The 2025 Grammy nominations have been announced and all the artists who will compete for honors at the 67th Recording Academy Awards ceremony in February have been revealed. Music fans checking out the full list of nominees or listening to our playlist You may notice something that, while not surprising, is worth mentioning: many of the artists nominated for Best New Artist are not so “new.”
It's a long-standing trend in the Best New Artist category, which has historically been a bit confusing. In years past, many artists who already seemed pretty established to music fans were nominated for the award, sometimes even years after they had made their actual debut. Think Alessia Cara winning the award in 2018, Chance the Rapper in 2017, or Fun. in 2013, all the years after the start of her career.
The Best New Artist category at the 2025 Grammys is no exception. Among the nominees is Sabrina Carpenter, who began releasing music more than a decade ago, releasing five studio albums before being nominated for this year's awards. short and sweetand Khruangbin, who have been alternative rock favorites since releasing their debut album in 2015.
They are joined by RAYE, who has been releasing EPs since 2014 and released his debut “mini-album.” euphoric sad songsin 2020; Shaboozey, whose Lady Wrangler the debut came in 2018; Doechii, with three mixtapes and a pair of EPs to his name since 2019; Teddy Swims, whose I've tried everything except therapy (Part 1) the debut actually fell one day before the 2025 Grammy eligibility period; and Benson Boone, who began releasing music shortly after appearing on american idol in 2021.
Even seemingly overnight superstar (and former CoSign!) Chappell Roan, whose first feature film, The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern PrincessIt's barely a year old and has been on the singles charts since 2020.
When reviewing this list of nominees, it is clear that literally none of them “debuted” during the eligibility time for the 2025 Grammys. So what exactly does Best “New” Artist mean?
Well, as Grammy executive director Harvey Mason, Jr. has explained, it's not really about Best “New” Artist, but rather “Best Breakthrough Year for an Artist.” talking to The Hollywood Reporter this week, he said: “For me, it all comes down to when an artist achieves national or international prominence. It could be their first album, it could be their sixth album. To me, this is a time where our Best New Artists have broken through and become nationally prominent and are doing incredible work.”
To that end, the eligibility requirements for the award make a lot of sense. The Recording Academy states that any nominee for Best New Artist must have released a minimum of five songs or one album, cannot have submitted for the category more than three times and must have “made a breakthrough in the public consciousness during the eligibility period”. “
But still, according to Mason, determining a “breakthrough in public consciousness” can be a complicated task. “I was going to say it's pretty simple, but it's actually not that simple,” he said. “It's difficult and challenging because it's a little amorphous how Best New Artist would be evaluated… It's not an easy calculation to decide which artist fits that criteria and which doesn't, but I trust our committees that do that job. and I trust that voters will vote for the right people and I am very pleased with the result.”
With that in mind, the Best New Artist nominees of 2025 feel much more appropriate. Sure, Roan has been making music for over seven years, but who could deny it? The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess Has it marked a paradigm shift in your career, bringing it into the public consciousness in a major way?
The same could be said for artists like Shaboozey; Even though it appeared on the soundtrack of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 2018, her contributions to Beyoncé's cowboy carter and the success of “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” surely constitutes a similar turning point. Even Carpenter, who has been in the public eye for over a decade, has certainly stood out with short and sweet.
However, there is one group that still seems a bit of an outlier: Khruangbin, the psych rock trio that first formed in 2010. They released their debut album, The universe smiles at youin 2015, and they've been very active ever since, even making a pair of collaborative EPs with Leon Bridges earlier this decade. As it stands, only two of her top 10 songs on Spotify were released during the 2025 Grammys eligibility period.
Some have argued that including these already popular artists leaves out genuinely “new” acts for a chance at widespread recognition, but in all honesty, you can apparently apply for the category three times, and there is observable progress made in your career. something worthy of an award in itself. Maybe it's time, though, for the Recording Academy to consider renaming this category, to finally put this whole “what does it mean to be new?” confusion to rest.
Now, if you want to explore the music of this year's Best New Artists for yourself, you can listen to a Consequence-Selected playlist on Amazon Music below.
For more information, you can spend the months between now and the 2025 Grammys (February 2) listening to all the nominees on Amazon Music thanks to the platform's holiday sale, which offers a three-month free trial for Amazon Music Unlimitedwith more than 100 million songs in HD sound and the largest catalog of ad-free podcasts.
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