Could (and should) Sabrina Carpenter be a Grammy contender for Best New Artist?
2024 has been an unusual year for music breakouts. While we’ve seen a number of new artists hit the charts for the first or second time, a lot of them could potentially veer into one-hit wonder territory — where they as artists aren’t as prominent as the songs they managed to hit it big with. Looking ahead to the upcoming Grammys, this is quite an issue in the Best New Artist category, where the academy often snubs perceived one-hit wonders in favor of acts who have already demonstrated some staying power. There’s one artist, though, who has moved the public conversation this year with her breakthrough — if she’s eligible for the award.
Sabrina Carpenter has been bubbling up for a while, but she finally had a real hit in 2023 with “Nonsense.” It wasn’t really a smash, though, only peaking at number-56 on the Billboard Hot 100. Still, the song gave Carpenter a lot of buzz, especially accompanying her album “Emails I Can’t Send.” A few months later came “Feather,” which did enter the top 40 of the Hot 100 earlier this year. But her real breakthrough has been the inescapable ear-worm “Espresso,” which has so far peaked at number-four on the Hot 100 and seems to be gearing up to be the song of the summer. It has established Carpenter as a real superstar, with the song being much more than just a viral flash in the pan. The track has even been referenced by artists like Adele and Chris Martin, showing that the industry as a whole is loving it.
More from GoldDerby
The issue with Carpenter is that, while most people seem to have discovered her in the past 12 months, she is definitely not a new presence in the industry. Her debut album, “Eyes Wide Open,” was released in 2015. Since then she has released four more studio albums, all of which have charted on the Billboard 200. Should Carpenter be punished for this though? None of her albums have cracked the top 20, and two of them are borderline EPs (“Singular Act 1” and “Singular Act 2”). Plus, the Grammys did eliminate its rule about the amount of music an artist could release to qualify for BNA, pretty much leaving it up to two basic criteria: having submitted yourself to the category no more than three times, and achieving breakout success in the corresponding year, which is quite a subjective measure.
SIGN UPfor Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions
The precedent for Carpenter is Shelby Lynne, an artist who won the category in 2001 on her sixth album. Lynne was less mainstream than Carpenter, though, with none of her albums even charting before her 1999 release “I Am Shelby Lynne,” the album that eventually earned her the Grammy. That said, Carpenter is releasing her own sixth album soon, titled “Short n’ Sweet,” and like Lynne, this is the album that is likely to cement Carpenter’s star status. So, if the Recording Academy wants to make space for her, they’ve done it before.
But does Sabrina Carpenter really need to win Best New Artist? “Espresso” is already a huge hit, big enough to be competitive for wins in multiple categories. It’s a frontrunner for Best Pop Solo Performance, and if voters like it well enough it might even go all the way to being a serious contender for Record of the Year. Maybe not every artist has to be a hit-maker right from the start; a lot of artists break through after some time, and that’s fine. Some of the biggest stars in music either didn’t win or were never even nominated for Best New Artist. Plus, if Carpenter were to win, wouldn’t she just receive the same backlash that Alessia Cara got a few years ago? And Cara was still on her debut album, so her case wasn’t really as egregious as Carpenter’s would be.
In the end, if Carpenter is eligible, she will most likely go all the way to a win. But the Recording Academy should consider what exactly the category means, and whether or not it is time to reevaluate it again. Even without Carpenter, there have been winners like Megan Thee Stallion, Chance the Rapper, and Victoria Monét who were in the industry for years prior to their victories, making the category’s criteria a little murky. After all, if you can’t win Best New Artist as a truly new artist, then what’s really the point?
PREDICTthe Grammy nominations now
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify record executives and music stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where thousands of showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
Best of GoldDerby
Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.