A Brief History of Genre at the Grammys

Many of the founders of the Recording Academy were leery of rock and roll when it exploded in the mid-1950s. The Grammys didn’t have a category for rock and roll until 1962, when Chubby Checker’s “Let’s Twist Again” became the first winner of best rock & roll recording.  

That energetic hit could reasonably be called rock and roll, but that was not the case with the next three winners in the category – Bent Fabric’s perky pop instrumental “Alley Cat,” Nino Tempo & April Stevens’ quirky, folk-rock update of the 1930s standard “Deep Purple” and Petula Clark’s sleek pop smash “Downtown.”   

The Grammys used shorthand to refer to “rock and roll” the next two years, when they awarded best contemporary (R&R) single to Roger Miller’s country/pop classic “King of the Road” and best contemporary (R&R) recording to The New Vaudeville Band’s “Winchester Cathedral,” a pop smash which revived the megaphone-toting 1920s style of Rudy Vallee.  

Having failed to grasp what rock was and wasn’t, the Grammys didn’t present any categories specifically earmarked for rock until 1980, when they (very) belatedly added a four-category rock field and presented awards to Bob Dylan (best rock vocal performance, male), Donna Summer (best rock vocal performance, female), Eagles (best rock vocal performance by a duo or group) and Paul McCartney & Wings (best rock instrumental performance). 

Current categories: best rock performance; best rock album, best rock song 

The Grammys introduced best performance – folk in their second year. The Kingston Trio’s second studio album, The Kingston Trio at Large, which topped the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks, won the award. 

Current category: Best folk album  

Gospel legend Mahalia Jackson was the first winner of best gospel or other religious recording for Everytime I Feel the Spirit. Jackson died in 1972 at age 60. She received a posthumous lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy that same year.  

Awards for Contemporary Christian Music were added in 2012.  

Current categories: best gospel performance/song; best gospel album; best roots gospel album; best contemporary Christian music performance/song; best contemporary Christian music album 

The Grammys were in their 18th year when they finally introduced a category for Latin music. Eddie Palmieri was the inaugural winner for Sun of Latin Music.  

In 1984, Jose Feliciano’s Me Enamoré became the first winner for best Latin pop performance and Tito Puente & His Latin Ensemble’s remake of The Drifters’ smash “On Broadway” became the first winner for best tropical Latin performance. 

Current categories: best Latin pop album; best música urbana album; best Latin rock or alternative album; best música Mexicana album (including Tejano), best tropical Latin album.   

Note: In 2000, the Latin Grammys were first presented, making Latin the only genre that has its own show. 

Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown was the first winner of a designated blues category (best traditional blues recording) for Alright Again!  

Five years later, the Grammys added best contemporary blues recording. The Robert Cray Band was the first winner for Strong Persuader. 

Current categories: best traditional blues album, best contemporary blues album 

Jamaican group Black Uhuru won the first Grammy for best reggae recording for Anthem, nearly a decade after Bob Marley & the Wailers’ U.S. breakthrough. Marley, who died in 1981, never won a Grammy in competition, though he received a posthumous lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2001. 

Current category: best reggae album 

Swiss musician Andreas Vollenweider won the first award for best new age recording for his fifth studio album, Down to the Moon. 

Current category: best new age, ambient or chant album  

D.J. Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince won the first award for best rap performance for “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” their first Hot 100 hit (No. 12 in July 1988). With no rap categories in 1986, Run-D.M.C.’s Raising Hell had been nominated for best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocal.  

An award for best rap/sung collaboration was added in 2002. “Let Me Blow Your Mind” by Eve featuring Gwen Stefani was the inaugural winner. The category is now called best melodic rap performance. 

Current categories: best rap performance; best melodic rap performance; best rap song, best rap album   

Twenty years after Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath exploded on the scene, the Academy finally introduced a best hard rock/metal category. Metallica was expected to win for its fourth studio album,…And Justice for All, but the award went instead to Jethro Tull for its 16th studio collection,  Crest of a Knave. The three nominated bands – Metallica, AC/DC and Jane’s Addiction – most likely split their votes, allowing rock veterans Tull, who had never won a Grammy, to stage an upset.  

The following year, the Academy split it into two categories, best hard rock performance (won by Living Colour) and best metal performance (won by Metallica).  

Current category: best metal performance 

Bill Monroe, then 77, won the first award for best bluegrass recording for Southern Flavor, his 18th studio album. Monroe received a lifetime achievement award from the Academy in 1993. He died three years later at age 84.  

Current category: best bluegrass album 

Sinéad O’Connor won the first award for best alternative music recording for her sophomore album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which topped the Billboard 200 for six weeks.  

Current categories: best alternative music album; best alternative music performance 

Most of the big winners in the early years of the Grammys – including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and Judy Garland – specialized in what we now call traditional pop, but the Grammys didn’t have a category devoted to the genre until 1992, when Natalie Cole won for her hit single “Unforgettable,” which featured her late father Nat “King” Cole. The following year, it became a category for albums only.  

Current category: best traditional pop vocal album 

The first winner of best world music album was Mickey Hart’s Planet Drum, on which he played drum music with percussionists from around the world. The category’s name was changed to best global music album in 2021. 

Current categories: best global music album; best global music performance 

Cuban-American trumpeter Arturo Sandoval was the inaugural winner of best Latin jazz performance for “Danzon (Dance On).” The category was dropped in the 2012 streamlining, but it was brought back the following year following a protest.  

Current category: best Latin jazz album  

The Grammys introduced best disco recording in 1980 – a few years late – and then dropped the category the following year when “disco died.” (It didn’t really, but that was the perception at the time.) The sole winner was Gloria Gaynor’s anthemic “I Will Survive,” which was also up for record and song of the year.  

The Grammys had no awards for dance music again until 1998 when they awarded best dance recording to Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder for “Carry On,” which marked the first time those legends had worked together in more than a decade. Summer had been a nominee for best disco recording in 1980 with “Bad Girls,” which Moroder co-produced.  

The Grammys added an album category, best electronic/dance album, in 2005.  

Current categories: best dance/electronic recording; best dance/electronic music album; best pop dance recording 

The Grammys introduced best Tejano music performance in 1999. Flaco Jiménez was the inaugural winner for Said and Done. The category was renamed best Tejano album two years later and remained a separate category until 2012 when it merged with best regional Mexican album and became best regional Mexican or Tejano album. The following year, that category became best regional Mexican music album (including Tejano). This year, it becomes best música Mexicana album (including Tejano). 

Current category: best música Mexicana album (including Tejano). 

Levon Helm’s final studio album Electric Dirt was the first winner for best Americana album. The three previous years, Americana was lumped in with contemporary folk. The winners in the combined category were Bob Dylan’s Modern Times, Steve Earle’s Washington Square Serenade and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand. The latter album also won the overall album of the year award.  

Electric Dirt was Helm’s follow-up to Dirt Farmer, which had won for best traditional folk album.  

Current categories: best Americana album, best Americana performance 

Best African music performance, best alternative jazz album and best pop dance recording will be presented for the first time this year. 

“By introducing these three new categories, we are able to acknowledge and appreciate a broader array of artists,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. said in a statement when the new categories were announced in June 2023. “We are excited to honor and celebrate the creators and recordings in these categories, while also exposing a wider range of music to fans worldwide.” 

Fully 109 categories that were once presented are not presented any more, though most have simply been renamed or absorbed into other categories.

Some categories were seen as too specific, such as best engineered recording – special or novel effects (1960-65), which generally went to the engineers of comic recordings by Stan Freberg and David Seville and the Chipmunks. There are now only two categories for engineers – best engineered album, non-classical and best engineered album, classical. 

Some genres weren’t seen as competitive enough to merit a category. Best polka album was presented 24 times between 1986 and 2009. Jimmy Sturr won 18 times, full three-fourths of the time. Polka albums are now entered in the best regional roots music album category. The Academy also discontinued such narrowly focused categories as best Hawaiian music album and best zydeco or Cajun music album. Such albums also now compete for best regional roots music album. 

It’s tempting to say that some categories were discontinued because the names of the categories were so long they wouldn’t fit on a Grammy. Two of the categories with the longest names in Grammy history have bitten the dust – best pop instrumental performance by an arranger, composer, orchestra and/or choral leader (presented only in 1973 to Isaac Hayes for Black Moses); and best classical performance – instrumental soloists or soloists (with or without orchestra) (presented from 1967-71 and again in 1987).