Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Ke$ha and Jennifer Lopez scored some of 2011's biggest dance hits, but you won't see any of them in the Dance categories at the 2012 Grammys.
The Academy has decided to shift all of those artists to the Pop field, opening up the Dance field for DJs and more hardcore dance acts like Afrojack, Calvin Harris, Skrillex and Benny Benassi.
Though the Grammys never made an official announcement about this, several Academy members have confirmed being told about the change. The new policy is also confirmed by scanning the leaked list of 116 potential 2012 Grammy nominees for Best Dance Recording, which is missing all of those aforementioned pop stars.
Many of the songs you might have expected to see in the Dance categories - Gaga's "Judas," Spears' "Till the World Ends," Ke$ha's "We R Who We R" and Rihanna's "S&M" - were shifted to the Pop field instead.
Unfortunately, the Academy isn't being consistent with its new definition. A few less-successful dance-pop artists did manage to slip onto the list of contenders in the Dance field, including Robyn, Dev, Kat DeLuna and LMFAO.
None of these performers are as commercially successful as Gaga or Rihanna. So it seems that the new Grammy rule is that dance-pop artists are no longer eligible for the Dance categories, unless they have terrible record sales, in which case they are welcomed with open arms.
We'll find out how much of a difference the new policy makes when the 2012 Grammy nominees are announced on November 30.
