The 2026 Grammy nominations have arrived, and alongside the deserving nominees, there are some less-than-deserving snubs.
This year’s shortlists — taken from albums and songs released within the eligibility period of August 31st, 2024, to August 30th, 2025 — is, for the most part, an undeniably talented and worthy list of artists working at the top of their game. Tyler, the Creator and Kendrick Lamar are swimming in nominations, with Lady Gaga, Sabrina Carpenter, Bad Bunny, and the ever-ubiquitous producer Jack Antonoff also accruing some major nods.
But with such limited selections for each category, it begs the obvious question: Who got snubbed? It’s always fascinating to see how the Recording Academy’s preferences play out with these categories, as a lot of the year’s best music often slips under the radar simply for the fact that it didn’t reach the desired audience. Sure, Cameron Winter’s Heavy Metal was an indie favorite over the last year, but can you really blame the Recording Academy for not being keyed in on the hype?
On the other hand, this year’s nomination list is actually omitting quite a few ultra-popular artists that you might expect to have massive Grammys success in 2026. Alex Warren got a nod for Best New Artist, but his ubiquitous slog “Ordinary” was (appropriately) shut out from the major song categories. No love for Benson Boone either, who backflipped his way through last year’s ceremony. Plus, you’d think that when scrolling the master list of nominees you’d see the names “Gracie Abrams” and “Role Model” on there, but nope, neither of them are nominated. To us, these aren’t snubs, because, well, their music is just fine.
There are, however, a few surprising misses, especially given how some of these snubbed artists were honored in certain categories. Dijon, FKA twigs, Miley Cyrus, and Perfume Genius received welcome nods, but not exactly in the categories we’d put them in.
Read on for our list of the 10 biggest snubs from this year’s Grammy nominations, and see a full list of the nominees in all major categories here.