Every year I preview the Grammys and every year, it feels a little more pointless. For all of the consternation about the Oscars not nominating enough blockbusters, it can’t be said enough how often the Grammys try to put over artists who few people outside of the industry follow or care about, and, given the number of deluxe albums they nominate, how little they care about the integrity of their own institution. And yet, that’s also why I love writing about them once a year. 

There’s something refreshing about discussing something no one takes seriously, something that so desperately wants to be relevant and, due to its own hubris and poor taste, fails to do so year after year. There’s almost something campy about the whole thing – where else am I gonna see DaBaby perform with a choir dressed like Supreme Court justices? How else was I supposed to find out that the leader of Stephen Colbert’s house band released an album that, according to Grammy voters, was one of the best of 2021? People tuned into the Oscars last night and were appalled by its poor production choices and the behavior of one of its honorees. Honestly, I will be disappointed if the Grammys doesn’t offend me in an even more ostentatious manner. Too bad they kicked Kanye off the bill.

Perhaps the only thing more futile than the Grammys’ quest for relevance are my predictions. I predicted a Dua Lipa sweep last year that never even came close to happening, and only did marginally better when it came to my pet genres in the alternative and rock categories. The rock awards will be another crapshoot this year and I think the general field is primed for another Billie Eilish-style sweep, but who knows. Logic and reason have never been hallmarks of Grammy voters’ decisions making. Making sense of their choices is a cross I foolishly choose to bear.

Album of the Year

Back of My Mind – H.E.R.

Donda – Kanye West

Evermore – Taylor Swift

Happier Than Ever – Billie Eilish

Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe) – Justin Bieber

Love for Sale – Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga

Montero – Lil Nas X

Planet Her (Deluxe Edition) – Doja Cat

SOUR – Olivia Rodrigo

We Are – Jon Batiste

Will Win: SOUR

Should Win: Happier Than Ever 

Upset Special: Happier Than Ever

The Album of the Year race (and, to some extent, the race in the rest of the general categories) is a battle between three industry favorites: Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, and Taylor Swift. Swift and Eilish have both won this award in the past – Eilish for her debut When We Fall Asleep Where Do We Go? and Swift for Fearless, 1989, and Folklore. Considering how much the Recording Academy loves Swift and how Evermore is basically a companion piece to last year’s AOTY winner, it’d be tempting to assume that voters will remain unoriginal and give her yet another trophy. But the competition is stiffer this year than last, and Swift doesn’t have a Record and Song of the Year nomination like Rodrigo and Eilish. Granted, she didn’t have either of those nominations last year, but given the titanic success of SOUR and the way Olivia Rodrigo owned the music conversation for the majority of 2021, I assume that the sales-obsessed Academy will dub her the ingenue of the moment and reward her with gold. Eilish, the previous ingenue of the moment and a newly minted Oscar winner, is the other likely recipient and the most deserving one as well. I didn’t love all of Happier Than Ever but its exploration of trip hop and Air-style electronics were bolder and more original than any other album on this list.

Record of the Year

“drivers license” – Olivia Rodrigo

“Freedom” – Jon Batiste

“Happier Than Ever” – Billie Eilish 

“I Get a Kick Out of You” – Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga

“I Still Have Faith in You” – ABBA

“Kiss Me More” – Doja Cat feat. SZA

“Leave the Door Open” – Silk Sonic

“Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” – Lil Nas X

“Peaches” – Justin Bieber feat. Daniel Caesar and Giveon

“Right on Time” – Brandi Carlisle

Will Win: “drivers license”

Should Win: “Kiss Me More”

Upset Special: “Leave the Door Open”

If you’re a discerning listener, you can recognize that “drivers license” is a slickly produced, nearly textureless record designed to foreground vocals about all else and give a very adolescent song an epic sense of scope. If you’re a music industry professional, you’ve been so inundated with maximalist hip-hop and electronic production that you believe this very expensive sounding song is “bedroom pop” or, more likely, you’ve seen its eye popping streaming numbers and assume it must be great. In other words, it’s a perfect Grammy winner. So is “Leave the Door Open,” a schmaltzy, nostalgic soul jam from Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak’s collaboration, Silk Sonic, a song that debuted on last year’s telecast and could use that hype to coast to a trophy. Truth be told, I’m underwhelmed by the production on pretty much all of these tracks (and remember, this is a production award) with the exception of “Kiss Me More,” a warm and bouncy rap/pop hybrid that stands out in a musical landscape defined by chilly rigidity. 

Song of the Year

“Bad Habits” – Ed Sheeran

“A Beautiful Noise” – Alicia Keys and Brandi Carlile

“drivers license” – Olivia Rodrigo 

“Fight for You” – H.E.R.

“Happier Than Ever” – Billie Eilish

“Kiss Me More” – Doja Cat feat. SZA

“Leave the Door Open” – Silk Sonic

“Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” – Lil Nas X

“Peaches” – Justin Bieber feat. Daniel Caesar and Giveon

“Right on Time” – Brandi Carlisle

Will Win: “Drivers License”

Should Win: “Happier Than Ever”

Upset Special: “Fight for You”

“drivers license” is just too big a hit to lose, and the fact that it was only written by two people instead of a team of producers will appeal to more traditionalist minded voters, no matter how overwrought it might actually be. Don’t count out last year’s winner H.E.R. though, a Grammy favorite who’s back with another social justice-themed song from an Oscar-winner that voters may vote for to feel like they’re making a difference. If I were casting my vote, it’d go to “Happier Than Ever,” the only one of these songs, with its soft opening and bombastic ending, that feels like a full meal, the poppier version of Phoebe Bridgers’ “I Know the End.”

Best New Artist 

Arooj Aftab

Jimmie Allen

Baby Keem

Finneas

Glass Animals

Japanese Breakfast

The Kid Laroi

Arlo Parks

Olivia Rodrigo

Saweetie

Will Win: Olivia Rodrigo

Should Win: Japanese Breakfast

Upset Special: Finneas

If you need further evidence of the Grammys’ unseriousness, consider the fact that Glass Animals released their first album in 2014 and Japanese Breakfast (who also happened to put out my favorite album of the year) did so in 2016, but they’re considered “new artists” because some collection of industry suits had never heard of them before. It’s all a bit moot, of course, because Olivia Rodrigo will be rewarded for exploding onto the scene and becoming the first female singer to have their first single debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 since Carrie Underwood in 2005.

Best Rock Alternative Album

Collapsed in Sunbeams – Arlo Parks

Daddy’s Home – St. Vincent

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power – Halsey

Jubilee – Japanese Breakfast 

Shore – Fleet Foxes

Will Win: Daddy’s Home

Should Win: Jubilee

Upset Special: Collapsed in Sunbeams

Nice to know that you can record an album that sounds almost exactly like the very boring pop you’ve always made, but because you did it with Trent Reznor, it gets slotted in as “alternative.” Halsey won’t win though – instead, this award will probably go to St. Vincent, who’s “transgressive” in a surface level way that voters will appreciate, very much into classic signifiers of “cool,” and also responsible for the best Grammys performance in recent memory. Given their Best New Artist nominations, Japanese Breakfast and Arlo Parks (whose Collapsed in Sunbeams is a pretty good album I’m embarrassed to say I had never heard before writing this article) have a shot, but I still think it goes to St. Vincent. Let’s hope she doesn’t try and kill any post show interviews!

Best Rock Album

Capitol Cuts – Live From Studio A – Black Pumas

McCartney III – Paul McCartney

Medicine at Midnight – Foo Fighters

No One Sings Like You Anymore, Vol. 1 – Chris Cornell

Power Up – AC/DC

Will Win: Medicine at Midnight

Should Win: McCartney III

Could Win: No One Sings Like You Anymore, Vol. 1

Last year I praised the Best Rock Album nominees as “acceptable” which, for a category as fraught as this one, is relatively high praise. Well, I’m afraid to report that the Grammys have regressed to their baffling, borderline offensive ways. It’s almost hilarious how much the Recording Academy loves Black Pumas, a pleasant but ultimately anodyne soul-rock band that sounds like an IPA commercial. People rolled their eyes last year when the deluxe version of their 2019 debut was nominated for Album of the Year last go around, and they’re gonna be rolling them even harder when they realize that an 8-track live album that consists primarily of songs from that very same album was nominated this year for Best Rock Album. Whoever does Black Pumas’ PR is simultaneously making too much and not enough money.

Elsewhere, we have No One Sings Like You Anymore, Vol. 1, a covers album by the late Chris Cornell, one of the most respected vocalists in rock who was only honored by the Recording Academy after his passing. I’m as bummed as everyone else that he’s gone, but there is something macabre about the way the Grammys loves to nominate the work of recently deceased artists (they pulled the same thing with David Bowie and the Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan after they passed away), even if they’ve never given them much attention before. In the eyes of the Grammys, the only rock albums worth listening to are made by artists with at least 20 year long careers, or artists who are dead.

Anyway, this category is hard to predict because it’s full of Grammys favorites. My inclination is that it’ll go to Foo Fighters, who have had the most visible album campaign of the bunch (they performed on Saturday Night Live the night the election was called for Biden and released a crappy horror movie last month). Even though I don’t care for Medicine at Midnight, it would be a nice bright spot for the band considering the recent premature death of drummer Taylor Hawkins. But who knows, maybe Grammy voters are more like me than I realize and were inspired by Get Back to dig back into the Beatles and cast a vote for Paul.

Best Rock Song

“All My Favorite Songs” – Weezer

“The Bandit” – Kings of Leon

“Distance” – Mammoth WVH

“Find My Way” – Paul McCartney

“Waiting on a War” – Foo Fighters

Will Win: “Waiting on a War”

Should Win: “Find My Way”

Upset Special: “Distance”

The rock awards’ obsession with morbidity continues in this category, which features Wolfgang Van Halen’s song about his gone-too-soon father Eddie. The poignancy of that could win Wofie an award, but my guess is it goes to ”Waiting on a War,” a song whose title felt much more innocuous when nominations were first announced back in January.

Best Rock Performance 

“Know You Better” (Live from Capitol Studio A) – Black Pumas

“Making a Fire” – Foo Fighters

“Nothing Compares 2 U” – Chris Cornell

“Ohms” – Deftones

“Shot in the Dark” – AC/DC

Will Win: “Nothing Compares 2 U”

Should Win: “Ohms”

Upset Special: “Making a Fire”

An acoustic cover of a Prince song performed by a dead guy known for screamy hard rock? Yeah, Chris Cornell has this locked up.

Best Metal Performance

“The Alien” – Dream Theater 

“Amazonia” – Gojira

“Genesis” – Deftones

“Pushing the Tides” – Mastodon

“The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition)” – Rob Zombie

Will Win: “Pushing the Tides”

Should Win: “Genesis”

Upset Special: “Amazonia”

Like I’ve said in the past, I don’t really listen to metal anymore, but I do know enough to say that Mastodon seem like the perfect Grammy awardee in the sense that they felt very innovative twelve years ago but now just kind of feel like a legacy band no one under 35 really cares about anymore. If anything good came out of writing this article, it was the discovery of “Amazonia,” which has an absolutely incredible opening riff. Who said the Grammys are all bad!