In July, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. sent a bold and striking letter to Grammy voters, reminding them that “there is no place in our organization for … bias, grudge-holding, or careless voting.”
Months later, as the 2025 Grammy nominations are revealed, he says he’s happy with the outcome.
Beyoncé leads with 11 nominations — including sweeping all four country categories — while other women dominate with nominations, including Billie Eilish, Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. Alissia even makes history as the rare female nominated for non-classical producer of the year (a woman has never won the honor).
“The academy voters showed up, they did their thing. They produced an incredible list of nominees and I’m really proud and pleased with the way they turned out for this year,” Mason jr. tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I recollect back to the times when we didn’t have the same amount of voter participation. We didn’t have the type of voters we have now.”
In 2019, the academy launched a new, community-driven membership model to help diversify its voting body — and now 66 percent of that electorate are voters who have joined in the past five years. The academy has seen a 65 percent growth in voting members who are people of color and women voting members have increased by 27 percent.
“These are the things that make us all at the academy feel that we’re headed in the right direction. There’s more balance around gender, diversity and even genre diversity, so you’re going to get some different outcomes,” he says.
In an interview, Mason jr. talks about Beyoncé, the controversial best new artist category, how Quincy Jones influenced him as a producer and the Grammys switching from CBS to ABC in 2027.
What prompted the letter you sent to Grammy voters in July?
This today prompted that, and then February 2nd [2025 Grammys live show] prompted that. We know that the results of our nominations and the outcomes for our ultimate winners are entirely driven by our voters. There’s a perception that maybe there’s the academy giving this award away or people in the back room making these decisions or committees — it’s just not how it is anymore. We have 13,000 voters, and we wanted to make sure that the voters recognize the importance of them taking the time to listen, to be thoughtful and intentional in voting and get out and make sure they participate. Because without them, we don’t get the right outcomes. Without the right membership, we don’t get the right outcomes.
So making sure that we were able to have a good conversation today instead of a bad one, and making sure that we get the right outcomes on February 2nd is really ultimately what inspired all of us — from our membership department, our awards department, all throughout the management of the academy — to make sure we’re encouraging, inspiring, motivating our members to come out and do the work and vote.
Beyoncé was heavily snubbed at the CMA Awards but swept the Grammys country categories and even got an American Roots nomination. What’s it like to see her get that recognition?
It says a lot about our voters. With our 10-3 system of voting, [a] supporter of Beyoncé is not able to just follow her around the ballot; they only have three fields they can select, so when you see somebody like Beyoncé or another artist getting nominations across multiple fields, you are realizing that it’s not the same voters voting for her. It’s different voters in different fields. So to me, it’s really impressive. I’m pleased and proud that Beyoncé is breaking new records and continues to be the icon and legend that she is.
Is this the year that Beyoncé will finally win album of the year?
Wow. You never know. I believe she has a really good one-in-eight chance. That’s the best answer I can give, only because the voters, you don’t know what they’re going to gravitate to. It is tough. Beyoncé has definitely been in the category before, [and she has] some other great competition there. But at the end of the day, the albums in that category are flat out amazing to me. I love all of them, and I’m so happy about where we are. I know somebody’s going to be mad. I know seven people won’t win, and I look forward to seeing the result.
