Grammys Expand Best Album, Song, Record, New Artist Categories and More

The Grammy Awards are making changes, some of which appear to be a response to the miniscule number of women nominated last year. Others changes effect music supervisors and the World Music category.

The Recording Academy is increasing the number of nominees in the big “General Field” Grammy categories -  Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist – from five to eight. “This change will better reflect the large number of entries in these categories and allow voters greater flexibility when selecting this year’s best recordings,”  the Academy said in a statement.

Additional changes: 

• music supervisors can now be nominated in the Best Compilation Soundtrack Album category
• music superbut are no longer eligible for consideration as producers, unless they produced at least 51%percent of the album
• nominations for the World Music categories will now be chosen by a dedicated Nominations Review Committee.

Read the full announcement here.