The GRAMMY Awards' Screening Process

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CATEGORY SCREENING

In this issue, we’ll be going over the Recording Academy’s ‘Screening’ process for the 67^th GRAMMY Awards, complete with: 

• Background on Screening and why it exists

• How the process works

• Examples of various screening procedures

BACKGROUND

If you made any submissions through the GRAMMYs’ Online Entry Process this year, you’ll be receiving an email this week notifying you of their final category placement on the first round ballot. You may be surprised to see that some of these submissions are now in categories different from where you originally entered them. The reason for this change is that the Academy’s Screening committees likely moved these submissions to where they determined to be a more suitable genre category.

If you’re new to the concept of Screening, the GRAMMY Awards’ utilizes a series of specialized committees made up of genre experts (A&Rs, DSP editors, radio programmers, creatives, etc.) to review each submission and ensure that it is competing in its most appropriate genre category.

Before jumping into how this process works, let’s look at the full category list for the 67th annual GRAMMY Awards: 

General Field

• Record of the Year

• Album of the Year

• Song of the Year

• Best New Artist

• Producer of the Year, Non-Classical

• Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical

Field 1: Pop & Dance / Electronic Music

• Pop Solo Performance

• Pop Duo/Group Performance

• Pop Vocal Album

• Dance/Electronic Recording

• Dance Pop Recording

• Dance/Electronic Album

Field 2: Rock, Metal & Alternative Music

• Rock Performance

• Metal Performance

• Rock Song

• Rock Album

• Alternative Music Performance

• Alternative Music Album

Field 3: Rap, R&B & Spoken Word

• R&B Performance

• Traditional R&B Performance

• R&B Song

• Progressive R&B Album

• R&B Album

• Rap Performance

• Melodic Rap Performance

• Rap Song

• Rap Album

• Spoken Word Poetry Album

Field 4: Jazz, Traditional Pop, Contemporary Instrumental & Musical Theatre

• Jazz Performance

• Jazz Vocal Album

• Jazz Instrumental Album

• Large Jazz Ensemble Album

• Latin Jazz Album

• Alternative Jazz Album

• Traditional Pop Vocal Album

• Contemporary Instrumental Album

• Musical Theatre Album

Field 5: Country & American Roots Music

• Country Solo Performance

• Country Duo/Group Performance

• Country Song

• Country Album

• American Roots Performance

• Americana Performance

• American Roots Song

• Americana Album

• Bluegrass Album

• Traditional Blues Album

• Contemporary Blues Album

• Folk Album

• Regional Roots Music Album

Field 6: Gospel & Contemporary Christian Music

• Gospel Performance/Song

• Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song

• Gospel Album

• Contemporary Christian Music Album

• Roots Gospel Album

Field 7: Latin, Global, Reggae & New Age, Ambient, or Chant

• Latin Pop Album

• Música Urbana Album

• Latin Rock or Alternative Album

• Música Mexicana Album

• Tropical Latin Album

• Global Music Performance

• African Music Performance

• Global Music Album

• Reggae Album

• New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album

Field 8: Children’s, Comedy & Audio Book Narration And Storytelling, Visual Media & Music Film

• Children’s Music Album

• Comedy Album

• Audio Book, Narration and Storytelling Recording

• Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media

• Score Soundtrack For Visual Media

• Score Soundtrack For Video Games and Other Interactive Media

• Music Video

• Music Film

Field 9: Package, Notes & Historical

• Recording Package

• Boxed/Special Limited Edition Package

• Album Notes

• Historical Album

Field 10: Production, Engineering, Songwriting, Composition & Arrangement

• Engineered Album, Non-Classical

• Engineered Album, Classical

• Producer of the Year, Classical

• Remixed Recording

• Immersive Audio Album

• Instrumental Composition

• Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella

• Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals

Field 11: Classical

• Orchestral Performance

• Opera Recording

• Choral Performance

• Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

• Classical Instrumental Solo

• Classical Solo Vocal Album

• Classical Compendium

• Contemporary Classical Composition

HOW IT WORKS

Essentially how this process operates is:

1. Each genre committee reviews the tracks and albums submitted to their genre’s various categories. As a group, they listen, discuss, and can either vote to accept or propose moving the submission to where they feel is a more appropriate genre category.
   

2. From there, the committee whose genre it was sent to reviews the submission and then votes to either accept or move elsewhere.
   

3. At the end of the day, all entries must find a home so the Academy employs what they call a ‘CORE’ committee to adjudicate situations where the specialized genre committees cannot agree where to place a submission. This CORE committee consists of a mix of creatives, industry reps, and chairs of the specialized genre committees. In video game terms, the CORE committee is the final boss of the Screening process. 
   

4. Once all submissions have found a category home, they are locked in and the ballot is officially set.

EXAMPLES

To illustrate this process, let’s look at a hypothetical example of how a submission might pass through the Screening process.

• Let’s just say that Olivia Rodrigo submitted “get him back!” in Rock Performance and Rock Song.
  

• The Rock Screening committee listens to it and thinks it isn’t consistent with what is being accepted into Rock that year so they send it to the Pop committee to review, thinking it’s perhaps more appropriate there.
  

• From there, the Pop committee will review the submission and either choose to accept the entry or send it elsewhere/back to Rock.
  

• If neither the Pop or Rock committee accepts the entry, it goes to the CORE committee to make a final decision.

It’s worth noting that a track’s Performance and Song entries must travel together. If this hypothetical situation with Olivia were to play out and Pop accepted the track, the Rock Performance entry would move to Pop Solo Performance, but the Rock Song Entry would have to move to Song of the Year as the Pop field does not have a Song category. This example highlights a lack of parity across the Academy’s category list.

While albums are pretty straightforward, there are generally three different outcomes from Screening a track’s Performance and Song entries. Each of which is outlined in the examples below:

Outcome 1: A track is either accepted into the genre it was submitted in or rejected and ultimately accepted by a genre with both a Performance and Song category

Outcome 2: A track is either accepted into the genre it was submitted in or rejected and ultimately accepted by a genre with only a Performance category. Since there is no available Song category within this genre, the Song entry is sent to Song of the Year. 

Outcome 3: A track is either accepted into the genre it was submitted in or rejected and ultimately accepted by a genre who consolidates Song and Performance into a single category.

FINAL NOTES ON SCREENING

• It’s important to note that each individual entry is judged in a vacuum, so that’s why you’ll see situations where an artist’s album is in one genre category but a track from that same album could appear in a different genre category. 
  

• In the event that a committee is split on whether or not to accept a category, they will go with honoring  “artist intent”, defined by where the recording was originally entered.
  

• Once all submissions have found their proper home, each artist’s category placement is locked and the first round ballot is officially finalized.

NEXT

The first round ballot - a look at its structure and who can vote

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All information found in this guide is publicly available and/or can be found in the GRAMMY Awards official rules and guidelines. Please contact the Recording Academy directly with any questions or clarifications regarding the GRAMMY process as Awards Edit has no affiliation with the Recording Academy whatsoever.

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