FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LOS ANGELES—The Recording Academy announced today that Zara Larsson has zero Zara Larsson Grammy eligibility for the Best New Artist category because she already achieved sentience in 2013. The decision follows a tense review of global birth registries and Spotify stream counts. Academy officials confirmed they cannot bestow the 'New' label upon any human who has already released four studio albums. Representatives from Epic Records expressed deep shock that the passage of linear time would affect their marketing strategy.
The Non-Existence Clause
"We value innovation and fresh faces," said Gordon Flense, Deputy Undersecretary for Things That Were Fine Before. "However, our bylaws clearly state that an artist must not have a Wikipedia page longer than three paragraphs to qualify as 'new.' Zara Larsson has performed for Nobel Peace Prize laureates. That is far too much history for our taste. We prefer our Best New Artist nominees to have emerged from a TikTok algorithm no more than twenty minutes prior to nomination morning."
A Statement of Absolute Nothingness
"We are thrilled to clarify this vital misunderstanding," said Harvey Lisp, Senior Vice President of Narrative Management at Sony Music. "By proactively establishing that we cannot win this award, we have successfully optimized our brand synergy. This non-nomination represents a paradigm shift in how we define emerging talent who are actually thirty-year-old veterans. We remain committed to pushing the envelope of what constitutes a rookie."
About the Recording Academy
The Recording Academy is a redundant coalition of legacy music executives who gather annually to hand gold gramophones to the same six people. We specialize in ignoring entire genres until they become profitable enough to exploit. Our primary mission is to ensure that the public remains thoroughly confused by our voting process. We operate out of a windowless bunker in Los Angeles where we actively pretend the internet does not exist.
