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“A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in
any category,” they said, under new “Artificial Intelligence (AI) Protocols”
released Friday.
The rule was set following the semiannual academy’s board of
trustees meeting last month, where it was determined that work that features
elements of AI are eligible, as long as a human creator is responsible for a
“meaningful” contribution to the music and/or lyrics.
“The human authorship component of the work submitted must
be meaningful,” the new requirements read in part.
The news arrives shortly after Paul McCartney announced on
Tuesday that a forthcoming “last Beatles record” had been composed using
artificial intelligence by extracting John Lennon’s voice from an old demo. At
the time, he described AI as “kind of scary but exciting,” adding: “We will
just have to see where that leads.”
In addition to the AI rule, the Recording Academy announced
that there have been swift changes made to other categories: now, to win a
nomination for the album of the year category, a music creator has to account
for at least 20% of the work. That includes all credited artists, featured
artists, songwriters, producers, engineers, mixers and mastering engineers, and
differs from a decision made in 2021, which allowed anyone who worked on the
album to receive a nomination.
The number of those eligible in the “Big Four” categories —
best new artists as well as album, song, and record of the year — has been
decreased from 10 to eight nominees.
Previously, to be nominated for the “best music film”
category, 50% of the documentary footage had to be performance based. The
Recording Academy has lifted that requirement.
The change better reflects the evolution of the music doc
format, often a collection of verité and archival footage, like Apple TV’s
“Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry”. Biopics and dramatic feature
films are still ineligible.
Also eligible: “Music-focused and individual music videos
that together create a visual album (if videos are packaged and entered
together as one cohesive film),” evidence of a trend spearheaded by Beyoncé’s
2016 “Lemonade” film, and explored across genres, like in Halsey’s 2021 “If I
Can’t Have Love, I Want Power.”
The Recording Academy also announced that the best
improvised jazz solo award has been renamed best jazz performance, and best
regional Mexican music album (including Tejano) has been renamed best música
Mexicana album (including Tejano). To qualify in the latter category, 50% of
the lyrics must be sung in Spanish, or the majority of the musical content must
reflect a traditional style of Mexican music, like banda, norteño, corridos,
gruperos, mariachi, rancheros, sierreño, jarocho, huasteco and huapango.
Those changes follow the addition of three new categories,
announced on Tuesday: best pop dance recording, best African music performance,
and best alternative jazz album.