Kanye West And Taylor Swift Were Added To Album Of The Year Grammy Nominees Day Before Announcement

Larry Busacca/Getty Images for NARAS

Kanye West And Taylor Swift Were Added To Album Of The Year Grammy Nominees Day Before Announcement

Larry Busacca/Getty Images for NARAS

Kanye West and Taylor Swift were among a group of Grammy nominees that were added at the last minute to the Big Four categories (Album, Record, and Song Of The Year, plus Best New Artist) due to a rule change expanding the field for those categories from 8 nominees to 10.

As The New York Times reports, the decision to add West and Swift in the Album Of The Year category was made in a meeting the day before nominations were announced. Other artists that benefitted from this change included ABBA and Lil Nas X in Record Of The Year, Doja Cat and Brandi Carlile in Song Of The Year, and Arooj Aftab and Baby Keem in Best New Artist.

The nominations in the Big Four categories that was announced on Tuesday was different from the supposedly final nominations list that was created several days before the announcement and was circulated inside and outside of the Academy. That “final” list did not contain the additions in the Big Four categories.

Chief executive Harvey Mason Jr. revealed the expanded nomination slate to the general public in a livestreamed ceremony on Tuesday, where he touted the change as a way “to make room for more music, more artists and more genres, and to embrace the spirit of inclusion.”

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