The Grammys Add New Country Category for 2026—”We Need More Space for Our Music To Be Celebrated and Honored”

Country music will have a new category at the 2026 Grammy Awards, as the Recording Academy added the Best Traditional Country Album to the list of categories for the 68th Annual Awards. The addition comes as a result of the ever-changing country music landscape and the need to recognize the traditional sound that exists outside the mainstream country music market.

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The category joins the 13 other Grammy categories in Field 5. Of those 13 categories, four of them focus strictly on country music. The other nine focus on sub-genres such as Americana, roots, bluegrass, and the blues. Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. told Billboard that the country music community “said, we think we need more space for our music to be celebrated and honored.”

“It makes country parallel with what’s happening in other genres, but it is also creating space for where this genre is going,” added Mason. “The issues have been, traditionally, a lot of people that weren’t sure whether [an album] was Americana or roots or folk or country were just jamming everything into one category.”

“There are obviously nuances between the different genres. Those experts in those genres understand those nuances, and I’m quite certain now you’re going to see the right people going into Americana versus folk versus traditional country. [The change] gives us an opportunity to put things in more specific categories,” concluded Mason. This new category comes after numerous proposals from the Recording Academy’s Awards & Nominations committee.

Given Mason’s comments, the category intends to specify the genre of country music. It also aims not to exclude country artists who aren’t mainstream from being nominated for a Grammy award. Some of those artists include acts such as Sierra Ferrell, Charley Crockett, Colter Wall, Tyler Childers, and other roots-oriented performers.

The Definition for The Grammys’ New Country Category

Per Billboard, the definition for the Grammy award reads, “This category recognizes excellence in albums of traditional country music, both vocal and instrumental. Traditional country includes country recordings that adhere to the more traditional sound structures of the country genre, including rhythm and singing style, lyrical content, as well as traditional country instrumentation such as acoustic guitar, steel guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, piano, electric guitar, and live drums. It also includes sub-genres such as Western, Western Swing, and Outlaw Country.”

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