K-pop group BTS announced Wednesday that it will not submit its music for the 2027 Grammys in co-ordinated Instagram posts shared on each of the seven members’ accounts.
“We have decided not to submit our music to the Grammys this year. We hope music can be heard and loved as music itself, rather than being divided by region or language. Thank you to ARMY and everyone who has always been with us,” a translated version of the statement reads, according to The Associated Press.
The announcement follows a nearly four-year hiatus while members completed their mandatory military service, and a record-breaking return, with the band’s fifth studio album Arirang topping the Billboard 200 after achieving the largest first-week sales of the year.
Their album also broke records on Spotify, becoming the most-streamed album debut of 2026, according to Variety, setting Grammy buzz in motion.
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Last week, Forbes published a story suggesting the band could have its biggest Grammy year yet thanks to Arirang and the introduction of a new Best Asian Pop Music Performance category announced last month by the Recording Academy.
The album’s lead single, Swim, which went to number one in the U.S., was also a predicted contender for song of the year; however, it would have been excluded from the Asian pop category because its lyrics are in English. The category specifies that nominated songs have to include “meaningful use of one or more Asian languages.”
More than 80 per cent of the lyrics on Arirang are sung in English, the BBC reported.
BTS’s statement outlining its decision not to submit its music for 2027 was written in Korean.
The introduction of the new award category led to suggestions that, instead of celebrating Asian artists, it sets them apart and moves the goalpost ahead of a year when BTS seemed poised to win in established categories.
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said the Recording Academy’s decision to introduce new awards spoke to “the breadth of today’s music industry and the many genres, crafts and creators shaping it.”
“We’re excited to see these updates come to life in the year ahead as we celebrate the music people who are driving music forward,” he continued.
BTS has never won a Grammy, though it has been nominated for five: three times in the best pop duo/group performance category as well as album of the year (for its contributions to Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres) and best music video for Yet to Come, and was the first ever K-pop band to receive a nomination.
No K-pop act had ever won a Grammy before this year, when Golden from the Netflix animated film KPop Demon Hunters took home the trophy for best song for visual media.
It capped a highly visible night for K-pop at the Grammys — an institution where the genre has long been undercelebrated despite its massive international following.
— with files from The Associated Press
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