What is country music? That was something The Recording Academy hadn’t needed to explain in nearly 50 years of awarding the genre best album prizes. “If you heard country and you knew it was country, it was country,” says senior vp awards Bill Freimuth. But two years ago, amid the dissolving boundaries of roots and Americana, the academy-appointed country committee wanted clarification. Now country, as a Grammys genre, abides by a written definition.
This year, Don Henley’s Cass County, released Sept. 30 in time for eligibility, tested that line: Both Americana and country claimed the record, which features performers like Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard; and during the academy’s annual screening process, both committees meticulously made cases for why each one of the album’s 12 songs swayed the title in their favor. “Then we played through every single track of the album,” says Freimuth. Ultimately, Americana won.
As genre becomes an increasingly fluid conceit, Freimuth anticipates other fields following suit. Rock, R&B and rap are currently not defined.