Should Grammys go back to the drawing board with their Best New Artist rules?

Billboard revealed that, technically, Sabrina Carpenter could be eligible for Best New Artist at the Grammys. We had speculated about this possibility, but voters now know they should look for her on the ballot. Her fate is still not decided, though, as the screening committee will have the last word on whether or not she is allowed to compete in the category, especially given her extensive back catalog, including five previous albums. But since this all comes down to the Grammy’s own rules, it begs the question: should those rules be amended?

It makes sense why people would propose that Best New Artist be limited to artists who have debuted in the past one or two years. After all, winners like Olivia Rodrigo and Carrie Underwood show that artists can truly smash right out of the gate, and therefore fit the category. Furthermore, allowing in artists with longer careers can read as unfair. Take this year for example. Carpenter’s bubbling pop career prior to 2023 means she had plenty of time to build a fanbase, including within industry circles like the Recording Academy.

However, longevity isn’t always an advantage. Take Bebe Rexha’s 2019 Grammy nomination in the category, which came after years of Rexha writing and performing hits, some minor and some that reached the top 10. She was not, strictly speaking, a new artist. Yet Rexha didn’t win, despite plenty of industry cred. Dua Lipa, who was on her first year and a half of fame, took the award instead.

That said, Rexha and Carpenter show how long it can take to finally catch a big break in the industry. And the most recent winner in the category, Victoria Monét, stated in her speech that her breakout moment was 10 years in the making. Monét had been pumping out songs for a while, but it’s hard to deny that the year where she became prominently known was 2023, and the same might apply to Carpenter in 2024.

Of course, the debate here is what exactly counts as prominent. Carpenter had already charted multiple songs before this eligibility period, and all of her albums made the Billboard 200, but for a pop artist, relatively low placements on the charts don’t necessarily mean you have broken through. Consider past Best New Artist nominees like Noah Kahan and Glass Animals, who, despite not being on their first albums, broke through in the top 40 in the years for which they were nominated. Then you get to someone like Fred Again, who didn’t really have a breakthrough in 2023 compared to his previous two years, but he was suddenly embraced in a big way by the Grammys. Bluegrass artist Molly Tuttle also didn’t really have a major 2022 in comparison to her two earlier albums. As for hip-hop artist Tobe Nwigwe, that nomination still makes little sense to me.

But should we care that much? Carpenter’s main opponents this year are probably balladeer Benson Boone and camp extraordinaire Chappell Roan, but while both released their debut albums this eligibility season, neither are technically new. Roan has been pumping out songs since 2017, and Boone’s debut single, which amassed hundreds of millions of streams, charted on the Hot 100 in 2021. Of course, the broader public discovered these artists more recently, and receiving such a big prize is important and relevant to a career. So the same could be said of Carpenter: a lot of people just discovered her, so they might want to rally around her.

The rules definitely need some tweaking, though. Allowing Sabrina Carpenter to compete on her sixth album, but Tate McRae being ineligible since her team already submitted her for consideration three times, just feels wrong. In the meantime, let Carpenter be a lesson that sometimes labels and management should wait before they submit anyone to the category. If you don’t really have a shot at a nom, maybe just take the year off, come up with a stronger plan, and let the artist build up hype. You never know if their “Espresso” is coming soon.

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