Every year there seems to be confusion over what the difference is between Record of the Year and Song of the Year. I’ll try to make this explanation as short and sweet as possible 🙂
Record of the year is awarded to the recording artist as well as the producer, engineers and mixers who worked behind the scenes of the recording of the song.
Song of the Year is for the songwriting (composing) aspect of the song, which is why occasionally there will be subscripts with who wrote the song included, if the recording artist did not write it themselves.
It is common that songs will be nominated in both categories and often will win both categories… hope this explanation helps make a little bit more sense 🙂