News: Chance The Rapper’s ‘Coloring Book’ Now Eligible For Grammy Nomination

The rules have now changed as the music streaming industry is evolving before our eyes. The Recording Academy announced that streaming-only releases will now be eligible for consideration for Grammy nominations. This is just one of the changes that have been implemented next year.

The terms were formally described as “sales by label to a branch or recognized independent distributor, via the internet, or mail order/retail sales for a nationally marketed product.” The new language expands that definition to include “applicable streaming services,” which themselves are qualified as “paid subscription, full catalogue, on-demand streaming/limited download platforms that have existed as such within the United States for at least one full year as of the submission deadline.”

The streaming news will be welcome to artists such as Chance the Rapper, whose fervent calls for the Academy to consider free music was backed up by his latest release, Coloring Book, which became the first ever streaming-only release to chart on the Billboard 200 in May. Coloring Book, which debuted at No. 8 with all of its 38,000 equivalent album units coming from 57.3 million first-week streams, remained an Apple Music exclusive for two weeks before being released wide to Spotify, Tidal and other services. The rule amendment will make Chance eligible for Grammy consideration for the first time as a lead artist.

The streaming switch is just one of four announced changes. In a similar move to reflect the changing nature of the industry, the Best New Artist guidelines have removed the necessity for an artist to have released an album within the eligibility period. Instead, the new rules say an artist “must have released a minimum of five singles/tracks or one album, but no more than 30 singles/tracks or three albums.”

And there’s a tweak to the Rap field as well, as Best Rap/Sung Collaboration is amended to Best Rap/Sung Performance, a change intended to make the category more inclusive and allow for not just collaborations, but also for solo tracks that blur the line between singing and rapping.

Read the full article over at Billboard.