Nearly every year since 1960, the Recording Academy has awarded a “Best New Artist” Grammy. There’s a phenomenon that says winning the award is a curse, so I thought I’d look at how well these winners did following their win. The simplest way to look at this seemed to me to look at whether the artist ever won another Grammy.
More about the “curse”:
>The “Grammy Best New Artist curse” refers to the belief that winning the Grammy Award for Best New Artist often leads to a decline in an artist’s career after their initial success, with many people considering it a negative sign rather than a positive accolade; essentially, the award is seen as a sign that an artist’s peak may be over very early in their career.
A couple of interesting notes:
* Hootie & The Blowfish never won another Grammy, but the singer of the group (Darius Rucker, not “Hootie”) did win one as a solo artist.
* Fun won in 2013 and never repeated, but founding member Jack Antonoff has gone on to win a bunch of Grammys as a producer or writer for other artists.
* No award was given in 1967.
* Milli Vanilli won in 1990, but had their award revoked later that year.
Dots represent wins in each segment (Female, Male, Group), with the dots on the left representing artists that went on to win another Grammy, and the right being ones that did not.
Of course not. Every artist has the challenge of the second album. You have your whole life to write the first album’s worth of songs. A year or two to make the second, and it will be judged critically
this is interesting but not beautiful and quite hard to read. are you saying that female artists are more likely to win another grammy than not to? and men / groups are more likely not to win another grammy than to win another one?
if so that took my 3-4 tries to understand
it seems more like it’s a bad thing to be male if you want to win in that category
Well I like dots but that’s where the “beautiful” part of this ends. It’s not easy to read at all.
it’s kinda meaningless without anything to compare it to.
1) if you compare it to all musicians, than winning NAotY is definitely a huge win because it is likely to win another grammy, compared to the average musician who rarely win.
2) if you compare it to other grammy winners, and how often they repeat, that would be able to make an conclusion.
Honest question: how does this include the winner from this year?
They have not had a chance to win a Grammy in a subsequent year, so I don’t know if it’s really fair to include them in the ‘never won again’ column. Yes it’s technically true, but I don’t know if it’s a meaningful data point. (I’m not saying the win was right or wrong, just that the label is misleading).
What I would be tempted to include, on each dot, is the number of years between winning for new artist and second win. For those who haven’t won, the year that they won ‘best new artist’, so it’s clear who may still have a chance and who really was a flash in the pan.
This is actually so hard to understand. This data is certainly not beautiful other than the dots are nice colours. Also there’s like no context.
The grammys don’t mean anything anymore. This is irrelevant.
It’s had a better track record lately than 70s and 80s. Although I am surprised Alessia Cara isn’t bigger by now. Scars to your beautiful was everywhere. Meghan trainor is a really underwhelming new artist too and that year was trash in general. Absolutely nowhere near the talent of someone like Sam smith, Billie Eilish or Chappell.
![[OC] Is there a Best New Artist Grammy curse?](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/k6ztj4wmuche1-1920x1024.png)
10 comments
Nearly every year since 1960, the Recording Academy has awarded a “Best New Artist” Grammy. There’s a phenomenon that says winning the award is a curse, so I thought I’d look at how well these winners did following their win. The simplest way to look at this seemed to me to look at whether the artist ever won another Grammy.
More about the “curse”:
>The “Grammy Best New Artist curse” refers to the belief that winning the Grammy Award for Best New Artist often leads to a decline in an artist’s career after their initial success, with many people considering it a negative sign rather than a positive accolade; essentially, the award is seen as a sign that an artist’s peak may be over very early in their career.
A couple of interesting notes:
* Hootie & The Blowfish never won another Grammy, but the singer of the group (Darius Rucker, not “Hootie”) did win one as a solo artist.
* Fun won in 2013 and never repeated, but founding member Jack Antonoff has gone on to win a bunch of Grammys as a producer or writer for other artists.
* No award was given in 1967.
* Milli Vanilli won in 1990, but had their award revoked later that year.
Dots represent wins in each segment (Female, Male, Group), with the dots on the left representing artists that went on to win another Grammy, and the right being ones that did not.
[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for_Best_New_Artist)
Tools: Google Sheets, Google Gemini, Figma
Of course not. Every artist has the challenge of the second album. You have your whole life to write the first album’s worth of songs. A year or two to make the second, and it will be judged critically
this is interesting but not beautiful and quite hard to read. are you saying that female artists are more likely to win another grammy than not to? and men / groups are more likely not to win another grammy than to win another one?
if so that took my 3-4 tries to understand
it seems more like it’s a bad thing to be male if you want to win in that category
Well I like dots but that’s where the “beautiful” part of this ends. It’s not easy to read at all.
it’s kinda meaningless without anything to compare it to.
1) if you compare it to all musicians, than winning NAotY is definitely a huge win because it is likely to win another grammy, compared to the average musician who rarely win.
2) if you compare it to other grammy winners, and how often they repeat, that would be able to make an conclusion.
Honest question: how does this include the winner from this year?
They have not had a chance to win a Grammy in a subsequent year, so I don’t know if it’s really fair to include them in the ‘never won again’ column. Yes it’s technically true, but I don’t know if it’s a meaningful data point. (I’m not saying the win was right or wrong, just that the label is misleading).
What I would be tempted to include, on each dot, is the number of years between winning for new artist and second win. For those who haven’t won, the year that they won ‘best new artist’, so it’s clear who may still have a chance and who really was a flash in the pan.
This is actually so hard to understand. This data is certainly not beautiful other than the dots are nice colours. Also there’s like no context.
The grammys don’t mean anything anymore. This is irrelevant.
It’s had a better track record lately than 70s and 80s. Although I am surprised Alessia Cara isn’t bigger by now. Scars to your beautiful was everywhere. Meghan trainor is a really underwhelming new artist too and that year was trash in general. Absolutely nowhere near the talent of someone like Sam smith, Billie Eilish or Chappell.
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