Harry Styles’ Biggest Grammy Win May Help Him Follow Billie Eilish’s Lead

Harry Styles’ New Album Isn’t Another Harry’s House

Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and gave Styles yet another blockbuster opening. Lead single “Aperture” also launched atop the Billboard Hot 100, while “American Girls” became one more top five hit.

The album is unquestionably a commercial success, but Harry’s House was much grander. That collection also started at No. 1, earned stronger reviews overall and produced “As It Was,” which spent 15 weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

By the time Grammy nominations arrived, Harry’s House felt like an obvious Album of the Year contender. Whether Styles would actually win was another question, but leaving him out of the field would have been surprising.

The situation is different this time around. Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally has done plenty to justify Grammy attention, and the Best Pop Vocal Album category seems like a natural destination considering both Fine Line and Harry’s House competed in the same space, but Album of the Year is the more interesting proposition.

Most Album Of The Year Winners Don’t Immediately Return

Historically, winning Album of the Year has not guaranteed that an artist’s next project will receive the same recognition. Looking at 20 reasonably comparable winner-to-next-album cycles since 2000, only six follow-ups returned to Album of the Year. That works out to just 30%.

There are plenty of famous examples of artists failing to make it back immediately. Taylor Swift won with Fearless, but Speak Now missed out on Album of the Year. She later claimed the trophy again with 1989, only for Reputation to be left out of the category as well.

Mumford & Sons followed victorious Babel with Wilder Mind, which went unheralded. Kacey Musgraves won the prize with Golden Hour, but Star-Crossed did not compete for the top honor. U2, Beck, Arcade Fire and several other past champions have experienced the same thing. For most of this century, winning once has not meant voters automatically bring an artist back – but that pattern has shifted dramatically in the past several years.

Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift Changed the Pattern

Beginning with the 2019 Grammys, the Album of the Year vertical expanded from five nominees to eight. The field briefly included 10 spots, before settling back at eight. That gives major artists more room to find their way back to the field without having to compete in an exceptionally narrow lineup. Since then, however, something resembling an incumbent advantage has developed.

Among the five Album of the Year winners from 2019 through 2024 whose next studio albums have already gone before Grammy voters, four returned to the category. Billie Eilish followed her victorious When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? with an Album of the Year nomination for Happier Than Ever. Swift’s Evermore quickly came to the category after its predecessor and companion project Folklore claimed the race – and The Tortured Poets Department did the same after Midnights. Jon Batiste also bounced back with World Music Radio after shocking the music industry by winning for We Are.

Musgraves is the lone miss in that recent group. The success rate for winners to score another Album of the Year nomination has jumped from 30% when looking back a quarter-century to 80% among those more recently completed cycles – those that took place in only the past half-decade-plus.

Harry Styles May Benefit From An Incumbent Advantage

Some of that change is probably simple mathematics. Eight nomination slots make it easier to keep rewarding familiar favorites than the old five-title field did, but voters also seem increasingly willing to continue relationships with artists they have already elevated to Grammy royalty.

Eilish and Swift were counted among the world’s most successful artists before and after they won, and their re-nominations were no surprise. Batiste’s initial inclusion was impressive, and his follow-up perhaps even more so.

Styles already had a healthy Grammy relationship before Harry’s House. Fine Line earned multiple nominations, and the single “Watermelon Sugar” gave him his first win. Then Harry’s House brought the singer half a dozen nominations and victories for both Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album.

Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally does not look quite as unavoidable as its predecessor, and history shows that a previous win guarantees nothing – but recent numbers tell a story that may help Styles when nominations are revealed in November.

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