Top 4 takeaways from Grammy nominations: Alternative and R&B stars are stronger than we thought
New Grammy nominations, new things to talk about. The Recording Academy officially announced the nominees for the 66th Grammy Awards on November 10, with an eclectic batch of artists and hits that range from pop to R&B to alternative. This year the list still managed to bring a lot of surprises, including artists crossing over to the general field that many didn’t expect. But what four main takeaways can we get from the nominations overall?
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Genre fields are more intertwined than ever
SZA was this year’s biggest nominee with nine bids spread out across different fields. While it is true that R&B was her core voting bloc, she was able to get nominations in pop and rap as well. Similarly, pop star Olivia Rodrigo and alt darlings Boygenius both managed to get nominations in the rock field. It seems like this year voters were more open to nominating artists from different genres into their own. This is perhaps due to how they consolidated many fields together this year in order to allow academy members more flexibility to vote between categories. Other examples of this include rockers Paramore in Best Alternative Performance, Afrobeats artist Burna Boy in Best Melodic Rap Performance and rock legend Bruce Springsteen in Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
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Alternative voters are a powerful force
Another story this year was how strong Boygenius and Lana Del Rey ended up being. The latter got five nominations, including Song and Album of the Year, with additional bids in the pop and alternative fields. Boygenius, though, were perhaps the biggest surprise of them all, getting six including Record of the Year and Album of the Year for their acclaimed “The Record,” which even made it into Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. With other alternative-leaning artists like Gracie Abrams, Noah Kahan, and Labrinth getting major nominations across the general and pop fields, it looks like the alternative voting bloc at the Grammys was pretty strong. This is especially true when genres like rock, country, and Americana weren’t able to get their biggest contenders nominated in Album of the Year.
Pop voters will namecheck their favorites
One of this year’s most exciting categories was Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Many expected the category to be packed with the biggest hits, even though they were by artists that aren’t necessarily huge at the Grammys, like Fifty Fifty with “Cupid,” Jung Kook and Latto with “Seven” and PinkPantheress and Ice Spice with “Boy’s A Liar, Pt. 2.” However, pop voters concentrated on nominating artists that they’ve awarded before. Consider SZA, a previous category winner for “Kiss Me More” with Doja Cat, getting a surprise nom for “Ghost in the Machine,” an album track featuring Phoebe Bridgers. Or take perhaps the biggest surprise, Labrinth and Billie Eilish’s “Never Felt So Alone,” which likely got in on the strength of Eilish alone. Miley Cyrus and Brandi Carlile’s “Thousand Miles” getting in over the big hits was also unexpected. In the end, pop voters didn’t get too adventurous.
Don’t underestimate R&B in the big leagues
The biggest story this year was the windfall for new R&B star Victoria Monét. The singer not only got nominated across the board in the R&B field, she also nabbed nominations for Best New Artist and, perhaps most surprisingly, Record of the Year for “On My Mama.” It’s hard to be mad at those, especially when “On My Mama” is one of the year’s best hits. But it’s safe to say mostly no one saw that coming. That’s also the case for Janelle Monáe’s “The Age of Pleasure,” which nabbed a surprise Album of the Year nomination. It’s often easy to forget just how impactful R&B voters are in the academy, but this year they showed up in a big way.
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