Traditional Country Artists, Now Is the Time To Submit to the Grammys

In 2025, the Grammy Awards finally added a new “Best Traditional Country Album” category to the 2026 roster, and renamed the existing Best Country Album category “Best Contemporary Country Album.” For traditional country artists in their fans, this was a huge victory. Finally, traditional country is being allowed to exist on its own as opposed to having to compete with the big pop-oriented names of country, or being relegated to “Americana.”

In the new category’s first year, Charley Crockett, Lukas Nelson, Margo Price, and Willie Nelson all received nominations in the category that they otherwise may have not received them, and Zach Top won the award for his album Ain’t In It For My Health.

Securing this new Grammy category was the beginning of the process. But now traditional country music performers need to submit their albums to the Grammy Awards for consideration. The Grammys don’t just choose out of thin air who gets to be considered. You have to submit your work.

Submissions are open now until August 21st. The eligibility period for the 2027 Grammy Awards is August 31, 2025 – August 28, 2026. That means if you or your favorite artist released a country album within that period (or will in the next month or so), they are eligible. And the Grammys state, “We encourage everyone to submit their entries as early as possible so that the Recording Academy’s Awards team can assist with any questions in a timely manner.”

If you want to know the complete ins and outs of the Grammy submission process, you can read the Grammy’s How To Submit Music Guide. We’d love to say it’s quick and painless, but unless the album was released on a label that is set up as a media company with the Grammys, or you’re a Grammy member, it might take some effort. But it’s an effort worth taking.

Long story short, Grammy members can submit their work, along with the works of others, and so can “media companies,” i.e. labels, management groups, or as the Grammys define, “a legitimate business entity whose core business function is to create, aggregate and promote audio and/or video content for commercial purposes.”

Unfortunately, the period to become a Grammy member has closed for this particular cycle. But media companies can still register up to August 28, 2026. For more about the Grammy Media Company registration process, CLICK HERE.

If you’re an artist on a label, make sure your label is submitting your album to the Grammys. And if you think it belongs in the Best Traditional Country Album category, insist that is where it gets submitted. If you’re an individual artist but have made your own “label,” then register as a media company. And yes, there are fees to do this. But then you can submit up to five entries for free, along with paying additional fees for additional entries beyond that.

Let’s say you’re a more local-oriented or up-and-coming traditional country artist, would love to be considered by the Grammy Awards, but are not a Grammy member, and do not think you constitute a “media company.” In this case, try to find someone who is a Grammy member or a media company, and see if they can submit on your behalf. Smaller artists do win big Grammys since it’s a peer-voted, more critically-acclaimed award.

Also, Saving Country Music is here to help you as well. If you’ve released a traditional country album and want to submit it to the Grammys, reach out to Saving Country Music, and the effort will be made to match you up with someone who can submit your album on your behalf. If you’re a Grammy member or registered media company and might have available submission slots, also reach out to be matched up with deserving artists.

The Grammy’s Best Traditional Country Album definition states, “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.”

What if you feel like an album might not quite fit into the traditional album category, or that it sits on the bubble between traditional or contemporary country? That’s okay, make sure to submit it to the Grammys anyway. Not only might it get nominated or win, the more entries the Grammys get, the healthier all country’s categories are, and the more likely the Best Traditional Country Album category will stick around indefinitely, and who knows, maybe we can also get a “Best Traditional Country Song” category in the future too.

And artists don’t just have to submit only an album. If they believe they have a Grammy-winning song, they can submit it to the existing “Best Country Song,” “Best Country Performance,” or “Best Country Duo or Group Performance” categories for consideration too as traditional country.

This new Grammy Best Traditional Country Album category is a very big moment for artists and performers who believe in preserving the roots of country music, but only if we continue to support it. For too long, traditional country artists have been treated like “others.” Now it’s time to step up and make sure they have a home.

And if you have any questions about any of this, feel free to reach out to Saving Country Music.

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