A decision to grow the award ceremony’s “Big Four” categories from eight to 10 nominees was made Monday, a day before the nods were announced, and led to nominations for artists including ABBA and Lil Nas X, according to the report.
“I applaud our Board of Trustees, for having the agility and foresight to approve this expansion as a way to honor more music, more artists and more genres,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr.
Jazz-R&B composer Jon Batiste, best known as the bandleader and music director for “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” earned the most Grammy nominations of any act this year, with 11.
The Recording Academy says this year’s nominees are the first in decades not shaped by secretive committees of unidentified insiders who historically oversaw — and sometimes amended — voters’ first-round choices.