68th Annual Grammy Awards


The 68th Annual Grammy Awards honored the best recordings, compositions, and artists from August 31, 2024, to August 30, 2025, as chosen by the members of the Recording Academy, on February 1, 2026. In its 23rd year at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles and for the very last time, the ceremony was broadcast on CBS and available to stream on Paramount+. South African comedian Trevor Noah hosted the ceremony for the sixth consecutive and final time.
Kendrick Lamar was the night's biggest winner for the second consecutive year with five wins, including a second consecutive Record of the Year win with "Luther" and a sweep in the Rap categories, winning Best Rap Album for GNX. His fourth five-win Grammy night in his career, Lamar surpassed Jay-Z to become the most-awarded hip-hop artist in Grammy Awards history. Bad Bunny followed him with three wins, including Album of the Year for Debí Tirar Más Fotos, becoming the first Spanish-language album to receive the honor. Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas won Song of the Year for "Wildflower", becoming the most-awarded artists in the category in Grammy Awards history with three wins each. Eilish's win also tied her with Adele for the most wins in the General Field by a female artist, with seven each. Olivia Dean won Best New Artist, the ninth woman in a row to win the award and the first British winner since Dua Lipa in 2019, while Tyler, The Creator's Chromakopia and Zach Top's Ain't in It for My Health took home the inaugural Best Album Cover and Best Traditional Country Album awards. "Golden" from KPop Demon Hunters won Best Song Written For Visual Media, becoming the first K-pop song to win a Grammy award in any category.
Steven Spielberg won Best Music Film for his role in producing Music by John Williams. Though industry sources claim this win made him the 22nd person to achieve EGOT status, this claim is disputed; he is not credited in Tony Award records as a winning producer of the musical A Strange Loop at the 75th Tony Awards, but one source claims he nonetheless received a Tony statuette in that capacity, and he is listed as a producer of A Strange Loop in the Internet Broadway Database. Lamar led the Grammy Awards with nine nominations, while Jack Antonoff, Cirkut and Lady Gaga followed with seven nominations each.

Background

On June 12, 2025, the Recording Academy announced several changes for different categories and updates on eligibility rules for the 2026 ceremony.

Category changes

  • Two new categories – Best Traditional Country Album and Best Album Cover, for 95 categories total.
  • Best Country Album was renamed Best Contemporary Country Album.
  • Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package was merged back into the Best Recording Package category.

    Criteria amendments

  • Artists who were previously featured on a record nominated for Album of the Year are now eligible to be nominated for Best New Artist if their contributions to the album were 20 percent or less.
  • Composers and lyricists/librettists are now eligible for Grammy recognition in selected categories in the Classical Field. Previously, only the album's artist/s, producers, and engineers would receive recognition.
  • The maximum number of principal vocalist who may be awarded in the Best Musical Theater Album category is increased from four to six.
  • The physical product eligibility requirement for Best Recording Package, Best Album Notes, and Best Historical Album has been expanded to be more representative of today's marketplace to ensure that physical album packages sold directly to fans through an artist's or label's website are now eligible for Grammy consideration.
  • The Craft Committee serving the Package, Notes & Historical field is switching from a regional to a national model.
  • Minor description updates to the Best Regional Roots Music Album, Best Progressive R&B Album, Best Dance Pop Recording, Best American Roots Performance, and Best American Roots Song categories.

    Membership amendments

  • 3,800 new music creators and professionals were invited to join the Recording Academy. Of these, 50% were age 39 or younger, 58% were people of color, and 35% identified as women.
  • On November 4, 2025, it was announced that, for the first time in Grammy history, members who vote for the Latin Grammy Awards were invited to join the Recording Academy. As a result, 28% of all new members in 2025 identified as Hispanic or Latino.

    Process amendments

  • The 2026 Grammy ballots will be presented in a randomized order for the first time, rather than in alphabetical order. Of the change, chief awards and global industry officer for the Recording Academy Ruby Marchand stated, "this ballot update brings our process in line with standard voting best practices... and further ensures the process is fair and equitable for all entries." It was speculated that the change was implemented to encourage voters to familiarize themselves with the entire ballot rather than defaulting to favorite artists/work, and to prevent artists who are listed first alphabetically from having an unfair advantage.

    Performers

Premiere ceremony

Premiere ceremony performers were announced on January 28, 2026.
ArtistSong
Israel Houghton
Grace Potter
Lila Iké
Maggie Rose
Trombone Shorty		"Shining Star"
Zara Larsson"Midnight Sun"
Spiritbox"Soft Spine"
Tasha Cobbs Leonard"Church"
Darren Criss
Helen J. Shen
Will Aronson		"Maybe Happy Ending"

Main ceremony

was announced as the first performer on January 20, 2026. On January 21, all eight nominees for Best New Artist were announced as performers. Clipse and Pharrell Williams were announced on January 22. Justin Bieber and the in memoriam performers were announced on January 28. Lady Gaga, Rosé and Tyler, the Creator were announced the following day. Bruno Mars was announced on January 30.
ArtistSong
Rosé
Bruno Mars		"APT."
Sabrina Carpenter"Manchild"
The Marías
Addison Rae
Katseye
Leon Thomas
Alex Warren
Lola Young
Olivia Dean
Sombr		Best New Artist medley
"No One Noticed"
"Fame Is a Gun"
"Gnarly"
"Mutt"
"Ordinary"
"Messy"
"Man I Need"
"12 to 12"
Justin Bieber"Yukon"
Lady Gaga"Abracadabra"
Bruno Mars
The Hooligans		"I Just Might"
Tyler, the Creator
Regina King		"Thought I Was Dead"
"Sugar on My Tongue"
Reba McEntire
Brandy Clark
Lukas Nelson		In Memoriam
"Trailblazer"
Post Malone
Duff McKagan
Slash
Chad Smith
Andrew Watt		Tribute to Ozzy Osbourne
"War Pigs"
Lauryn Hill
Lucky Daye
Raphael Saadiq
Anthony Hamilton
Leon Thomas
Bilal
Alexia Jayy
Jon Batiste
Leon Bridges
Lalah Hathaway
October London
John Legend
Chaka Khan
Wyclef Jean		Tribute to D'Angelo and Roberta Flack
"Nothing Even Matters"
"Brown Sugar"
"Lady"
"Devil's Pie"
"Another Life"
"Untitled "
"Africa"
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"
"Compared to What"
"The Closer I Get to You"
"Where Is the Love"
"Feel Like Makin' Love"
"Killing Me Softly with His Song"
"Killing Me Softly"
"Total Praise"
Clipse
Pharrell Williams
Voices of Fire		"So Far Ahead"

Additionally, the music video for "The Great Divide" by Noah Kahan, which was sponsored by Mastercard, premiered during a commercial break in the broadcast.

Presenters

was announced as the host of the Premiere Ceremony at the Peacock Theater on February 1, 2026, alongside the list of other presenters and performers. Doechii and Harry Styles were announced as the first set of presenters for the main ceremony. The rest of the presenters were anounced on January 29, 2026.
Premiere ceremony
Main ceremony
First round voting took place from October 3 to 15, 2025. The nominees were announced by Angélique Kidjo, Brandi Carlile, CeCe Winans, Chappell Roan, David Foster, Doechii, Dr. Chelsey Green, Gayle King, Jon Batiste, Karol G, Little Big Town, Lizzo, Masaki Koike, Mumford & Sons, Nicole Scherzinger, Sabrina Carpenter, and Sam Smith on November 7 in a livestream on the official Grammy YouTube channel. Final round voting took place from December 12, 2025, to January 5, 2026. Winners were revealed during the Grammy Premiere Ceremony and telecast on February 1.
Winners are listed first and highlighted in bold.

General Field

Pop & Dance/Electronic

Rock, Metal & Alternative

R&B, Rap & Spoken Word Poetry

Jazz, Traditional Pop, Contemporary Instrumental & Musical Theater

Country & American Roots

Gospel & Contemporary Christian

Latin, Global, African, Reggae & New Age, Ambient or Chant

Children's, Comedy, Audio Book Narration & Storytelling, Visual Media & Music Video/Film

Production, Engineering, Composition & Arrangement

Classical

Special Merit Awards

MusiCares Person of the Year

is a charity award celebrating an artist's creative achievements and their dedication to philanthropy.
The following received multiple nominations:
;9 nominations
;7 nominations
;6 nominations
;5 nominations
;4 nominations
;3 nominations

5 wins

The In Memoriam section began with two video tributes: One to Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, narrated by Bruce Springsteen; and the other to Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead, narrated by John Mayer.
The In Memoriam photo montage began with Reba McEntire performing a reworked version of her song "Trailblazer," accompanied by Brandy Clarke and Lucas Nelson, during the In Memoriam photo montage. At Ozzy Osbourne's photo, the musical tribute transitioned to Post Malone, Slash and Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses, and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing Black Sabbath's "War Pigs".
At D'Angelo's photo, Lauryn Hill began performing her song, "Nothing Even Matters," which featured D'Angelo, accompanied by The Vanguard. She was joined by Lucky Daye, Leon Thomas, and Jon Batiste for a medley of D'Angelo's "Brown Sugar" and "Devil’s Pie". This performance continued into the Roberta Flack tribute with John Legend and Chaka Kahn performing her song "Where Is the Love?" followed by "Killing Me Softly With His Song," which included parts of The Fugees' cover.
The final tribute was a video dedicated to Sly Stone, narrated by Chaka Kahn.
The following individuals were included in the montage:
Additional In Memoriam photos were displayed after further performances, which included Mark Volman, Sly Dunbar, Jack DeJohnette, and David Johansen.