Song of the Year: Lamar’s “Alright” is up against Swift’s “Blank Space”, Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush”, Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again”, and Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”. The hip-hop star picked up five nominations, including best rap song (“Energy”) and best rap album (“If Youre Reading This Its Too Late”).
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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. The presentation of that award was untelevised, and the lack of airing led to a boycott of the Grammy event by the award winners themselves and others who also felt that more qualified artists were overlooked in the nomination process. One is in the category of Album of the Year for “Sound & Color” by the rock band Alabama Shakes. The other is in the category of Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, for the same album. To Pimp a Butterfly and Beauty Behind the Madness, The Weeknd’s sophomore work, were also in contention for Album of the Year.
Swift’s move from country to pop earned her latest album “1989” seven nominations.
The Grammys could be so much more than it is; the music industry is as large as its ever been, but the recording industry, which the Grammys specifically is meant to celebrate, is receding.
“There’s a broad spectrum and certainly it shows there’s been quite a bit of wonderful and excellent recordings in the past year”, Recording Academy CEO Neil Portow said in an interview with The Associated Press.
For the most part, that’s where this year’s Grammys stop being interesting, because Taylor Swift follows Lamar with seven nominations for “1989”, possibly the most over-hyped collection of well-produced musical mediocrity to come down the pike over the past 10 years. Shankar, 34, has been nominated in the Best World Music Album category for her solo album Home, which is a pure Indian classical album showcasing the meditative and virtuosic qualities of the Indian raga.
For country fans – and fans of most genres, let’s be real – the annual release of the Grammy nominations does not confirm or deny anything you didn’t already know. Earned It, also on the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, was nominated for best R&B song, best R&B performance and best song written for visual media. They attempted to rectify that embarrassment last year, awarding him two trophies for his uplifting single “i” in 2014, and nominating him for 11 awards this year – just one shy of Michael Jackson’s all-time record of 12 (1984), and ahead of Eminem (2001), Beyoncé (2010), Kanye West (2005), and Lauryn Hill (1999), who all had ten. “Don’t Wanna Fight” got the nod for best rock performance.
To Pimp A Butterfly left the hip hop world divided in 2015.
I’m very upset about this. With more than 400 nominations across 83 categories for 2016, there is plenty more recognition spread out among the music community. The show will air from Los Angeles’ Staples Center on CBS.
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It seems like a toss-up between The Weeknd’s hit “Can’t Feel My Face” and probably one of the most covered songs during live performances in 2015, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk”.
