Grammy’s New Rules and Folk Award Split Could Impact Country

In 2025, the Recording Academy split the Best Country Album category into two, separating “Contemporary” country from “Traditional” country. This resulted in nominations for Charley Crockett, Willie Nelson, Lukas Nelson, Margo Price, and a win for Zach Top that these artists otherwise might not have received without this new “Traditional” designation.

In 2026, the Grammy Awards have now done the same for folk, or more accurately, they have brought back the “Best Contemporary Folk Album” category that was eliminated in 2012, while also founding a new “Best Traditional Folk Album” category. For the next round of nominations and awards, there will now be double the amount of nominees and winners in folk.

Though the adoption of a “Best Traditional Country Album” category certainly had a more direct impact on country music itself, the formation of two folk album categories might even have bigger implications on the greater American roots world, which includes country music, and many artists from what many consider the “independent country” and Americana realms, and even popular country artists.

First and foremost, this gives actual folk artists a lane to not be overshadowed by the massively popular stars from indie folk, folk rock, and folk pop that have become a massive force in popular music over the last few years, including in some people estimates performers like Zach Bryan, Noah Kahan, Joshua Slone, Sam Barber, and others. The artists keeping the regional dialects and distinct folk traditions alive not just in North America, but all around the world deserve both recognition, and to not have commercial implications affect their recognition with the Grammy process.

But perhaps just as importantly, performers who really lean into folk’s singer/songwriter lineage, but also mix more contemporary, indie, and rock elements into the music, they deserve their own category too, and to not have to be called “country” or “rock” just for a lack of another popular genre to be categorized in. Remember for his last album, Zach Bryan recused himself from Grammy consideration, in part because he doesn’t want to be considered “country.” He considers himself a folk artist. But is it really fair if he’s competing with some old-time performer from Appalachia, or a traditional Irish performer from Belfast?

The official definition of a “Traditional Folk Album” from the Recording Academy states, “This category recognizes excellence in albums of traditional folk recordings. Traditional folk includes folk recordings with folk song structures, harmonic structures, and rhythms, including traditional folk instruments such as piano, harmonica, traditional woodwind, strings, and percussion from around the world. It also includes song types such as old time, a capella, work songs, shanty, protest, call and response, ballad, and other traditional folk song structures created in and/or passed through community-rooted tradition distinct from Regional Roots.”

The official definition of a “Contemporary Folk Album” according to the Recording Academy states, “This category recognizes excellence in contemporary folk recordings. It includes folk recordings that vary from traditional folk song and harmonic structures and may employ non-traditional folk song structures including composition and narrative expression. It can be community-rooted, and it may use production and arrangements of song types such as indie folk, ethno-folk, protest, and folk rock, distinct from the pop approach. It may include traditional folk instruments and non-traditional folk instruments, as well as contemporary production techniques.”

The ‘pop approach” might be where some confusion sets in, since so much contemporary folk these days has become wildly popular. After all, Zach Bryan sold his song catalog for more than any other artist in history, and holds the largest attendance record in the United States. Will he be too pop for contemporary folk?

Nonetheless, this feels like a huge victory to make sure these earnest singer/songwriters who’ve helped really push popular music into a more meaningful direction after the pandemic are given their own lane, not lumped into “country,” and not competing with more conventional folk performers.

When there was a Best Contemporary Folk Album category from 1987 to 2011, who were some of the winners?

The first ever award was given to a Steve Goodman tribute record. The next year, Steve Goodman won himself for his album Unfinished Business. Steve Earle won it three times, including for his tribute to Townes Van Zandt, Townes. Emmylou Harris won it twice for her landmark albums Wrecking Ball and Red Dirt Girl. Lucinda Williams won in it 1999 for what some consider the great alt-country album of all time, Car Wheel on a Gravel Road. Johnny Cash won it for his 1995 American Recordings. John Prine won it twice as well.

So could this category have implications on what are considered country and country adjacent artists, especially singer/songwriters? It absolutely could.

Other new Grammy categories added this year are “Best Asian Pop Music Performance (a nod to K-Pop’s continued popularity), “Best Latin Song,” “Best R&B Collaboration or Duo/Group Performance,” and “Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance.”

There were also two new changes made to how Grammy members can vote that could also have major effects on the country and roots world. Unlike other major awards that are the domain of the industry, the Grammys are non-profit and peer voted, meaning you must be a musician, singer, songwriter, producer, or engineer to vote.

For the upcoming awards cycle, The Grammys are updating the rule that says that any Best New Artist nominee can’t be considered more than three times. Now the rules states they can’t be considered more than four times. If you want, go ahead and coin this the “Ella Langley Rule,” because that’s who it’s likely to affect most directly. She’ll likely be nominated, and very likely will win it when the awards go down in February 2027. Megan Moroney is another artist that under the previous rule who have not been eligible.

“The way artists are being developed is changing, and the time it’s taking to find success or recognition can take longer than it once did,” says Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. He’s certainly right how one of the big narratives in music over the last few years has been how few new artists are “making it.” Ella Langley is a big exception. But this also raises concerns that the “new” portion of the “Best New Artist” continues to get stretched. We see this commonly with country music’s awards as well.

The other rule change will allow some Grammy voters to not just vote in ten categories, but as many as fifteen. This could affect country and roots because you commonly have voters from other genres coming in to vote for performers outside the country and roots genre that are competing within country and roots categories.

The Grammy Awards now officially have 100 categories. Compared to how much country, bluegrass, folk, and roots music is featured at something like the CMA Awards, and it’s night and day. There are way more opportunities for the critically-acclaimed to be recognized over the commercially successful. That’s how Sierra Ferrell has four Grammy Awards. And hopefully now with the new “Contemporary Folk” and “Traditional Folk” categories, more worthy roots artists can find the recognition they deserve.

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