Taylor Swift isn’t vying for a Grammy nomination in any category this year. The reason, of course, is that Swift didn’t release an album, single or video in the eligibility period for the 68th annual Grammy Awards – Aug. 31, 2024 to Aug. 30, 2025. Her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, and its lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” were both released on Oct. 3, more than a month after the cut-off for the 2026 awards.
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This marks the first time Swift hasn’t been vying for a Grammy she was 17. For the Grammy ceremony in February 2007, Swift was eligible for best country song and best female country vocal performance for her first hit single, “Tim McGraw,” but she wasn’t entered in either category. (She may have still been too busy with her high school studies to have mastered the fine points of Grammy entry deadlines.)
Swift has been a nominee in all but three years since then. She wasn’t nominated at the ceremonies held in 2009, 2011 and 2017, but she had been entered in two or more categories at each of those shows.
Swift’s debut album, Taylor Swift, wasn’t nominated for best country album at the 2008 ceremony (though it was entered; the award went to Vince Gill for These Days), but every one of her regular studio albums since then has been nominated for a genre album award (best country album or best pop vocal album) and/or album of the year.
Twice, she was nominated for record of the year with the lead-off single from an upcoming studio album – “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” from Red and “Shake It Off” from 1989.
Starting with “Cardigan” from Folklore in 2020, Swift hasn’t released a lead-off single in advance of her studio albums. The lead singles from Folklore, Evermore, Midnights, The Tortured Poets Department and The Life of a Showgirl were released on the same day as the album, or even a few days after it (in the case of “Cardigan”).
Swift has won 14 Grammys, and is, famously, the only artist in Grammy history to win album of the year four times.
But Swift didn’t win the first time she was nominated for a Grammy. She lost best new artist in 2008 to the gifted but troubled Amy Winehouse. Swift did make it to the stage that year – as a presenter. She and Colombian singer Juanes co-presented the Grammy for best rap/sung collaboration, which went to Rihanna and Jay-Z for “Umbrella.” Relive that moment here:
