Grammy Awards 2025 - let's take a look!

A banner year for pop music leads to a competitive field - and Beyoncé looks set for a bit of revenge for her Country Music Awards snub

Nov 10, 2024

Okay, yes, I can hear you saying “The Grammys? Who cares about the Grammys?!” but listen: I have a random love of award ceremonies, and there is at least one really interesting talking point in the Grammy noms - which came out last week and can be found in full on Wikipedia - so let me have this one.

A few thoughts on the pop, country and rock categories follows. There are ton of other categories - R&B, rap, jazz, gospel, latin, classical - but either I don’t know enough to speak to those or I assume Kendrick Lamar will just win them all.

Album Of The Year

André 3000 – New Blue Sun
Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter
Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet
Charli xcx – Brat
Jacob Collier – Djesse Vol 4
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft
Chappell Roan – The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department

If we’re being honest, about the only surprise here is the André 3000 flute album. Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are perennials; if they put out music, its getting nominated. Sabrina, Charli, Billie and Chappell are arguably the biggest names in pop music right now, so they were practically shoo-ins as well. Jacob Collier is the nod to jazz music that the Recording Academy needs to pop in there.

The cynic in me wants to suggest that the academy saw the André 3000 album, which is heavily flute based and remarkably odd, as an opportunity to nominate something that is quote-unquote “musical” and from an artist with some form of coolness, which the academy is eternally in pursuit of.

Among the options here, Charli XCX and Billie Eilish are my favourite albums and preferred winners, but I reckon Beyoncé will actually win it.

Record Of The Year

The Beatles – “Now and Then”
Beyoncé – “Texas Hold ’Em”
Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”
Charli xcx – “360”
Billie Eilish – “Birds of a Feather”
Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us”
Chappell Roan – “Good Luck, Babe!”
Taylor Swift – “Fortnight (ft Post Malone)”

Song Of The Year

Shaboozey – “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
Billie Eilish – “Birds of a Feather”
Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars – “Die With a Smile”
Taylor Swift – “Fortnight (ft Post Malone)”
Chappell Roan – “Good Luck, Babe!”
Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us”
Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”
Beyoncé – “Texas Hold ’Em”

If anyone could explain to me the difference between Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year, that would be great - six of the eight nominees for Record are also nominated for Song, and only one of those is for a different track (Sabrina Carpenter’s Song nom is the far superior “Please Please Please”).

I don’t want it to happen but it feels like Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” is probably going to win one or both of these categories. “Texas Hold ‘Em” is another likely contender. “Birds Of A Feather” or “Good Luck Babe” are the two that have the most social traction currently, and I’d prefer either of those won.

I also love the addition of Shaboozey here, but more on him in a second.

Best Pop Vocal Album

Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft
Ariana Grande – Eternal Sunshine
Chappell Roan – The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department

It feels like Taylor Swift might be a lock for this one but I’d put Billie Eilish in the mix too; when it comes to awards voting, your not just battling the other nominees - to a degree you’re also battling voter ignorance; “oh, I know Taylor Swift and I don’t know these others, so rather than educate myself, I’ll just vote for Taylor Swift” is how the same people keep winning awards like this.

If the academy did want to go for a great story that would surely dominate the music news cycle, Chappell Roan is their pick - the rags to riches to a Grammy story is just too good.

Elsewhere, Chappell Roan is surely a lock for Best New Artist, and Dan Nigro should be looked at closely for his work with both Roan and Olivia Rodrigo. Charli XCX has picked up a ton of noms but for different songs: “Von Dutch” in Best Dance Pop Recording, “Apple” in Best Pop Solo Performance, and “Guess (ft Billie Eilish)” in Best Pop Duo/Group Performance - but I would expect her best shot here might be Brat in the Best Dance/Electronic Album category.

Best Country Album

Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter
Post Malone – F-1 Trillion
Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well
Chris Stapleton – Higher
Lainey Wilson – Whirlwind

Best Country Solo Performance

Beyoncé – “16 Carriages”
Jelly Roll – “I Am Not Okay”
Kacey Musgraves – “The Architect”
Shaboozey – “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
Chris Stapleton – “It Takes a Woman”

Best Country Song

Kacey Musgraves – “The Architect”
Shaboozey – “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
Jelly Roll – “I Am Not Okay”
Post Malone – “I Had Some Help (ft Morgan Wallen)”
Beyoncé – “Texas Hold ’Em”

Okay, so the main story coming into the awards: what would the academy do with Beyoncé having released what is, ostensibly, a country album - the reason being that Queen Bey was shut out of the Country Music Awards (CMAs). The academy have responded in simply the best way possible: they nominated her in all four of the categories with ‘country’ in the title (and one with the word ‘Americana’ in it) - even though hip-hop crossover artists Shaboozey and Post Malone are both well represented.

Vox writer Aja Romano was unflinching in her criticism of the CMAs, writing ‘the CMA has a noticeable pattern of erasing and sidelining black women … It’s hardly any wonder she distanced herself and her album from the country establishment from the start; she likely knew well before the rest of us that the CMAs were never going to let her in the door’, pointing out the only black woman to ever win a CMA is Tracy Chapman for “Fast Car” - which she won last year thanks to Luke Combs’ beat-for-beat cover of her song.

Romano also acknowledged that Beyoncé’s camp didn’t put much energy into promoting the album to country radio. However, I would argue that Beyoncé is a big enough artist that the CMAs should have been able to recognise the moment and the importance of that moment.

Either way, I hope she sweeps these awards and thanks the CMA in her speech.

By the way, how on earth did Shaboozey manage to make a coherent song out of an acoustic guitar and a remix of J-Kwon’s “Tipsy”? Honestly, this deserves its own category - something like Best Unlikely Composition That Somehow Works.

Elsewhere in Country/Roots, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings’ Woodland is nominated for Best Folk Album, and its brilliant track “Empty Trainload of Sky” for Best Americana Performance; I loved Woodland so was very pleased to see this. I was also pleased to see Iron & Wine and Fiona Apple nominated for Best American Roots Song for their beautiful collab “All In Good Time”.

Best Alternative Music Album

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Wild God
Clairo – Charm
Kim Gordon – The Collective
Brittany Howard – What Now
St Vincent – All Born Screaming

I’m actually pretty happy with the nominees here - I wasn’t a big fan of the Nick Cave album, but I’d be fine with it winning. Kim Gordon’s album is the most progressive album nominated, but my favourite here is St Vincent’s All Born Screaming. It’s hard to know what might win this category.

St Vincent’s “Flea” and Fontaines DC’s “Starburster” are nominated for Best Alternative Music Performance, and I loved those tracks. But even I kind of hope “Bye Bye”, the raucous opening track from Kim Gordon’s The Collective which plays as a shopping list set to music, wins that category.

Best Rock Album

The Black Crowes – Happiness Bastards
Fontaines DC – Romance
Green Day – Saviors
Idles – Tangk
Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
The Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds
Jack White – No Name

Best Rock Song

The Black Keys – “Beautiful People (Stay High)”
St Vincent – “Broken Man”
Pearl Jam – “Dark Matter”
Green Day – “Dilemma”
Idles – “Gift Horse”

I’ll say this: it bothers me how often sub-par albums and past-it bands somehow get nominated for the Best Rock Album category at the Grammys.

Let’s be honest: there isn’t a critic alive who thinks the Black Crowes or Green Day or Pearl Jam or the Rolling Stones made the best album of the past year or so. And yet, here they all are, nominated again - and in the case of two of them, also nominated for Best Rock Song as well.

Out of the three remaining nominations, my favourites are Idles and Fontaines DC. I’ve been thrashing the brilliant and catchy Tangk since February, but I actually think the Fontaines DC album might be my favourite of the two. I also really enjoyed that Jack White album, so its kind of a win-win-win out of those three … which means it’ll probably be the fucking Black Crowes.

Best Metal Performance

Gojira, Marina Viotti and Victor Le Masne – “Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)”
Judas Priest – “Crown of Horns”
Knocked Loose – “Suffocate (ft Poppy)”
Metallica – ”Screaming Suicide”
Spiritbox – “Cellar Door”

Best Rock Performance

The Beatles – “Now and Then”
The Black Keys – “Beautiful People (Stay High)”
Green Day – “The American Dream Is Killing Me”
Idles – “Gift Horse”
Pearl Jam – “Dark Matter”
St Vincent – “Broken Man”

Again, Judas Priest and Metallica and the Black Keys and Pearl Jam and Green Day have no business being nominated for their most recent work. The Recording Academy needs to get over its obsession with legacy acts.

Out of the remaining nominees here, I’m really pleased to see Gojira nominated for the song they performed at the Paris Olympics 2024, and I’m always glad to see a group like Spiritbox gets some credit. But I’m most excited at the prospect of Knocked Loose winning Best Metal Performance - their album, You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To, is almost certainly the best hardcore album of the year, and it would be great to see the Grammys get this one right.

In the Best Rock Performance category, I’d be fine with either Idles or St Vincent winning. I’m a little confused what The Beatles are doing in here though; the response to “Now And Then” was curious at best, and dismissive at worst. ‘“Now and Then” is pretty much impossible to imagine as an actual Beatles song, and it seems especially far from what might have been Lennon's original intention,’ wrote Mark Richardson at Pitchfork. No, not the cricket guy.

My own take on “Now And Then” is that it sounds like an AI trying to create a song that sounds like The Beatles. I know Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were involved in it, but it just sounds like a pale imitation. And you can almost hear the cha-chings in the eyes of everyone involved.

Best Music Video

Only one video should win this. It’s so weird. And yes, it’s nominated.

Thanks for letting me have this one, team - and thanks for reading.
If you do nothing else, make sure you watch that A$AP video.
Chris xo

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