As part of its major overhaul of the awards and nominations process, announced on April 30, the Recording Academy added a fifth category (best música urbana album) to the Latin field. As a result, when the 64th annual Grammy Awards are presented on Jan. 31, 2022, more Grammys will be awarded for Latin music than for pop, rock, rap and country (four categories each).
There will be 86 categories next year, divided into 26 “fields” (basically, clusters of categories).
Genre-specific fields:
Twenty-one of the fields are genre-specific. Here they are, ranked by the number of categories they will contain next year. Fields with the same number of categories are listed in the order they appear on the Grammy ballot.
- American Roots Music, 8 (this vast field includes Americana, bluegrass, blues, folk and regional roots music)
- Classical, 8
- R&B, 5
- Jazz, 5 (includes best Latin jazz album)
- Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music, 5
- Latin, 5
- Pop, 4 (includes best traditional pop album)
- Rock, 4
- Rap, 4
- Country, 4
- Music for Visual Media, 3 (for the most part, film & TV music)
- Dance/Electronic, 2
- Global Music, 2
- Contemporary Instrumental, 1
- Alternative, 1
- New Age, 1
- Reggae, 1
- Children’s, 1
- Spoken Word, 1
- Comedy, 1
- Musical Theater, 1
All-genre fields:
Five of the fields are open to all genres. Here they are, ranked by the number of categories they will contain next year. Fields with the same number of categories are listed in the order they appear on the Grammy ballot.
- Production, 5 (this new field includes production in non-classical, classical and immersive audio)
- General, 4 (the coveted Big Four categories – album, record and song of the year plus best new artist)
- Presentation, 4 (this new field includes package, notes and historical)
- Composing/Arranging, 3
- Music Video, 2
