James Bay, Tori Kelly and Meghan Trainor are all reasonably popular and sufficiently talented, at least if a strong natural singing voice is still what we’re looking for in our new artists.
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Isbell, the Mavericks, Punch Brothers, and Harris and Crowell also scored nominations for Best American Roots Song along with the Don Henley and Merle Haggard collaboration “The Cost of Living” from Henley’s Cass County. However, Rihanna failed to receive any nominations at all this year.
“Butterfly”, “1989” and “Beauty Behind the Madness” will battle country singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton’s “Traveller” and rock group Alabama Shakes’ “Sound & Color” for the top prize.
The nominees for song of the year – a songwriter’s award – are “Thinking Out Loud”, “Blank Space”, “Alright” (performed by Lamar), “Girl Crush” (performed by Little Big Town) and “See You Again” (performed by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth).
Recording Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow praised the diversity of the field.
Though Lamar, Swift and the Weeknd led all artists, many in the Twitterverse wondered about the absence of the woman who just sold 4.5 million albums in two weeks: Adele. Lamar’s album, should it win, would generate 30 awards for the collective group of performers, producers and engineers who are nominated.
The Grammy Awards, now in its 58th year, will be held at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles on February 15, 2016.
That’s reflective of the broadly collaborative nature of hip-hop, which typically generates the most nominations for individual artists, who often find they are competing with themselves in some categories.
He is nominated twice in the Best Music Video category for “Bad Blood” and “Alright”, and twice for Best Rap Song for “Alright” and for his co-writing credit on Kanye West’s “All Day”.
“Blank Space” and “Thinking Out Loud” were also named in the Best Pop Solo Performance category, alongside Ellie Goulding’s “Love Me Like You Do”, The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” and Kelly Clarkson’s “Heartbeat Song”.
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That leaves the R&B-inspired country singer Sam Hunt, a true species of his era, to duke it out against the wry Australian indie rocker Courtney Barnett for a trophy that ostensibly represents the soul of the Grammys’ future. “Hamilton” did pick up a nomination for best musical theater album.
