Billie Eilish Grammy submissions: Another clean sweep of Album, Record, and Song of the Year?
This year Billie Eilish released her third studio album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” putting her on track to continue what has so far been a remarkable track record at the Grammys. Here are the nine potential nominations she’s entered for on the awards ballot.
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Record of the Year — “Birds of a Feather”
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Album of the Year — “Hit Me Hard and Soft”
Song of the Year — “Birds of a Feather”
Best Pop Solo Performance — “Birds of a Feather”
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance — “Guess” (with Charli XCX)
Best Pop Vocal Album — “Hit Me Hard and Soft”
Best Dance Pop Recording — “L’Amour De Ma Vie (Over Now Extended Edit)”
Best Music Video — “Lunch”
Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical — “Hit Me Hard and Soft”
SEEBillie Eilish songs, ranked: 25 greatest hits
Could she get all nine of those nominations? Possibly, though that would constitute her best year ever. In her Grammys breakthrough year, 2020, she picked up just six nominations, although she ended up winning five of them, including a clean sweep of the general field: Album of the Year for “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” Record and Song of the Year for “Bad Guy,” and Best New Artist. The only other artist who ever achieved that grand slam was Christopher Cross in 1981, and no one ever managed to achieve that at age 18.
The very next year Eilish released the standalone single “Everything I Wanted,” which proved she wasn’t a flavor of the month for Grammy voters; she won Record of the Year again, making her the third artist in history to win in consecutive years, following Roberta Flack and U2.
Her sophomore album “Happier Than Ever” followed, and further demonstrated her staying power, but with mixed results on the awards stage. Though Eilish received seven nominations in 2022 — more than for her debut era — she didn’t win any of them.
No worries. She co-wrote and recorded the song “What Was I Made For?” for the “Barbie” soundtrack and won Song of the Year again in 2024. She and her brother/co-writer Finneas thus tied for the most wins in that category; nobody has ever claimed the top songwriting award more than twice.
Now she could break more records with “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” Her third album already achieved her biggest ever week by equivalent album units on the Billboard 200. It’s also her highest-rated album on MetaCritic. And it has produced her biggest hit single since “Bad Guy,” “Birds of a Feather,” which thus far has peaked at number-two on the Hot 100. That song could make her and Finneas the most awarded songwriters ever for Song of the Year, and it could tie Eilish with Bruno Mars and Paul Simon for the most Record of the Year victories. “Hit Me Hard and Soft” would also make her the youngest double winner of Album of the Year; she’s still just 22-years-old.
But will Eilish win lots of hardware like she did for “When We All Fall Asleep,” or is she doomed to be shut out again as with “Happier Than Ever”? The field of pop artists in contention is especially formidable this year, with Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter breaking through, and reliable hit-makers Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande making successful returns. Thus, Eilish’s path to victory may be harder than it is soft this time around.
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