Daily Edit | Jan 28

"'Ground Scores' is a love song, but it's also a song about stumbling through the end times into something good," the band explains. "It was inspired by finding something valuable and unexpected on the ground one night. I realized that this chance occurrence represented how life felt when things were going well: finite happiness left behind by someone else, only to be inevitably depleted." -Stereogum

1 / 28 / 2026

Headlines

• ‘Physical music is powerful and under-leveraged. In 2026, it won’t be a sideshow – it’l be a core strategic revenue and brand channel.’ [mbw]
  

• Meta, TikTok, YouTube to stand trial on youth addiction claims [reuters]
  

• How Recognition Music, formerly Hipgnosis, is bring new life to its lucrative catalog [billboard pro]
  

• Concert tickets are now luxury goods – and that’s a crisis for the music industry [forbes]
  

• Chicago’s United Center will sell THC beverages at concessions in a U.S. arena first [cnbc]
  

• Chappell Roan-endorsed charity Backline Care opens mental health hotline for artists [new industry focus]
  

• Anti-pop and an alien sigil: how Aphex Twin overtook Taylor Swift to become the soundtrack to gen z life online [the guardian]

GETTING TO THE GRAMMYs

With the 68^th annual GRAMMY Awards coming up this weekend, we thought this would be a good time to take a look at how we got here. Over the next three days, we’ll highlight and unpack several key phases of the GRAMMY process to help give a bit of context to a very dense and slightly-confusing rulebook.

First, we’ll look at which recordings are actually eligible for consideration at this year’s Awards ceremony.

This series is a distillation of The Recording Academy’s current rulebook - which is publicly available here.

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ELIGIBILITY 
rules, dates, and types of recordings

The eligibility window for the 68th GRAMMY Awards was August 31^st, 2024 - August 30^th, 2025. 

To be considered, recordings must be commercially available from any date during that window through at least the final round voting deadline (Jan 5th, 2026). These recordings must be distributed nationally; full-catalog subscription streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music are all eligible. 

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Types of recordings

To be eligible, a submission must be what the Academy considers a “new recording.” Essentially this just means that (1)  the recording was not previously released and (2) it was recorded within 5 years of its release date. 

There are three primary types of recordings that are considered. They are: 

1. Albums - defined as a collection of at least 5 tracks with a minimum playing time of 15 minutes (or any number of tracks if the playing time is at least 30 minutes). To be eligible, an album must contain 75% playing time of newly recorded material so it’s unusual to see deluxe or expanded versions of previously-released albums on the ballot given that threshold for new music.
   

2. Tracks - recordings that are released as part of an eligible album

   
   Tracks actually have a two year shelf life so even if the album they’re on came out in the previous year, they are still eligible this year as long as they weren’t already submitted. 
   
   For example, all tracks from Clairo’s album Charm (released July 2024) would have been eligible for this awards cycle (excluding “Juna” and “Sexy To Someone” as they were previously submitted).
   

   Conversely, even if a song from an album released this eligibility period initially came out in the previous one, it’s still eligible this year as long as it wasn’t submitted as a single last year.
   
   For example, even though Amyl and the Sniffers’ “U Should Not Be Doing That” was initially released before the current eligibility period, it’s eligible as a track this year because it wasn’t submitted last year as a single. And not only is it eligible this year, it’s nominated for Best Rock Performance.
   

   
   

3. Singles - recordings that are released independently from an album

   
   As far as the Academy is concerned, a Single doesn’t necessarily mean the song has to be an “official” single. It just refers to any song that isn’t part of an eligible album. For all intents and purposes, singles and tracks are judged the same way by the voters. 
   

While we’re noting the difference between a Single and a Track, this would be a good time to break down two other common points of confusion:

1. The difference between Song and Performance categories.

   
   Each of these categories recognizes different contributions to a recording. Simply put, Performance categories recognize the artist(s) performing on the recording, while Song categories acknowledge the underlying composition.
   
   Using a real-world example to highlight this difference, “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen was nominated in Best Country Song a couple of years ago. Since Morgan isn’t credited as a songwriter, he is not considered a nominee for this specific category. However, had the track been nominated in Best Country Solo Performance, only Morgan would have received a nomination. 
   
   

2. The difference between Song of the Year and Record of the Year
   
   These two categories are basically just versions of the performance/song dynamic outlined above, with the only difference being that Record of the Year is basically a Performance category on steroids.
   
   While the performing artist(s) is nominated in Record of the Year, the category also recognizes contributions to the recording from credited producers and engineers. 
   

Miscellaneous eligibility rules to be aware of

• To be eligible for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, a producer must have worked on a minimum of one album or six tracks/singles. While a producer can submit their own project if they’re also the artist, they must submit at least one single or track that they produced for another artist to be eligible. 

  
  

  Worth noting, all recordings submitted for this category must have been released during the current eligibility year (Aug 31, 2024- Aug 30, 2025) - an exception to the typical rules for Track eligibility. 
  

• Similarly for Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical, an entrant must submit a minimum of four singles or tracks where they are credited as solely a songwriter/co-writer. Any tracks where they’re also credited as a Primary Artist, Featured Artist, or Producer do not count towards this minimum threshold.
  
  Once this threshold is met, songwriters may include up to five additional songs where they’re also credited as a Primary/Featured Artist, Producer, or any other supporting role.
  
  Similar to Producer of the Year, all songs submitted must have been first released during the current eligibility period.
  
  
  

• Eligibility for music videos is independent of the track they’re created for. So if the song is submitted in one eligibility period and the music video is submitted in the next one, all good.

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