Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” was also up for Album of the Year, as well as The Weeknd’s “Beauty Behind the Madness”. Maroon 5 is up against Florence and The Machine with ” Ship to Wreck”, Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars with “Uptown Funk”, Taylor Swift featuring Kendrick Lamar with “Bad Blood”, and Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth with “See You Again”.
Advertisement
In addition to Clarkson’s “Heartbeat Song”, the rest of the nominees for Best Pop Solo Performance are Ellie Goulding with “Love Me Like You Do”, Ed Sheeran with “Thinking Out Loud”, Swift with “Blank Space”, and The Weeknd with “Can’t Feel My Face”.
Sam Hunt, meanwhile, lands right in the middle of a competitive Best New Artist race, opposite Courtney Barnett, James Bay, Tori Kelly and Meghan Trainor.
Consider also an artist like The Weeknd, who’s nominated for seven Grammy awards in 2016.
Blake Shelton, an Ada native, and Ashley Monroe are up for best country duo/group performance for their chart-topping duet “Lonely Tonight”, from Shelton’s 2014 album “Bringing Back the Sunshine”.
The last country album to be nominated for album of the year was at the 2014 Grammys with Taylor Swift’s “Red” – which was not completely country thanks to its pop anthems such as “We Are Never Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble”.
His competition comes from Taylor Swift, whose pop smash “1989” has been nominated a year after its release.
Among this year’s other multiple Grammy nominees, producer-songwriter Max Martin, who was deeply involved in Swift’s “1989”, has six nominations, and five apiece go to Canadian rapper Drake and recording engineers Tom Coyne, Serban Ghenea and John Hanes, who are recognized for their work on record and album nominees. His “Breathless”, his first project with his E-Collective combo, is up for best jazz instrumental album. It was recently named by Spotify as its most streamed album of the year. The 2016 Grammy Awards will be doled out at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles February 15, the day before his 26 birthday.
The Grammys as an institution are ill suited to telling us much about the best music of the year.
Kendrick Lamar, who’s pictured during a performance in Cleveland, stands a good chance at winning Album of the Year at the Grammys. However, the music industry is an increasingly fickle business, and the mainstream credibility of having a Grammy-nominated song or album can go a long way to opening doors and ensuring Future’s career sustainability. That’s probably not going to happen – Kendrick Lamar is nominated in the same category and will probably take home every trophy he’s nominated for this year – but Lord, would it be sweet. Adele’s album, which has sold more than 4 million copies in just two weeks, will be in line for its share of Grammy nominations next year. The full list of nominees, across all 83 categories, is available on NARAS’ website.
Advertisement
Kylie Minogue (1 Grammy): The Queen of Pop has been a chart topper for nearly 30 years, but she nabbed her Grammy for Best Dance Recording for Come Into My World in 2003.
