The Grammy nominations for the 2018 awards have been revealed, and Swifties around the world are rejoicing that Taylor Swift has been nominated for two statues. The 27-year-old megastar — and 10-time Grammy winner — received a nod for best song written for visual media for her Fifty Shades collaboration with ZAYN, “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever,” and for best country song as writer of Little Big Town’s heartbreaking hit “Better Man.”
But while these two noms are well-deserved, they leave a question remaining for Swift’s biggest fans: Why wasn’t Reputation nominated at all?
Perhaps unknown to Swift’s fans, there’s a very simple answer that question. There was no snubbing involved on this one — Reputation wasn’t even eligible. As explained on the official Grammys website, “for the 60th Annual GRAMMY Awards, albums must be released between Oct. 1, 2016, and Sept. 30, 2017.” This means that the album’s Nov. 10 release date was more than a month after the 2017 cutoff.
Swift and fans saw a similar situation unfold when the 2015 Grammy nominations were unveiled, as her now six-time Platinum-certified album 1989 didn’t receive any nods for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards because of its Oct. 27 release date. Once 1989 was eligible, though, Swift took the 2016 Grammys by storm: The album received a total of seven nominations, earning the hardware for best music video (“Bad Blood”), best pop vocal album and of course the most prestigious award of the night, album of the year. If that’s any indication of what’s to come once Reputation is eligible, Swift fans have nothing to fear for 2019.
One thing that is fair to call a surprise in terms of Swift’s Grammy nominations this year is the fact that “Look What You Made Me Do” didn’t get any recognition as a single. There is a chance that Swift didn’t even submit it for consideration in preparation for what’s to come with the 2019 awards, but either way, Swifties were likely eager to see if her latest Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping hit would see some sort of Grammy action.
The lack of Grammy nods for Reputation is hardly indicative of the impact it’s already made on 2017, though. Swift is holding her place at the summit of the Billboard 200 albums chart for the second week in a row with Reputation, tallying nearly 1.5 million albums sold in just two weeks, and marking the year’s biggest sales week by almost 300,000 units in the set’s debut frame.
