greatest rock album has ever since been dominated by acts which have both been round for many years (Foo Fighters, Ozzy Osbourne, the Strokes in 2021) or appeared like they’ve (Greta Van Fleet, Cage the Elephant).

Nonetheless, even by Grammys requirements, 2025’s rock awards appeared notably stale. To grasp why, it’d assist to know how the voting works. To be eligible this cycle, recordings wanted to be commercially launched in america between Sept. 16, 2023, and Aug. 30, 2024, so a high-profile September rock launch like MJ Lenderman‘s Manning Fireworks would not qualify till 2026. Academy members and file labels submit entries, which specialists in varied areas evaluation for eligibility and to make sure they’re positioned within the correct classes — no write-ins. The Academy’s roughly 13,000 voting members, who’re sometimes performers, songwriters, producers, and different music creators, then obtain first-round ballots. Together with voting within the six “normal fields” like tune of the yr and album of the yr, they every could vote in as much as 10 classes throughout as much as three “style fields,” mainly groupings of comparable genres — rock, metallic, and different are in a single subject, whereas rap and R&B are in one other, and pop and “dance/digital” are in a 3rd. After nominees are introduced, all voting members additionally obtain the ultimate poll, the place they could as soon as once more vote in as much as 10 classes throughout as much as three style fields, plus the final fields. The Academy encourages members to vote in classes primarily based on the place they’re energetic as friends. The variety of entries in every class ranges into the lots of.

The primary unknown in all of that is what number of voting members find yourself casting a poll in every spherical. “Not all voting members vote, similar to not all Individuals vote for president, as we all know,” says Denise Barbarita, a number of Grammy–successful recording engineer and proprietor of the MONOLisa studio in Lengthy Island Metropolis, Queens.

Additionally unsure is what number of voters — and which of them — occur to make use of their restricted classes and style fields to vote for rock within the first place. A number of members who vote within the rock classes speculate that the style’s voters could characterize an older cohort. Daniel Rowland, a Los Angeles-based music producer and engineer who has labored on Grammy-nominated releases, votes on completely different classes primarily based on the genres he was engaged on in a given yr. Rowland, who’s 48, says he suspects the rock voters come from the style’s industrial heyday, whereas most of the youthful Grammy voters could gravitate towards completely different genres reminiscent of rap or pop. “We simply haven’t got an inflow of recent voters who’re hip on what is going on on within the rock classes,” he suggests.

To make certain, awards are subjective, though some voters pressure to not be. “I attempt to not let my private style get in the way in which,” says Barbarita, a member of almost a decade’s standing who weighs in on the rock classes. She says she listens for the standard of the efficiency, songwriting and manufacturing. Academy guidelines say the rock awards acknowledge “inventive excellence,” and Barbarita, who’s 53 years outdated, dutifully combs by the hundreds of entries submitted annually.

What’s extra, American fashionable tradition is not particularly identified for favoring seniority. When Killer Mike, then 48, swept the three rap classes eventually yr’s Grammys, his victory speech — “You can not inform me that you simply get too outdated,” he exhorted — was a testomony to the former rarity of hip-hop artists hitting their stride in center age. The truth that The Beatles famously broke up greater than 50 years in the past does not imply its voter base is restricted to fading nostalgists, both. Ricky Montgomery, a 31-year-old who was a first-time Grammy voter this yr, cops to being amongst those that propelled The Beatles’ “Now and Then” — which makes use of present-day expertise to decorate a tough John Lennon solo demo — to greatest rock tune glory. “The Beatles tune, I occur to assume, remains to be an excellent tune,” says the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter. “This tune was in each author’s room I went to the week it got here out.”

Different voters in rock and past cite a notion that the extra well-known names have a bonus. Boston-biased pianist Bruce Brubaker, a perennial Grammy voter who tends to abstain from the rock classes, says that even in his personal classical realm, the performer with essentially the most movie star typically wins. “It is identify recognition,” the 66-year-old guesses. “I worry that individuals are not essentially listening to the music.” James Treichler, a further first-time voter, affords that whereas poring over lots of of rock albums remains to be a giant job, the supply of streaming hyperlinks in right this moment’s ballots helps. “There’s all the time going to be that recognition contest side, however I feel this tries to take away that as a lot as attainable,” says the 43-year-old producer and engineer primarily based in Champaign, In poor health.

Confusion between the classes within the rock style subject may play a job, too. “Rock” in a Grammy context is not particularly outlined. “Different music,” nevertheless, “is outlined as a style of music that embraces attributes of development and innovation in each the music and attitudes related to it,” the official guidelines state. “It’s typically a much less intense model of rock or a extra intense model of pop and is often thought to be extra unique, eclectic or musically difficult.” Clearly, the 2 overlap, however the place the road is drawn is not all the time simple to discern.

St. Vincent, this yr’s winner for greatest rock tune, additionally received for greatest different music album and greatest different music efficiency; different different nominees included Nick Cave, Kim Gordon and Brittany Howard. (Indie-rock supergroup and uncommon newcomers Boygenius likewise received throughout each rock and different in 2024.) “I’ve cherished St. Vincent since highschool, however is she consultant of an alternate strategy to music today?” says Montgomery, one of many first-time voters. “I would not say so.” Grammy organizers’ well-intentioned efforts to democratize the method may additionally restrict any potential skill to curate a much less legacy-bound listing of rock nominees and winners. In 2021, after outcry when the Weeknd drew zero nominations regardless of his “Blinding Lights” being the yr’s largest single, the Academy ended its nomination evaluation committees, which had been meant as a type of checks and balances. These now-defunct committees — the Grammys nonetheless have others in sure “craft” classes — at the least compelled their members to pay attention, contends Chris Allgood, a mastering engineer who was nominated this yr for his work with British jazz/R&B musician Jacob Collier. “It isn’t excellent,” the 37-year-old permits, “nevertheless it’s form of just like the Electoral Faculty, proper?”

Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Academy, says he cannot touch upon what number of members truly vote within the rock classes or what their demographics may be, observing that entry to such specifics is confined to the Grammys’ accounting agency. However he maintains that who’s nominated and who wins are each finally as much as the voters. “What we need to proceed to do is hearken to the music group,” he says. “That is an space that we proceed to have a look at and we’ll proceed to have a look at going ahead, for positive.” Mason factors to the Academy’s ongoing efforts to maintain its voting physique, as he says, “refreshed and related and reflective of what is going on on in music.” In October, the group introduced that 66% of its citizens was new since 2019, as hundreds of ladies and voting members of various backgrounds joined and a few older members did not requalify. “We can’t all the time be correct or reflective if we do not have participation,” Mason says.

Whoever participates, it is onerous to see rock standing resurgent on the Grammys with out its reinvigoration as a mainstream, fashionable phenomenon. Except a folk-country troubadour like Zach Bryan counts, not a single brand-new rock album launched in 2024 ranked on the year-end Billboard 200 album chart. “The youthful era is simply not that centered on rock,” says Ed Gerrard, who in 2017 grew to become the primary music supervisor to win a Grammy. The 70-year-old’s greatest rock album vote this yr went to Jack White — one more rocker whose recording profession, with the White Stripes, dates again to the twentieth century. However what counts as rock music in 2025, anyway? Significantly on the Grammys, the place Foo Fighters have received greatest rock album 5 out of eight instances, and rock-adjacent artists like Waxahatchee or Olivia Rodrigo place their albums in different classes, is rock maybe being outlined in such a limiting manner that it is leaving youthful artists or newer voices out, or alienating them from the very affiliation?

Gerrard, additionally a long-time supervisor for artists reminiscent of Dr. John and Luther Vandross, provides that self-promotion is vital to Grammy success. If labels are unwilling or unable to shell out for lavish billboards, then artists can at the least go to the Academy’s dozen chapters nationwide whereas on tour and introduce themselves. “It is kissing infants and shaking palms,” Gerrard says.

Such politicking for institutional approval could sit uncomfortably with rock’s rebellious origins. It actually appears troublesome to think about Cindy Lee or Mount Eerie, to call two extra of the rock-adjacent performers with lauded albums in 2024, barnstorming Music Row or Hollywood to curry favor with influential blocs. Ben Blackwell, a co-founder of Jack White’s Third Man Data, detects one thing just like the Grammys’ rock stasis on the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame, the place what he argues are “C- and D-level major-label bands” from the classic-rock period have been inducted forward of worthier, or at the least extra well-known, practitioners of later kinds.

“I need of us to have the ability to benefit from the fruit of their labor,” Blackwell, himself an Academy voting member, says of rock artists incomes Grammy recognition. “However however, I hold reminding myself that the institutionalization of one thing that’s countercultural is inherently fraught with deficiencies.”