(photos: The Wrap)
Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, and the Weeknd dominated thenominations for the 58th annual Grammy Awards. Lamar received 11 nominations, more than any artist has nabbed in one year in this decade. (He surpassed Eminem, who scored 10 five years ago).
Swift is nominated for Album, Record, and Song of the year. It’s the second time she has achieved this sweep. She was nominated in all three categories six years ago.
Let’s take a closer look at the nominees in the “Big Four” categories.
Album of the Year
The nominees are Swift’s 1989, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, the Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness, Chris Stapleton’s Traveller, and Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Color.
This is the third nomination in this category for Swift; the second for Lamar; the first for the Weeknd, Stapleton, and Alabama Shakes.
To Pimp… is the highest-rated album so far this year at Metacritic.com, with a 96 score.
Stapleton’s Traveller re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart at #1 last month after it won three CMA Awards, including Album of the Year. It is the first album by a male country artist to receive a nom in this category since Vince Gill’s These Days eight years ago.
Record of the Year
The nominees: “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, the Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face,” Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space,” Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud,” and “Really Love” by D’Angelo and The Vanguard.
This is Mars’s fifth nomination in this category (his fourth as an artist); Swift’s fourth. It’s Ronson’s second (his first as an artist). It’s the first for the Weeknd, Sheeran, and D’Angelo.
Swift is now tied with Beyoncé with four career Record of the Year noms. (Beyoncé’s total includes one hit with Destiny’s Child.) Only one female artist, Barbra Streisand, has had more noms in the category. Streisand has had five.
Max Martin and Shellback co-produced both “Blank Space” and “Can’t Feel My Face.” The latter smash is so evocative of Michael Jackson’s sound, it’s practically a tribute.
Two of these records are throwbacks to classic styles of the past. As noted, “Can’t Feel My Face” would have been right at home on a Michael Jackson album. “Uptown Funk” is a nod to the Minneapolis sound of the mid 1980s, typified by Prince and the Time. These records were saluted, but in both cases the songs were not nominated for Song of the Year. This echoes what happened two years ago when Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” which lifted from Marvin Gaye, was nominated for Record of the Year but not Song of the Year.
Song of the Year
People often ask, “What’s the difference between Record and Song of the Year”? Record of the Year is for a specific recording of a song. Song of the Year is for the song itself.
The nominees: “Thinking Out Loud,” “Blank Space,” the Little Big Town hit “Girl Crush,” the Kendrick Lamar hit “Alright,” and “See You Again,” the hip-hop smash by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth.
This is Swift’s third nom in the category and the second for Sheeran, Shellback (who co-wrote “Blank Space”) and Liz Rose and Hillary Lindsey (who co-wrote “Girl Crush”).
