The Recording Academy is dropping the number of fields on the Grammy ballot from 26 to 11 in an effort to give voters more flexibility in their voting.
All Grammy voters can vote in the General Field, which has long consisted of record, album and song of the year, plus best new artist. As of next year, that field will also include producer of the year, non-classical and songwriter of the year, non-classical.
After that, voters can vote in no more than 10 categories spread across no more than three fields. This is done so that voters focus on the areas in which they have real expertise and not just areas where they happen to recognize a name. But voters were complaining that the previous field structure was too restrictive.
“What we were hearing was many voters weren’t able to even come close to using their 10 votes because so many of the fields had only one or two categories,” Mason told Billboard. [Last year, seven fields consisted of just one category. Five others consisted of two categories.] “That was the problem. That didn’t feel fair or right for a lot of our members. So consolidating fields gives voters a little more flexibility.”
The most crowded field on next year’s ballot is the country & American roots music field, with 13 categories. The least-crowded field is the Package, Notes & Historical Field, with four categories.
Here are the 11 fields below the General Field (which the Academy inexplicably doesn’t consider to be a field, even though it has the word “field” in its name) and what categories they contain. The three newly-added categories are marked NEW.
