Written by: Roj Van
It’s that time of the year again, and the heavily anticipated 66th Annual Grammy Award nominations are out!
It’s that time of the year again, and the heavily anticipated 66th Annual Grammy Award nominations have circulated with eager viewers and music fanatics counting down the days and preparing their predictions. 2023 has been an exceptional year for music in its versatility, timelessness, and also in its creative directions.
In previous years, artists and their labels’ focuses revolved around producing ‘cash-grab’ singles instead of composing works of art that are albums – said best by record-breaking Grammy’s winner Beyoncé Knowles Carter: In her 2013 documentary she mentioned justifiably, “People don’t make albums anymore”. In contrary, the incredible albums produced this year have indeed been cohesive bodies of work that are well deserving on their nominations. Here are my handpicked predictions of the winners of the prodigious, general field categories.
SZA leads with the most nominations, being exceedingly record-breaking, with a whooping 9 nominations. With 7 nominations each, follows Victoria Monét, Phoebe Bridgers, and Serban Ghenea. Starting off with Record of the Year, the nominees are,
“What Was I Made For?” | Billie Eilish
“Not Strong Enough” | Boygenius
“Worship” | Jon Batiste
“Flowers” | Miley Cyrus
“Vampire” | Olivia Rodrigo
“Kill Bill” | SZA
“Anti-Hero” | Taylor Swift
“On My Mama” | Victoria Monét
Whilst there are extremely strong records produced in this category, my prediction would have to be Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?”. Fair warning, this is not based on past successes in the Grammy’s nor its invasion in our TikTok ‘For You’ pages being constantly replayed, it is merely based on the cultural impact the “Barbie” film had on the world and the song being a representation on gender inequality issues in society that is still present today. Cyrus’ “Flowers” comes at a close second due to its leaving imprint in pop culture, with her extremely public breakup leading to the release of the song.
Leading onto the award for Album of the Year, the nominees are,
“World Music Radio” | Jon Batiste
“The Record” | Boygenius
“Endless Summer Vacation” | Miley Cyrus
“Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” | Lana Del Rey
“The Age of Pleasure” | Janelle Monaé
“GUTS” | Olivia Rodrigo
“Midnights” | Taylor Swift
“SOS” | SZA
Again, with a distribution of genres throughout, there are indeed abundantly strong contenders. My prediction for this category would be “SOS” by SZA, merely due to the quality of her work and sound that is inherently unique to her as an artist. “SOS” included various successful singles, for instance, “Kill Bill”, “Snooze”, “Nobody Gets Me”, “Shirt”, “I Hate U” and “Good Days” which I would deem a masterpiece, especially in the new wave of Alternative R&B. Whether you are in the mood to jam to a cozy, ‘lofi-esc’ beat or a ballad on killing your ex, SZA’s “SOS” has got it. Knowing Grammy’s prior history of award recipients and the way it is usually carried out, Olivia Rodrigo may be on her way to fight for the win with her sophomore album “GUTS”.
Moving onto Song of the Year, the nominees are,
“A&W” | Lana Del Rey
“Anti-Hero” | Taylor Swift
“Butterfly” | Jon Batiste
“Dance the Night” | Dua Lipa
“Flowers” | Miley Cyrus
“Kill Bill” | SZA
“Vampire” | Olivia Rodrigo
“What Was I Made For?” | Billie Eilish
I predict that SZA or Miley Cyrus could potentially take home the award for this category. Both “Kill Bill” and “Flowers” have had great success, whilst also shaping pop culture and being evidently timeless. However, I do see “Vampire” also seizing the golden gramophone, due to the track being deemed pop perfection by various critics and media fronts.
With the award for Best New Artist, the nominees are relatively great picks, but some could be deemed as ‘filler options’. With that being said, here are the nominations for Best New Artist,
Coco Jones
Fred Again
Gracie Abrams
Ice Spice
Jelly Roll
Noah Kahan
The War and Treaty
Victoria Monét
Best New Artist, a controversial award generally speaking, has been known to snub artists that have in fact had an impact in their breakthrough to mainstream music. Nonetheless, for this award I predict Victoria Monét who has been in the shadow of notable artists in writing their top hits, even going along to win Grammy’s under songwriter credit – Ariana Grande, for instance. With that being said, Monét’s artistry and expression is not only refreshing but also reminiscent of R&B in the 90s and early 2000s, and with her new project “Jaguar II”
Whilst there is a strong number of contenders for the 66th Annual Grammys, I do have to note that there was a number of snubs in the categories, as suspected: Raye, Kali Uchis, Tinashe and Melanie Martinez. These four talented artists released tremendous bodies of work this year – Raye with her gut wrenching yet soulful album, left me and many other critics in shock and love with the way she embraces her past trauma and creates music from it. From my point of view, I did see her as being up there with the most nominations and was surprised when I found out she did not receive a single one.
Enough said, be sure to catch the awards ceremony on 5th February 2024 at 1:00am GMT. I will personally be watching not just to see the accuracy of my nominations, yet merely sitting down and enjoying the show – as I hope you would too.
Edited by: Anna Shipman
Designed by: Anna Shipman
