The road to Grammys glory starts today, as nominations for the 67th annual music awards are revealed. The Recording Academy is announcing contenders across a staggering 94 categories, by far the most of any major award show.
How will it play out?
Will Beyoncé and her “Cowboy Carter” album lasso more nods and potentially extend her lead as the Grammys winningest artist? Will she rodeo with reigning album of the year queen Taylor Swift in the top category, which she has yet to win?
Who will get a best new artist nod (other than shoo-ins Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter)?
Will the chart success of Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” translate into academy kudos? And how will global stars like Bad Bunny, Shakira, Jung Kook and Burna Boy fare?
We have so many questions we want answered. Follow along as music expert Melissa Ruggieri and USA TODAY’s Entertainment team breaks down the nominations for Music’s Biggest Night. Then mark your calendars for Feb. 2, when the nominees find out who takes home a gilded Grammys gramophone.
Taylor Swift is predicted to receive an Album of the Year nod for her latest hit album, The Tortured Poets Department,which would pull her out of a tie with Barbra Streisand and place her as the woman with the most nominations in the category.
Other artists vying for Album of the Year nominations include 2024’s breakthrough star Chappell Roan with her debut, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and Sabrina Carpenter with her sixth record, Short n’ Sweet.
Charli XCX is another hopeful thanks to her critically adored, trend-setting album Brat,as is Beyoncé for her country-influenced record, Cowboy Carter.
Hip-hop star Kendrick Lamar is likely to be nominated for both Record and Song of the Year for his diss track “Not Like Us”, which would tie him with Jay-Z for the most nods in those categories by a rapper.
A reminder of the “big four”: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist.
For the unitiated and because it is a bit confusing: Song of the Year recognises the composition of a song and the writers behind it, while Record of the Year deals with the artists, producers and engineers who contributed to that song.
Personally I think it would be a shock if Taylor Swift isn’t nominated for a record-breaking seventh Album of the Year nod, for 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department. While I’d argue the album itself suffers from being overly long (in a big way), Swift is a Grammys darling and, regardless of length, Tortured Poets contains some of her finest songwriting to date. “Fortnight” could get a nomination for Song of the Year and possibly also Record of the Year, and I imagine Best Pop Solo Perforance and Best Pop Vocal Album, too.
There are two artists who could sweep the Big Four categories: Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. Both are likely to end up with Best New Artist nominations (and subsequently reigniting the age-old debate of “new”, given Carpenter is on her sixth album, Short n’ Sweet. This, and Roan’s debut The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, are strong contenders for Album of the Year thanks to critical raves for each, and strong commercial performances to boot.
Carpenter’s mega hit single “Espresso” is likely to end up in both the Song and Record of the Year categories, as is Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!”.
It’s likely that all four categories will be dominated by US artists this year, but one singer flying the flag for the UK could be Charli XCX, who rose to a higher level of international fame thanks to her trend-setting and critically adored sixth album, Brat.
Beyonce should get a nod for her country-influenced album Cowboy Carter, along with Kendrick Lamar for his incendiary Drake diss track, “Not Like Us”.
The 2025 Grammy Awards will air 2 February live on CBS and Paramount+ from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. A host has yet to be announced; Trevor Noah has hosted for the past four consecutive years.
As Kendrick Lamar is widely expected to receive at least one nomination for his Drake diss track, “Not Like Us”, take a look at our timeline of the beef between the warring hip-hop stars:
A rivalry between two of the world’s biggest rappers has simmered for years, flaring up again in May thanks to multiple surprise tracks
The 2025 Grammy nominees will be announced during a video stream live on the Grammy website and the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel on Friday at 8am Pacific and 11am Eastern (4pm GMT), kicking off with a pre-show 15 minutes earlier.
The Grammy nominations will be streamed on Grammy.com at 11 a.m. ET today.
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. talked with USA TODAY last night and noted several times that he is “so proud” of the job that the 13,000 voting members did this year with the nominees. They are voted on by members of the Recording Academy, which includes songwriters, composers, musicians, producers, engineers and more. The trend he sees is “excellence, regardless of genre.”
We’re so glad you asked. Only work released between Sept. 16, 2023 and Aug. 30, 2024 can be submitted.
The Recording Academy received a staggering 20,000 entries across 94 categories.
