It’s that time of year again. The Recording Academy seeks to determine the best artists, songs and albums of this year in order to award the highest musical award: the Grammy Award.

This year, the Recording Academy significantly overhauled the voting process to include 12,000 voting members, as opposed to previously smaller boards. In addition, voting members will only vote in 10 categories, instead of 15, and those 10 categories must be included in three fields. The purpose of this change is to encourage voters to stay in their area of ​​expertise. Members will still be able to vote in the “Big Four”: album, record, song of the year and best new artist.

Despite speculation that the changes came in the wake of The Weeknd’s proposed boycott of the GRAMMY Awards, Recording Academy Acting President and CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said otherwise in a report. interview with Variety.

“Discussions about whether to drop the review of nominations started a long time ago and the real work of putting together a subcommittee to get it right started about eight or nine months ago, so this was n This is not a direct “reaction” to this situation, “Mason said. in the interview. “Having said that, any time an artist, especially one of this stature, questions our process or thinks something is unfair… the Academy is, of course, going to be affected by it and want to work to make things better. . “

The first round of voting began on October 22 and ends on Friday November 5. Nominations will be announced on Tuesday 23 November for the last round of voting which will open on Monday 6 December. The 64th Grammy Awards will air on Monday, January 31, 2022, on CBS and will air live on Paramount +.

Additionally, the American songwriter will vote for this year’s awards. The magazine joins the ranks of qualified voting members determining who will receive the coveted Grammy Award.