Why Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ Was Not Eligible for This Year’s Grammys

When the Grammy awards aired on Sunday night, Taylor Swift took home her 12th Grammy. The singer-songwriter won the Best Music Video award for All Too Well: The Short Film. In addition to winning Best Music Video, she was nominated for Song of the Year, Best Country Song, and Best Song Written for Visual Media. As of this year’s awards show, Swift has been nominated for a staggering total of 46 Grammys.

Swift attended this year’s Grammys in a stunning royal blue dress and sat near the front of the stage, where she was spotted sweetly supporting all of her fellow singers from the audience. The camera often cut to Swift, who could be seen dancing, cheering, and toasting the winners and performers during the ceremony. Many viewers also pointed out her heartwarming support of Harry Styles throughout the night. The pair dated back in 2013, but Swift proved their break-up was water under the bridge as fans posted clips of her enthusiastically dancing and cheering when Styles was performing or accepting an award.

In another sweet moment, cameras captured Swift going over to talk to Styles after accepting the award for Album of the Year. His big win was met with mixed reactions as many viewers thought that Beyoncé should have taken home the award. During Styles’ speech, some hecklers even took to yelling Beyoncé’s name to disrupt him, which is why many viewers thought it was especially sweet of Swift to show her support for the singer after his speech.

While Swift took home an award and made her presence felt in a major way, some may have noticed that the songs from her latest album, Midnights, were missing from the Grammy nominations.

Why Taylor Swift’s Midnights wasn’t eligible for the Grammys

While Swift’s songs “All Too Well,” “Caroline,” and “I Bet You Think About Me” all received nominations, none of the songs from Midnights were nominated. Midnights has been smashing records left and right since its release on October 21, 2022. The album quickly gained critical acclaim, with 10 songs making the Billboard Hot 100. Meanwhile, Swift broke six Guinness World Records for the album, including multiple streaming records. Needless to say, if Midnights actually got snubbed at the Grammys, it would probably mean war.

The reason Midnights received no nominations is that it wasn’t eligible for the 65th Grammy Awards. For albums and songs released in 2022 to be considered for the 65th Grammys, they needed to be submitted to the Recording Academy by October 1, 2022. Swift’s album could not be submitted for consideration since its release date missed the deadline by three whole weeks.

However, fans of Swift need not worry that Midnights won’t get the attention and acclaim it deserves. Even though it was technically released in 2022, the album will be perfectly eligible for nomination at the 66th Grammy Awards in 2024. Even though it’s a year away, it will be very exciting to see how many nominations Swift receives for Midnights. Fans are especially anxious to see if she nabs another Album of the Year award. As of now, she has won the award three times and is tied with Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, and Paul Simon for winning the most Album of the Year awards. A fourth win means she will break the tie and become the artist with the most wins in that category. Sadly, we’ll have to wait another year to see Swift potentially make history.

(featured image: Jeff Kravitz, FilmMagic)