Could the lack of global groups be to blame for K-pop being absent from the 2025 Grammys? We explain why this might be.
What are the Grammy Awards?
Arguably one of the / if not the hottest night in music, the Grammy Awards celebrate the past years global music releases including upcoming artists.
Entries are submitted by record companies as well as members of the academy and are reviewed to determine eligibility and category placement. The voting members go through a series of ballots, select five nominees for each award, and ultimately the winner; the voters cast ballots only in their areas of expertise. The winners are announced during a televised ceremony, which has gained global attention in more recent years, due to the intense performances that often take place.
Why isn’t K-pop taken seriously at the Grammys?
Another spectacular year of Grammy nominations, and another year of K-pop fans having to deal with the fact that none of their favorite K-pop performers made it into the nominations list.
This is surprising as solo artists like Jungkook, RM and Jimin who are all members of the global K-pop band BTS were all eligible to be nominated at the 2025 Grammys, but instead they were ignored when the nominations were announced back in November 2024. So this leads to the question, why isn't K-pop taken seriously at the Grammys?
One of the possible reasons why there were no K-pop nominations this year, is due to the lack of K-pop groups with the same scale of global dominance as BTS once had. K-pop has become a vast machine with many groups debuting weekly, so this could be one of the reasons why there were no K-pop performers this year.
The Billboard charts, also included BLACKPINK’s Lisa on the snub list, stating that had she been nominated for Best New Artist, she would have been the first K-pop artist in that category. Despite BLACKPINK’s massive global success, they have yet to receive a Grammy nomination, which is surprising to say the least.
K-pop performers have been nominated before
In the past artists including Jungkook, RM, and Jimin are all prior Grammy nominees as members of the aforementioned world-renowned group BTS.
But that is the only K-Pop contender to ever be recognized for music’s biggest honor. The boy band earned bids for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance (“Dynamite”) in 2021, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance (“Butter”) in 2022, and Best Music Video (“Yet To Come”), Best Pop Duo/Group Performance (“My Universe” with Coldplay), and Album Of The Year (“Music Of The Spheres” with Coldplay) in 2023.
Since K-pop has been snubbed from the 2025 Grammys, do you think this will shake the K-pop industry into focusing on more global exports?
Let us know your reasons as to why you think K-pop was absent from this years Grammy's in the comments below.
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