The nominations for the 58th Grammy Awards were announced today.
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Overall, nine artists scored four nominations each, and an additional 17 are up for three awards apiece.
Lamar is well out in front of the field with 11 nominations, the bulk of them tied to his nearly universally lauded third album, “To Pimp a Butterfly”, but also including two for his collaboration with Swift on her hit “Bad Blood” and one for co-writing Kanye West’s nominated rap song “All Day”. With “Rolling in the Deep”, first released in November 2010 as 21′s lead single, Adele went up against Bruno Mars’s “Grenade” and Katy Perry’s “Firework”.
FILE – In this Friday, July 10, 2015, file photo, singer Taylor Swift performs during her “1989” world tour at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. Kendrick Lamar, Swift and the Weeknd have earned top nominations for the 2016 Grammy Awards, including album of the year.
Best New Artist: Courtney Barnett, James Bay, Sam Hunt, Tori Kelly and Trainor fill this ticket.
Alabama Shakes, up for Album of the Year, is pictured performing at Artpark in September 2015. He was critically praised then – and nominated for seven Grammys – but came up empty for awards. The nomination and voting process is done by people who rarely listen to enough music to consider their perspective anywhere near comprehensive, and who gets nominated has less to do with the best music of the year and more to do with networking, marketing, and the status quo. His much-acclaimed second full-length album, “To Pimp a Butterfly”, is up for album of the year, among other accolades.
“Artists are pushing boundaries in exciting ways, making it an exceptionally strong year for music”, he said in a statement.
However, there are some astonishing exclusions in the Grammy nominations 2016 list. The Weeknd’s nominations include best pop solo performance for “Can’t Feel My Face” and urban contemporary album for “Beauty”.
And the category has two albums by young acts rejuvenating beloved old styles: Chris Stapleton’s Traveller, full of scuffed-up country tunes, and Sound & Color by Alabama Shakes, a road-tested outfit that implicitly stands for the value of hand-played rock’n’roll.
Swift bared her soul for the masses once again with her fifth album, “1989”, so if this were merely a popularity contest, one of the above three mentioned artists would easily score the trophy.
However his latest album, Purpose, and any future singles from it, will be in contention for the 2017 ceremony, as the next period of eligibility for the 59th Grammy Awards began on 1 October (15).
Regardless, it seems that The Grammys are coming around and perhaps you should too.
Even so, certain artists may be surprised by their omission from this year’s roster altogether. Billboard editor Joe Levy, talking about the major nominations on CBS, noted that none of Drake’s 2015 releases made the cut in the top categories.
The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” was nominated for record of the year and pop solo performance.
It was a long shot, Levy added.
A$AP Rocky’s sophomore album may have been a little too somber or stoned for most voters’ tastes (although, they did nominate his trippy L$D clip for best music video).
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Also, don’t weep for Drake.
