Music

Sabrina Carpenter has a lot to look forward to in the coming months – the release of her sixth studio album, Short n’ Sweet, on Aug. 23, and the announcement of the Grammy nominations on Nov. 8. Carpenter could be nominated in each of the Big Four categories – album, record and song of the year plus best new artist.

How, you might ask, can an artist be nominated for best new artist when they’re on their sixth album? The Recording Academy bases eligibility on when an artist “achieved a breakthrough into the public consciousness,” not on the number of releases they have had.

The rules and guidelines booklet for the upcoming 67th Grammy Awards notes: “While there will be no specified maximum number of releases, the Screening Committee will be charged with determining whether the artist had attained a breakthrough or prominence prior to the eligibility year. Such a determination would result in disqualification.”

The eligibility year for the upcoming Grammys began on Sept. 16, 2023. At that point, Carpenter had reached the Billboard Hot 100 with two singles – “Skin,” which debuted and peaked at No. 48 in February 2021, and “Nonsense,” which peaked at No. 56 in February 2023.

While Carpenter had never climbed above a so-so No. 48 on the Hot 100 prior to this eligibility year, she has been on fire in recent months, with her current single, “Please Please Please,” debuting at No. 2 last week and moving up to No. 1 this week.

As of that same date – the start date for this Grammy eligibility year – Carpenter had cracked the Billboard 200 with five albums or EPs, three of which made the top half of the chart – Eyes Wide Open, which debuted and peaked at No. 43 in May 2015; Evolution, which debuted and peaked at No. 28 in November 2016; and Emails I Can’t Send, which debuted and peaked at No. 23 in July 2022. None of these titles had been certified gold by the RIAA by Sept. 16, 2023. Emails went gold on March 1, 2024, amid her current breakthrough.

It’s always been hard to come up with hard-and-fast rules governing best new artist, which is probably why the description of the category in the rules and guidelines booklet is easily twice as long as the descriptions of album, record and song of the year, combined.

Carpenter has not been previously nominated for a Grammy, which generally results in disqualification from best new artist. And she has not been entered in the best new artist competition three times, which is an automatic disqualifier. Tate McRae has been entered three times (the last three years), so she is not eligible to be entered again. Carpenter has been entered twice – in 2017 and 2024, so she does not run afoul of that rule.

It will be up to the aforementioned Screening Committee to weigh all these factors and decide if Carpenter should be allowed to compete for best new artist. The key criteria: “This category recognizes an artist whose eligibility-year release(s) achieved a breakthrough into the public consciousness and notably impacted the musical landscape.”

The Academy can’t confirm what will or won’t be on the ballot until the screening process is completed. They don’t want to box themselves into a position, when it’s really the prerogative of the screening committee to make those decisions.

But that committee does generally seem to look for ways to include, rather than exclude artists in this category. They seem to recognize that new artists develop and break through at their own pace.

Shelby Lynne won the award in 2001 on the strength of her sixth album, I Am Shelby Lynne.

British singer-songwriter David Gray was on his fifth album when he was nominated the following year. Meghan Trainor had three self-released albums prior to her first studio album for Epic, for which she won in 2016. Maren Morris had released three albums for smaller labels prior to her Columbia Nashville debut, for which she was nominated in 2017.

Rapper Tobe Nwigwe, Brazilian singer Anitta, bluegrass artist Molly Tuttle, country/Americana duo The War and Treaty and country sensation Jelly Roll had also all released numerous projects prior to the breakthrough sets that brought them Grammy nods for best new artist.

The Academy was not always so welcoming to artists who took awhile to break though. There was a time in the 1980s when the Academy’s committee was too strict and disqualified some new artists who would have been worthy nominees or winners. Whitney Houston was disqualified from the new artist category because she had released a pair of duets with Teddy Pendergrass and Kashif prior to the release of her blockbuster 1985 debut. Richard Marx was disqualified because he had recorded a song (“Burning of the Heart”) on the soundtrack to the Tom Hanks/Jackie Gleason film Nothing in Common prior to his 1987 debut album. Today, such relatively minor pre-debut activities would probably not result in disqualification.

In other years, the Academy erred in being too lenient. Lauryn Hill won best new artist in 1999 even though she had won two Grammys as a member of Fugees two years previously. The trio had even performed a song from their album of the year nominee The Score on the 1997 Grammy telecast. (The rules have since been tightened up so such a thing could not occur again. From the rulebook: “Not eligible: Any artist with a previous Grammy nomination as a performer, including a nomination as an established member of a nominated group.”)

If the screening committee does accept Carpenter, they may be more apt to also allow two other “borderline” cases, Megan Moroney and Chappell Roan.

Moroney, 26, was passed over for a best new artist nod two years ago, when “Tennessee Orange” became a top 30 hit on the Hot 100. But she has continued to build. Her sophomore album, Am I Okay?, is due July 12. Moroney was nominated for the CMA Awards’ new artist of the year prize last year and won the ACM’s new female artist of the year prize (on her second try) in May.

Roan, also 26, was dropped by Atlantic Records following the release of a 2017 EP, School Nights. Her smash debut album was released through Island Records.

Other likely best new artist nominees include Benson Boone, Reneé Rapp, Sexyy Red, Shaboozey and Teddy Swims.

Other artists hoping for nominations should any of these presumed front-runners falter (or be ruled ineligible) include The Beaches, Dasha, Djo, Knox, October London, Tommy Richman, Nate Smith and Tigirlily Gold.