It’s already been a year. As we continue to hold out hope for the end of the pandemic, it’s Grammy Awards season once again. This year’s ceremony will be held amidst unprecedented calls for change.

When and where?

The 64th Grammy Awards were scheduled to be held in LA on January 31, 2022. However, with the spread of the omicron variant, the Recording Academy pushed back the ceremony until April 3. They also changed the location to Las Vegas; the first pick for the event, Crypto.com Arena, is the home of the NBA and NHL teams in LA and holds playoffs in April, and so wasn’t able to guarantee smooth proceedings for the Grammy Awards. To date, the Grammys have been held in LA 39 times, New York 11 times, and once in Nashville. This will be the first time taking the show to Vegas.

In the interest of transparency and fairness

The most important focus in recent years at the Grammys as well as all awards ceremonies has been on diversity, transparency and fairness. The Grammys are the highest-status, most prestigious awards in the music industry, largely derived from the fact that it’s the sole ceremony to choose its nominees entirely through a peer nomination system. The Academy requires its members—the ones with the power to cast the votes—to make their decisions based on musical quality alone. Votes should be impartial as far as personal relations, popularity, chart performance, regional bias and sponsorship are concerned. The world, however, says this fundamental integrity alone is not enough, and the Recording Academy has amended some of their rules accordingly.

To begin with, the nominations review committees are no longer. The committees had the final say on the nominees in all major categories, including the Big Four, or General Field, awards. The committees still formulated their lists based on the first votes cast by the Academy’s total membership, of course. At the same time, the review committees had a rule of keeping their own membership and criteria for judgment undisclosed, ultimately undermining the transparency of the Awards. Now, all nominees are selected strictly through votes alone.

The power each voting member has was also adjusted. In the past, it was possible for members to vote in up to 15 categories; they’re now limited to 10 categories across three genres (fields), encouraging them to vote more selectively, in areas of their individual expertise. This doesn’t include the Big Four categories, however.

… and diversity

Starting with the 64th Grammy Awards, the number of nominees in each of the Big Four categories has increased to 10, up from eight. In 1959, at the first Grammy Awards, there were only five nominees; this was changed to eight in 2019, and again, to 10, three years later. This reflects the widening horizon of popular music with the intention to give an opportunity to more artists and to open up to more genres. Other major awards ceremonies had already set down the same path. When choosing among 2009 film releases, the Oscars increased the number of nominees for Best Picture from five to 10, and in 2012, the Latin Grammy Awards bumped its original five nominees for each major category up to 10 as well. Of course, it’s still difficult to win a nomination in any of the Big Four at the Grammys—1,172 songs were submitted for Record of the Year alone in 2022, and the major category with the fewest 

A second invitation for BTS

As with last year, BTS has been nominated in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category. Given the success of “Butter,” the group’s achievements over the past year and the rule changes implemented for the Big Four, many people saw a high possibility for BTS to be nominated for Record or Artist of the Year. Best Pop Duo/Group Performance doesn’t strictly require the nominees to be part of one group, either: It can also be awarded for collaborations between different artists. In an age when collaborations between notable artists is commonplace, it’s rare to see a single group nominated; Coldplay and BTS are the only groups who were nominated this year. This is even more salient seeing as the two even worked together last year.

The category is actually one of the hottest this year. Justin Bieber and Benny Blanco were nominated together for “Lonely” (Bieber had a fantastic year with “Holy” and “Peaces,” too). “Kiss Me More” by Doja Cat and SZA is also a powerful contender. With such an impressive line-up, it won’t be surprising no matter who wins—be it Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga or Coldplay. Notably, Gaga won in the same category last year with Ariana Grande for their song “Rain on Me.” If she’s honored again this year, it will be a rare instance of winning the award two years in a row in collaboration with different artists.

At this point, you’re probably wondering: What happened to Silk Sonic? Don’t worry—they’re up for the R&B award.

History moves forward or does it repeat itself

The first round of voting for the 64th Grammy nominees took place from October 22 through November 5 and the final nominees were announced on November 23. So what effect did eliminating the nominations review committees and upping the number of nominees for the Big Four have? Most notably, ABBA’s “I Still Have Faith in You” was nominated for Record of the Year, while Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga were nominated together for Record of the Year and Album of the Year. ABBA has never been nominated for a Grammy, let alone one of the Big Four. The group has built a pop culture legacy that transcends generations, even though they were on a 40-year hiatus. That they finally received a nomination now that the Academy has switched to a 100% vote-based system is likely a reflection of that legacy. If it had been left up to the committee, it’s likely they would’ve come to a different decision.

Let’s also take a look at Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s second collaboration, Love for Sale. It’s unnecessary to judge whether the album’s better than their 2015 release, Cheek to Cheek; instead, let’s look at the history. Bennett took home Album of the Year in 1995 and has since gone on to win an additional 12 Grammys, although none in the major categories. His 1995 win is, in fact, the very reason for this: Bennett’s MTV Unplugged won him Album of the Year in 1995; of the five nominations permitted at the time, one of the others was The Three Tenors in Concert 1994, and it was at this time that criticism leveled against the Grammys’ conservatism—or, more accurately, its bias toward long-standing artists—came to a head. It was then that the Recording Academy deemed a nomination process contingent on voting couldn’t be free from the influence of long-held relationships and special treatment and put its nominations review committees into place. You read that right: Bennett was the reason for the formation of the review committees in the first place. Of course, the make-up of the Academy’s membership isn’t the same as it was some 30 years earlier. The more recent decision to do away with those committees is a reflection of the members’ confidence in their new process. History, though, makes for strange contrasts at times.

Things to watch for

1. Jon Batiste received 11 nominations this year, the first time since Kendrick Lamar was nominated in all the same categories six years ago, and of which he went home with five. The most nominations any artist has ever received in one year was 12 (Michael Jackson in 1984 and Babyface in 1997; Jackson won eight while Babyface won three). Artists who’ve been nominated in 10 categories include Lauryn Hill, Carlos Santana, Kanye West, Beyoncé and Eminem, all of whom won in at least two and as many as eight of their categories. Can Batiste write a new chapter in the Awards’ history?

2. Speaking of, Billie Eilish is still making history. Last year, she became the second person in history to sweep all of the Big Four together. She also had her second consecutive win last year for Record of the Year, an honor previously shared only by U2 and Roberta Flack. If Eilish takes the category again this year with “Happier Than Ever,” it will represent the first time in history anyone has ever won it three years consecutively.

3. FINNEAS is nominated for all four General Field awards this year: Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year for his work with Billie Eilish, and Best New Artist for his personal work. If he wins Best New Artist, he’ll be the fourth artist in history to lay claim to a win in all four major categories. He would also be the only one among them to win Best New Artist after previously having won the other three awards.

4. Olivia Rodrigo is in the running for all the Big Four, too—no surprises there. It’s the second time two artists are competing against each other for all four General Field awards since Eilish and Lizzo went head-to-head two years ago—when Eilish took all four. If Rodrigo wins all four, she’ll block Eilish and FINNEAS from becoming record-setting siblings.

5. Tony Bennett is 95—the oldest person to ever be nominated for a Big Four. He broke his own record for oldest Album of the Year nominee, which he set back in 1995. If he wins the award this year, it’ll be his second time receiving it as the main artist, making him the seventh artist to achieve the feat after Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, U2, Taylor Swift and Adele.

6. Rodrigo and the Kid LAROI are both nominated for Best New Artist and both are 18 years old. It’s the first time that two teenagers are on the list together since 2003, when Avril Lavigne and Michelle Branch were both nominated. The winner that year was Norah Jones. Teenage winners of the Best New Artist award include LeAnn Rimes, Christina Aguilera and Billie Eilish.