The US Grammy Awards will add the category "Best Asian Pop Performance", a move seen as a recognition of the global influence of Asian music after years of Grammy criticism for favoring English-speaking artists and slow adaptation to new trends.
For Korea, the Asian pop category is a noteworthy piece of good news. Because for many years, BTS and many other K-pop artists (Korean pop music) have topped Billboard charts and sold out tickets in world tours, but the Grammys are still a stage they have not been able to conquer.
A representative of the K-pop company shared with Korea Times: "Now there is finally an category for K-pop artists to be officially recognized, which opens up opportunities for more artists to participate in the race than before".
This person added: "In K-pop, awards are synonymous with the level of presence. As more and more K-pop artists qualify for a Grammy nomination, they will also have more opportunities to participate and perform on one of the biggest stages in the music industry. This is an opportunity to expand K-pop's presence in the global music industry.
Industry experts also believe that this change reflects the reality of the increasingly diverse digital music market, as the US Academy of Recording - the Grammy organizer - is relaxing participation criteria in many major categories.
They see this as a sign that the mainstream music scene cannot continue to ignore the global rise of Asian music, led by K-pop, as well as the diversification trend of the pop music industry.
Innovation or Grammy's trick?
Although the Grammys having an additional category on Asian pop music is a good sign, it must be recognized that other awards have gone ahead of the Grammys in recognizing K-pop.
The MTV Video Music Awards has established the "Best K-pop Artist" category since 2019. The American Music Awards added the "Most Favorite K-pop Artist" category in 2022, while the Billboard Music Awards introduced 4 categories related to K-pop in 2023, including "Top Global K-pop Artist".
Reactions to the new category of Asian pop music of the Grammys are quite mixed. Some see this as a stable door for Asian artists to enter the Grammys, while others worry that it may inadvertently push them out of the main categories of the award.
Music critic Jung Min Jae commented: "The influence of K-pop and other Asian music genres in North America is growing, and the attempt to accommodate both J-pop (Japan) and C-pop (China) into K-pop seems to have created a trick of merging everything under the label of "Asia".
However, merging music from many Asian countries that do not have many similarities into a common category will certainly cause controversy.
The Grammy story of K-pop is associated with BTS in the period 2021-2023, when the group received 3 consecutive nominations thanks to global hits such as "Dynamite" and "Butter", but all returned empty-handed.
But recently, K-pop is really entering the mainstream global music flow. Rosé (Blackpink) received 3 nominations for the song "APT." in collaboration with Bruno Mars at the 2026 Grammys. Although she did not win, she still made history as the first K-pop artist to be nominated in the 2 biggest categories of the Grammys.
Singer-songwriter EJAE, who composed and performed "Golden", then won the "Best Song Written for Visual Media" award, becoming the first Grammy winner to have a connection to K-pop.
