The Grammy Awards will have two new categories ahead of the 2026 award ceremony: Best Traditional Country Album and Best Album Cover.
The Best Country Album category has been renamed Best Contemporary Country Album, while Best Traditional Country Album has been added, according to a Grammys news release.
The news comes after Beyoncé won Best Country Album last year for “Cowboy Carter,” which some critics said wasn’t a country album. (Beyoncé asserted that it wasn’t a country album; it was a Beyoncé album.) The blowback to her win included country artist John Rich suggesting on social media that he saw Beyoncé’s victory as a joke and preferred country artist Lainey Wilson to win the category.
It wasn’t the first time the country music industry was unwelcoming to Beyoncé, the first Black artist to win Best Country Album. When the Houston-born artist performed her song “Daddy Lessons” at the Country Music Awards in 2016, Alan Jackson reportedly walked out, and Travis Tritt wrote on social media, “I love honest to God country music and feel the need to stand up for it at all costs. We don’t need pop or rap artists to validate us.”
According to the Grammys’ new definitions, traditional country adheres “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.” Traditional country also includes sub-genres, like western, western swing and outlaw country.
On the other hand, the contemporary country album utilizes “a stylistic intention, song structure, lyrical content, and/or musical presentation to create a sensibility that reflects the broad spectrum of contemporary country style and culture,” according to the Grammys’ definition. The category acknowledges country music “that remains reminiscent and relevant to the legacy of country music’s culture, while also engaging in more contemporary music forms.”
Fans took to social media to express their disappointment over the Grammys adding a second country category after Beyoncé’s win, suggesting it was a move meant to appease racists in the industry.
“Best Traditional Country Album is racist as fuck,” one person wrote on social media. “What that even means? Country music by white people? It’s not a coincidence they created this category one year after a black artist won Best Country Album for the first time ever #GRAMMYs”
“morgan wallen and Post Malone better not be in the traditional country category at the Grammys because in what world are they traditional country??,” another wrote.
“Cowboy Carter’s wins really SHOOK the Grammys and those country folks still haven’t fully recovered…,” another person wrote.
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