Country Music Remains Largely Out of Grammy Voters’ Sights: 2025 Grammy Noms Analysis (original) (raw)
Thank goodness for Beyoncé and Shaboozey.
Beyoncé Mason Poole
In 2024, pop artists made their love for country music known, and, today, Grammy voters made their love known for those efforts.
Pop and R&B stars dominated the country Grammy nominations, including Beyoncé, who was the only artist to receive a nod in all four country categories. (Bey is the leading artist across the board with a record 11 total nominations for her country-influenced Cowboy Carter album.)
Post Malone also earned two country nominations, while Noah Kahan received one. Genre-blending Shaboozey, whose “A Bar Song (“Tipsy”) became the first song to go top 10 (and ultimately top three) on all four of Billboard radio airplay charts — Country Airplay, Pop Airplay, Rhythmic Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay — received two.
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Even though country radio ignores her (and vice versa), country voters remain understandably infatuated with Kacey Musgraves — who earned three nominations, including for country album, solo performance and song. Jelly Roll, Morgan Wallen and Chris Stapleton are the only artists who primarily consider themselves country (and are embraced by country radio) to receive more than one country nomination.
It’s worth noting that this is the first time that two Black artists have been nominated in the best country solo country performance category since its formation in 2012 (it combined the previous genre-designated solo performances). In 2021, Mickey Guyton was the first Black artist nominated in the category. Other than Beyoncé and Shaboozey, voters in the country categories ignored a number of non-crossover Black artists who released lauded music this year, including Brittney Spencer, Guyton and Kane Brown.
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If it weren’t for Beyoncé and Shaboozey, country music would have been mostly locked out of the main four categories: album, record and song of the year and best new artist. Beyoncé is represented in album, record and song of the year, while Shaboozey is nominated for best new artist and song of the year.
This is an ongoing issue with the Grammy nominations and one that the Academy is working on by trying to up votership in the country community — but the numbers are just very rarely in country music’s favor to land slots in the all-genre categories.
For the last 10 years, and not including today’s nominations, only four country artists have received album of the year nominations (and that’s including more Americana-leaning artists, like Sturgill Simpson and Brandi Carlile) and there has only been one winner: Musgraves for Golden Hour in 2018. Only two country songs have received nominations for song of the year, and none for record of the year. Best new artist has fared the best, with eight artists nomination over the past decade, but no winners (the last country winner was Zac Brown Band in 2010). Song of the year goes to the songwriters, so the shutout remains all the more baffling — since for the past two years, two predominantly country songwriters have received two of the five slots in the songwriter of the year, non-classical, category. Shout out to Jessi Alexander and Jessie Jo Dillon.
The relative shut-out in the big four categories remains for 2025, even while country enjoys a surge in popularity and dominates the Hot 100, with such titles as Post Malone and Wallen’s “I Had Some Help,” Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Wallen’s “Love Somebody” spending more than half the year combined at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Speaking of Wallen, he remains a third rail for Grammy voters. He finally received his first ever Grammy nominations this year for “I Had Some Help” with Malone, but the undeniable hit was locked out of song and record of the year and relegated solely to the country categories. (The Grammys’ more than 12,000 voters can all vote in the main four categories, but then are limited to 10 categories across three genre fields in an attempt to make sure voters stick to their areas of expertise when casting their ballots).
So it will be up to Beyoncé and Shaboozey to represent country music in the main categories (all of which are presented on air, while country is often relegated to the pre-telecast) on Feb. 2 and maybe Beyoncé will finally get her long overdue album of the year win.
In other noteworthy and happy nominations, country pioneer Linda Martell, the first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry, receives her first Grammy nomination at the age of 83 — in the best melodic rap performance category, for “SPAGHETTII,” by Beyoncé featuring Martell and Shaboozey.
Jessica Nicholson provided assistance on this story.
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