Although the 56th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony doesn’t take place until January 26, 2014, the nominations will be announced on December 6 and as always I’m eager to find out which artists are the chosen ones. Like last year, LL Cool J will host the live show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Slated to perform at the Grammy Awards nominations special in December are Drake, Robin Thicke, Keith Urban and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.
Many have said that Thicke is a top Grammy contender since “Blurred Lines” has been ubiquitous all year. In the past Thicke has won Grammys for writing songs for Usher and Jennifer Hudson. Others predict that Macklemore & Ryan Lewis also have a strong chance to win as they have garnered three international hits and a platinum debut with The Heist.
Based on the best-selling albums (sales of 100,000 copies or more) released between October 1, 2012 and September 30, 2013, here are the top ten contenders:
Taylor Swift – Red
Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience
One Direction – Take Me Home
Bruno Mars – Unorthodox Jukebox
Jason Aldean – Night Train
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – The Heist
Rihanna – Unapologetic
Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, MAAD City
Florida Georgia Line – Here’s to the Good Times
Luke Bryan – Crash My Party
A few changes approved in June by the Recording Academy’s Awards & Nominations Committee and my thoughts on the changes:
A new category for Best American Roots Song has been added to the American Roots Music field. It is a songwriter’s award and will include all the subgenres in this field such as Americana, bluegrass, blues, folk and regional roots music.
I’m glad they made this decision especially since acts like the Lumineers and Mumford & Sons have taken the genre to a whole new level.
The Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance category will be renamed Best Metal Performance and becomes a stand-alone category. Hard rock performances will now be screened in the Best Rock Performance category.
Great call Academy! Metal and rock should be two different categories and this gives a larger number of deserving acts a chance to win.
The Music Video field will become the Best Music Video/Film field. Its two categories will be renamed: Best Short Form Music Video will now be known as Best Music Video and Best Long Form Music Video will change into Best Music Film.
Not sure how necessary this is since music videos are not nearly as important as they used to be. A shame since I think music videos do a lot for songs and artists.
These changes bring the total number of categories at the 2014 Grammy Awards to 82 which is a lot and will do nothing to help with the length of the show but thankfully only the big categories are televised. Looking forward to hearing the nominations in December – until then I would love to know who you think will be nominated!
Leave a Reply