The Recording Academy is splitting its Best Country Album into two categories after Beyoncé’s historic win at the 67th Grammy Awards for Cowboy Carter made her the first Black woman to receive the honor.
At the 2025 ceremony, Beyoncé also won Best Country Duo/Group Performance for “II Most Wanted” with Miley Cyrus, and Album of the Year for her first full album in the country genre, making her the most-awarded artist in Grammy history, with a total of 35 wins.
Yesterday, Variety announced that the Grammys will conveniently be dividing their country album awards into the categories of Best Contemporary Country Album and Best Traditional Country Album. This is not the first time Beyoncé's success has led to the expansion of award categories.
Her highly acclaimed album Renaissance led to the Academy expanding its pop and dance awards to now include Best Dance/Electronic Album and Best Dance Pop Recording. The 2023 album won Best Dance/Electronic Music Album, Best R&B Song, Best Traditional R&B Song, and Best Dance/Electronic Recording, but lost Album of the Year to Harry Styles’ Harry’s House.
In the release of the 2026 Grammys rulebook, the CEO of the Recording Academy, Harvey Mason Jr., gave the following statement:
“The Academy’s top priority is to represent the music people that we serve each year. That entails listening carefully to our members to make sure our rules and guidelines reflect today’s music and allow us to accurately recognize as many deserving creators as possible.”
Despite the changes, Beyoncé’s musical and commercial success has influenced certain award committees to either ignore or snub her music as “not genre-friendly,” while conveniently changing the rules and overlooking the long history of awarding more genre-friendly white artists than any other group.
And despite being nominated by the Grammys, Cowboy Carter was not even nominated by the 2024 Country Music Awards, while rapper and singer Post Malone earned his first-ever CMA nominations with Morgan Wallen for the song “I Had Some Help.”
Beyoncé wrote that feeling unwelcome during her 2016 duet of “Daddy Lessons” with the Chicks at the CMA awards inspired her to create Cowboy Carter:
“It [Cowboy Carter] was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t. The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me.”
But the 2026 changes to the Grammys will not break the genre-breaking singer’s soul as Beyoncé continues her sold-out Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin Circuit Tour, debuting at an impressive $55 million and over 1.2 million tickets bought across 25 shows. Currently touring in Europe, the tour makes Beyoncé the highest-grossing female artist in history to sell out a single venue.
No wonder committees are trying to change the rules…
And the internet had a lot to say about the Grammys’ changes to the country album:
The 2026 Grammy Awards are scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 1, in the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Beyonce’s third act album has yet to be announced, but I’m sure the award committees will respond accordingly with new genre categories.
