With the explosion of stars like Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll, and Lainey Wilson, country music entered a new era. It wasn’t just rising stars, as Beyoncé and Post Malone both explored the genre with F-1 Trillion and Cowboy Carter. With Beyoncé winning big at the Grammy Awards thanks to her debut country album, some fans were shocked when country music was snubbed at the 2026 Grammys, leading the CEO of The Recording Academy to make a statement.
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Although the Grammy Awards include numerous categories – the awards have what is considered the big four. They include Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. While the Grammy Awards embraced country music with its own category, some country singers broke into the big four. But that didn’t happen in 2026.
According to the CEO of The Recording Academy, Harvey Mason Jr., the decision had nothing to do with politics. “ I really hope it doesn’t turn into that type of dialogue based around politics or right or left, because it really is not that; it’s really about what the voters choose to vote for every given year, and it is cyclical. There have been other times where there’s been different representation.”
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How The Grammy Awards Make Sure Categories Are “Balanced”
Only wanting to celebrate artists who continue to expand the world of music, Mason explained how the process happened. “We will be looking into all our genre categories and the voters associated with them and making sure they are balanced, like we do every year. And after this year, we’ll do it again. It’s generally not based on who gets nominated, though, to tell you the truth.”
So what is it based on? The CEO claimed, “It’s based on, do we have a representative voting body of the different genres? And provided that we have the right percentage and ratios, then we’ll be in the right spot. We can’t tell what those people will vote for, but we can make sure that we have a representative voting body.”
Providing voters with a wide variety of artists across all genres, the Grammys ultimately left the final decisions in the hands of its members. And while country fans may not have seen their favorites in the top categories this year, the Academy insists the door remains open for the genre to return to the spotlight in the future.
(Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
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