What are the submission eligibility requirements for recordings?

For the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards, recordings must be released between Sept. 1, 2019, and Aug. 31, 2020.

To be eligible, recordings must be for sale commercially via general distribution or made available as a digital recording, either for sale or via a recognized streaming service. Outlined below is more detailed information on what qualifies as a digital recording and general distribution:

General Distribution: Recordings must be released via general distribution, defined as the nationwide release of a recording via brick and mortar stores, third-party online retailers and/or applicable digital streaming services. Applicable streaming services are 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. All recordings entered must have an assigned International Standard Recording Code (ISRC). Digital Recordings: Recordings released nationwide via download or streaming service must have quality comparable to at least 16-bit 44.1 kHz. Submissions sent to the Academy for consideration must include both the original file and the product, proper label credits (producer, mixer, songwriter, etc.) in the metadata file, and a verifiable online release date.

Note: To be considered an album, recordings must contain at least five different tracks and a total playing time of 15 minutes or a total playing time of at least 30 minutes with no minimum track requirement. Recordings (albums/singles) must be available to the public as stand-alone purchases or audio-only streams (exceptions: opera and music video/film) by Aug. 31, 2020.