Earlier this month, Michael made box-office history by crossing the $1 billion mark globally, surpassing Oppenheimer to become the highest grossing biopic of all time, as well as the highest-grossing live-action musical film of all time. But while the real Michael Jackson won 13 Grammys in his lifetime, the Michael soundtrack — despite being the biggest of the year and a seeming slam-dunk for the Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media Grammy — won't add another statuette to the collection for one simple reason.

It's not Grammy-eligible.

Since the category's inception in 2000, the Grammy has gone to several musical biopics, including those for the likes of Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Leonard Bernstein, and Glen Campbell. But a close read of the rulebook reveals why the Michael compilation is disqualified from competing.

According to the 69th Grammy Awards Rules & Guidelines, biopics and musical documentaries “must contain 50% or more of newly recorded music.” The songs themselves do not need to be entirely new, but at least half of the record needs to include either re-recorded or remixed work. This rule prevented Bohemian Rhapsody, which held the record as the biggest musical biopic of all time before Michael, from contending. Rami Malek mostly lip-synched the Queen songs, with just a few of his vocals added in the film's sound mix. The accompanying soundtrack, though, is 100% Freddie Mercury. Similarly, Jafaar Jackson and Juliano Valdi, who play adult and kid MJ in the blockbuster, respectively, did sing some parts in the movie, but are not present in the official soundtrack album available on digital streaming platforms.

If the Michael soundtrack album had instead featured reimaginations of Jackson’s iconic discography, it would be the no-doubt front-runner for the award. In the 26 years of the Compilation Soundtrack category’s existence, 18 biopics about musical artists have been nominated, many using different techniques in order to qualify. Before the 2018 Grammys, any compilation soundtrack was eligible, regardless of whether it was new or old recordings. This allowed nominations for the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton, Get on Up: The James Brown Story, Glen Campbell’s I’ll Be Me, Miles Davis’ Miles Ahead, and Ray Charles’ Ray, among others. (The last three ended up winning the award.) It's likely that Miles Ahead was the tipping point in the decision to add the rule requiring 51% of new material, since the change took effect just months after that film soundtrack received the Grammy.

Some soundtracks forgo the original artists' performances and instead use covers by the film actors, most recently A Complete Unknown featuring Timothée Chalamet singing as Bob Dylan. The previous year, Bradley Cooper and Yannick Nézet-Séguin won the award in a similar fashion, for directing renditions of Leonard Bernstein’s catalog with the performances of the London Symphony Orchestra. Others nominees in this vein have included Beyond the Sea (Kevin Spacey covering Bobby Darin), Rocketman (Taron Egerton covering Elton John), Respect (Jennifer Hudson covering Aretha Franklin), The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Andra Day covering Billie Holiday) and Walk the Line (Joaquin Phoenix covering Johnny Cash), with the last two actually winning.

Then there are examples like Elvis, where the album consists of some hit recordings from Presley, as well as remixed versions and fully original songs inspired by the film, like the hit “Vegas” by Doja Cat, and an anomaly like Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, in which Yankovic himself re-recorded his hits instead of star Daniel Radcliffe.