Grammys change rules to pretend to not know previous winners

There was some mutterings of discontent when Lady GaGa didn't win best newcomer at this year's Grammys. But there was a good reason: she'd been nominated the previous year for Just Dance, and it makes sense: you can't, surely, be a newcomer if you were a previous nominee.

Right?

However, having felt frustrated that it couldn't give GaGa a prize because of, you know, commonsense, the Grammy Academy have come up with a tortuous new rule which means they don't have to worry about continuity any more:

"More and more, the first release of a new artist is as a featured artist on someone else's album or the new artist may release a single long before the release of his/her/their entire first album," the Academy said in a statement.

"By current rules, if the other artist's album or the new artist's single receives a nomination, the new artist may never have the opportunity to compete in the best new artist category. With this change, each artist will have at least one opportunity to enter in this important and highly visible category."

The upshot of the rules means that you can still be a "newcomer" even if you've had twenty number one singles and been nominated for year after year of awards - but providing you haven't won anything, or released an album, you're still a newcomer in the Academy's eyes.

I wonder if they have the same flexible approach to virginity?