The Grammy Award for Album of the Year is an award presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales, chart position, or critical reception."^[1] Commonly known as "The Big Award," Album of the Year is the most prestigious award category at the Grammy Awards, and is one of the four general field categories alongside Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Song of the Year that have been presented annually since the 1st Annual Grammy Awards in 1959. Taylor Swift is the most frequent winner of the award with four wins and also the most nominated woman in the category with six nominations.

Over the years, the rules on who was presented with an award have changed:

• 1959–1965: Artist only.
• 1966–1998: Artist and producer.
• 1999–2002: Artist, producer, and recording engineer or mixer.
• 2003–2017: Artist, featured artist, producer, mastering engineer, and recording engineer or mixer.
• 2018–2020: Artist, featured artist, producer, songwriter (of new material), mastering engineer, and recording engineer or mixer (only those who were credited on at least 33% playing time of the album)
• 2021–2023: Artist, featured artist, producer, songwriter (of new material), mastering engineer, and recording engineer or mixer (regardless of credited playing time)
• 2024–future: Artist, featured artist, producer, songwriter (of new material), mastering engineer, and recording engineer or mixer (only those who were credited on at least 20% playing time of the album)

The category expanded to include eight nominees in 2019^[2] and ten in 2022.^[3] Beginning with the 2024 ceremony, the number of nominees has been reduced back to eight.^[4]

Album of the Year is awarded for a whole album, and the award is presented to the artist, featured artist, producer, songwriter, mastering engineer, and recording engineer or mixer with significant contributions to that album. The similarly titled Record of the Year is awarded for a single or for one track from an album. This award goes to the artist, producer, mastering engineer, and recording engineer or mixer for that song.^[5]

Şerban Ghenea (as engineer/mixer) is the most frequent winner in this category with five awards. Taylor Swift (as performer); John Hanes (as engineer/mixer); and Tom Coyne and Randy Merrill (as mastering engineers) have won the award four times.^[6] They are followed by Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, and Paul Simon (as performers); Jack Antonoff, David Foster, Daniel Lanois, Phil Ramone, and Ryan Tedder (as album producers); Tom Elmhirst and Mike Piersante and Laura Sisk (as engineers/mixers); and Bob Ludwig (as mastering engineer) with three victories each. Coyne, Ghenea, Hanes, and Ludwig are the only people to win the award in three consecutive years. Paul McCartney leads all performers with nine nominations: five as a member of The Beatles, three for solo albums, and one as a member of Wings. Sinatra leads solo performers with eight nominations: seven for solo albums and one for a duet album. Barbra Streisand and Taylor Swift have the most nominations amongst female artists with six each.^[7][8]

The first woman to win the award was Judy Garland in 1962, for Judy at Carnegie Hall. Taylor Swift is the first solo female artist to win the award two, three, and four times. Lauryn Hill, Norah Jones and Alison Krauss each won twice, first as lead artists for their respective albums, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Come Away with Me and Raising Sand (Krauss' collaboration album with Robert Plant); Hill won her second Album of the Year as a producer of her collaboration on Santana's Supernatural (featured artists on non-soundtrack albums did not share in the award before 2008), while Jones won again as a featured artist on Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters, and Krauss one again having been a featured artist on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Soundtrack.

Billie Eilish is the youngest main credit artist to win in the category, winning for her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? in 2020 at age 18. The Peasall Sisters, Sarah, Hannah and Leah, are the category's youngest credited winners, winning for their contributions to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Soundtrack at ages 13, 9, and 7 respectively. Leah Peasall is the youngest winner of any Grammy in any category.^[9] The youngest person to make an appearance on an Album of the Year is Stevie Wonder's daughter Aisha Morris, who appeared as an infant for "Isn't She Lovely?" on the album Songs in the Key of Life.^[10]

Christopher Cross and Billie Eilish are the only artists to receive Grammys for Album of the Year as well as Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist, each winning all four "general field" categories in a single, ceremony year. Adele was the first artist to have won awards for Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist on separate occasions. Five artists have won both Album of the Year and Best New Artist in the same year: Bob Newhart (The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart in 1961), Lauryn Hill (The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1999), and Norah Jones (Come Away with Me in 2003) along with Christopher Cross (Christopher Cross in 1981) and Billie Eilish (When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? in 2020) mentioned above.

Frank Sinatra's Come Dance with Me! was the first album by a traditional pop artist to win, Stan Getz's & João Gilberto's Getz/Gilberto was the first by jazz artists, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first by rock and roll artists, Glen Campbell's By the Time I Get to Phoenix was the first by a country artist, Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was the first by a hip hop artist, Arcade Fire's The Suburbs was the first by indie rock artists, and Daft Punk's Random Access Memories was the first by electronic music artists.

Only Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder have won in two consecutive years as main artists: Sinatra won in 1966 (September of My Years) and 1967 (A Man and His Music) and Wonder won in 1974 (Innervisions) and 1975 (Fulfillingness' First Finale). Lauryn Hill and Bruno Mars have also won in consecutive years, with one win credited as producer rather than artist. Hill won as a producer in 2000 after winning in 1999 as artist and producer. Bruno Mars won as a producer in 2017 before winning as both artist and producer in 2018.

The Beatles were the first and only artists to date to receive Album of the Year nominations in five consecutive years (1966–1970). Frank Sinatra was the first to receive four nominations in consecutive years, 1959 - 1961 (two nomiations at the first ceremony in 1959), receiving 3 more consecutive nominations for 1966–1968. Barbra Streisand (1964–1967)^[11] and Kendrick Lamar (2016–2019) also received nominations in four consecutive years while Lady Gaga (2010–2012) was nominated in three consecutive years.

Billy Joel and Kendrick Lamar are the only performers with Album of the Year nominations for four consecutive studio albums, while The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Bonnie Raitt, Dixie Chicks, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Adele, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift each received nominations for three consecutive studio albums.

Stevie Wonder and Adele are the only artists to win the award for consecutive studio albums in this category, winning for Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life; and 21 and 25, respectively.

Quincy Jones, Lauryn Hill and Bruno Mars are the only performers to win the award both as main-credit artists and as record producers, winning as lead artists for their albums Back on the Block, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and 24K Magic, and as producers for Thriller by Michael Jackson, Supernatural by Santana, and 25 by Adele, respectively. Mars' work on the album 25 is credited under his production team name The Smeezingtons.

To date, there have been four "live" albums to win the award: Judy at Carnegie Hall, The Concert for Bangladesh, and two MTV Unplugged albums (Eric Clapton's and Tony Bennett's), which were performed in front of a small live audience. One television soundtrack recording,The Music from Peter Gunn, has won. Two comedy albums have also won this category: The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart and The First Family.

From 1995 to 2021, members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences nominated their choices for album of the year. A list of the top twenty records was given to the Nominations Review Committee, a specially selected group of anonymous members, who then selected the top five records to gain a nomination in the category in a special ballot.^[14] The rest of the members then voted on a winner from the five nominees.^[15] In 2018, it was announced the number of nominated albums would be increased to eight.^[16] In 2021, it was announced that the Nomination Review Committees would be disbanded, and the final nominees for album of the year would be decided by votes from members.^[17] Starting in 2022, the number of nominees in the category increased to 10.^[18] However, the decision to expand the number of nominees in this category was made 24 hours before the nominees were announced after an early version of the nominations list had already been circulated. This allowed Taylor Swift's Evermore and Kanye West's Donda to be nominated as they were the albums that received the highest number of votes besides the other eight nominees.^[19] As of the 2024 ceremony, the number of nominees has been reduced back to eight.^[4]