The Battle for Best New Artist by the Numbers 

The music industry’s biggest up-and-comers battle it out each year for the coveted Best New Artist Grammy. But winning the award hasn’t always translated into sustained commercial success. Singers like Adele, Dua Lipa, and Billie Eilish have certainly followed up their wins with hit after hit on the charts. But for every Mariah Carey, there’s also an Evanescence. So what really makes a Best New Artist? 

Understanding ambiguous criteria 

Last year, the musically diverse roster of nominees up for the award included Ice Spice, Jelly Roll, Gracie Abrams, Coco Jones, Fred Again, Noah Kahan, The War and Treaty, and Victoria Monét. Ultimately, it would be R&B singer Monét delivering her acceptance speech that night, thanks to her strong debut studio album, Jaguar II, which netted her two other awards: Best R&B Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Monét also earned nominations last year for her breakthrough song, “On My Mama,” including in the Record of the Year category. 

As with most award shows, deciding who’s deserving of the title of “best” in any category can be super subjective and often controversial. And the Best New Artist nominations have routinely left viewers scratching their heads about why certain artists are included in the years that they are selected. According to the Grammys, to be recognized in the Best New Artist category, a contender “must have achieved breakthrough into the public consciousness and impacted the musical landscape during the year’s eligibility period.” That relatively broad description certainly gives music fans room to debate. 

Assessing the competitors 

Should breakthroughs be quantified by Top 10 hits in a given year? If so, then it was actually Ice Spice who would have had the edge, with three Top 10s for her singles “Karma” with pop superstar Taylor Swift, as well as “Princess Diana” and “Barbie World” with rap legend Nicki Minaj—all captured in our visual below. In fact, “Karma” peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. By contrast, Monét’s only song to make it onto the Hot 100 chart in 2023, “On My Mama,” peaked at No. 33, although it did fare better on more genre-specific charts. Like Monét, none of Ice Spice’s other fellow nominees scored Top 10s in 2023. 

As far as who’s had an enduring impact on music, it’s still too soon to tell. But we can again take a look at the Top 10s that the nominees from last year’s awards notched in 2024 to see who capitalized on their breakthrough success. Among the nominees, only two artists boasted a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2024: folk-pop singer Noah Kahan for “Stick Season,” which peaked at No. 9, and pop singer Gracie Abrams, whose song “That’s So True” climbed to No. 6. 

Notably, “Stick Season” was actually released in 2022, debuted on the Hot 100 chart in 2023 prior to the Grammys, and peaked in April of 2024. Meanwhile, Abrams’ song was the only bona fide new release to chart in the Top 10 in 2024. However, don’t count out Monét or any of the other artists just yet; they still have plenty of time to fend off criticisms of a sophomore slump.  

Forecasting a future win 

So, who will take home the honors at this year’s Grammys? That remains to be seen. But it’s clear that Billboard numbers won’t necessarily earn any of the contenders the trophy. 

That said, if the voters find themselves in alignment with the charts this year, then a safe bet would be on “Espresso” singer Sabrina Carpenter, whose three Top 10s leave her out ahead of the pack. Below, you can see her songs climbing up the charts, and with Variables, you can change the views you see:

Carpenter will have to fend off Shaboozey and his megahit “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which spent 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, tying the all-time record. Of course, rapper Doechii, pop singer Raye, and genre-bending trio Khruangbin could all follow in the footsteps of Monét and prove they don’t need a Top 10 hit to take the title. In the visual below, we visualize artist dominance in 2024, measured by how many weeks their songs collectively spent in the Billboard Hot 100.

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