Each year I try to predict how the Academy will choose it’s winner, but the is year I’m 26 and have discovered that there is literally no predicting anything. Not the weather, and definitely not the Academy.
So this year I’m just going to to go with my heart and choose who I want to win the awards. (and you can pretty much assume if T. Swift is nominated, I want her to win.) I didn’t choose for the awards of music I didn’t listen to…obviously. Some of the awards I have attached reasons I want them to win…some of them I didn’t.
Record Of The Year
• Really Love — D’Angelo And The Vanguard
• Uptown Funk — Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars
• Thinking Out Loud — Ed Sheeran
• Blank Space — Taylor Swift
• Can’t Feel My Face — The Weeknd
If we give them a Grammy will the song go away? I like it (not as much as I liked the bottom three nominees), and it was good the first 400 billion times I heard it, but now I find myself switching stations when it comes on. But, the fact that I’ve hear it upwards of 400 billion times has got to count for something.
Album Of The Year
• Sound & Color — Alabama Shakes
• To Pimp A Butterfly — Kendrick Lamar
• Traveller — Chris Stapleton
• 1989 — Taylor Swift
• Beauty Behind The Madness — The Weeknd
The Academy is so random when they choose their winners. I can’t actually decide how they choose? Commercial success? Critical success? Relevancy? I’m actually convinced they just put all the names in a hat and draw from it. Yes, all of the albums are good, but none of them had the selling power of 1989, nor did any of the rest of them produce as many singles as 1989.
Song Of The Year
• Alright — Kendrick Duckworth, Mark Anthony Spears & Pharrell Williams, songwriters (Kendrick Lamar)
• Blank Space — Max Martin, Shellback & Taylor Swift, songwriters
(Taylor Swift)
• Girl Crush — Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna & Liz Rose, songwriters
(Little Big Town)
• See You Again — Andrew Cedar, Justin Franks, Charles Puth & Cameron Thomaz, songwriters (Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth)
• Thinking Out Loud — Ed Sheeran & Amy Wadge, songwriters
(Ed Sheeran)
I love Ed Sheeran, and I loved See You Again…but Blank Space is one of the best written, most clever, and creative songs to be written in a long time.
Best New Artist
• Courtney Barnett
• James Bay
• Sam Hunt
• Tori Kelly
• Meghan Trainor
This one, for me, is kind of a toss up between Megan Trainer and Tori Kelly. Megan Trainer writes some pretty catchy songs, but Tori Kelly is a pretty much undiscovered powerhouse.
Best Pop Solo Performance
• Heartbeat Song — Kelly Clarkson
• Love Me Like You Do — Ellie Goulding
• Thinking Out Loud — Ed Sheeran
• Blank Space — Taylor Swift
• Can’t Feel My Face — The Weeknd
Be still my heart.
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance
• Ship To Wreck — Florence + The Machine
• Sugar — Maroon 5
• Uptown Funk — Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars
• Bad Blood — Taylor Swift Featuring Kendrick Lamar
• See You Again — Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth
I actually like the Taylor Swift not featuring Kendrick Lamar version better. And this is my favorite Maroon 5 song since their Hands All Over album.
Best Pop Vocal Album
• Piece By Piece — Kelly Clarkson
• How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful — Florence + The Machine
• Uptown Special — Mark Ronson
• 1989 — Taylor Swift
• Before This World — James Taylor
Best Dance Recording
• We’re All We Need — Above & Beyond Featuring Zoë Johnston
• Go — The Chemical Brothers
• Never Catch Me — Flying Lotus Featuring Kendrick Lamar
• Runaway (U & I) — Galantis
• Where Are Ü Now — Skrillex And Diplo With Justin Bieber
Give the Biebs a Grammy!
Best Rap Performance
• Apparently — J. Cole
• Back To Back — Drake
• Trap Queen — Fetty Wap
• Alright — Kendrick Lamar
• Truffle Butter — Nicki Minaj Featuring Drake & Lil Wayne
• All Day — Kanye West Featuring Theophilus London, Allan Kingdom & Paul McCartney
Full disclosure: I only listen to Drake.
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
• One Man Can Change The World — Big Sean Featuring Kanye West & John Legend
• Glory — Common & John Legend
• Classic Man — Jidenna Featuring Roman GianArthur
• These Walls — Kendrick Lamar Featuring Bilal, Anna Wise & Thundercat
• Only — Nicki Minaj Featuring Drake, Lil Wayne & Chris Brown
This song made it onto my ultimate summer 2015 playlist
Best Rap Song
• All Day — Ernest Brown, Tyler Bryant, Sean Combs, Mike Dean, Rennard East, Noah Goldstein, Malik Yusef Jones, Karim Kharbouch, Allan Kyariga, Kendrick Lamar, Paul McCartney, Victor Mensah, Charles Njapa, Che Pope, Patrick Reynolds, Allen Ritter, Kanye West, Mario Winans & Cydel Young, songwriters
(Kanye West Featuring Theophilus London, Allan Kingdom & Paul McCartney)
• Alright — Kendrick Duckworth, Mark Anthony Spears & Pharrell Williams, songwriters (Kendrick Lamar)
• Energy — Richard Dorfmeister, A. Graham, Markus Kienzl, M. O’Brien, M. Samuels & Phillip Thomas, songwriters
(Drake)
• Glory — Lonnie Lynn, Che Smith & John Stephens, songwriters
(Common & John Legend)
• Trap Queen — Tony Fadd & Willie J. Maxwell, songwriters
(Fetty Wap)
Side note: WHY DO YOU NEED NINETEEN SONGWRITERS FOR ONE SONG! If it takes that many people to make it work…you should just give it up!
Best Rap Album
• 2014 Forest Hills Drive — J. Cole
• Compton — Dr. Dre
• If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late — Drake
• To Pimp A Butterfly — Kendrick Lamar
• The Pinkprint — Nicki Minaj
Best Country Solo Performance
• Burning House — Cam
• Traveller — Chris Stapleton
• Little Toy Guns — Carrie Underwood
• John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16 — Keith Urban
• Chances Are — Lee Ann Womack
Best Country Duo/Group Performance
• Stay A Little Longer — Brothers Osborne
• If I Needed You — Joey+Rory
• The Driver — Charles Kelley, Dierks Bentley & Eric Paslay
• Girl Crush — Little Big Town
• Lonely Tonight — Blake Shelton Featuring Ashley Monroe
Boy can Charles Kelly sing.
Best Country Song
• Chances Are — Hayes Carll, songwriter
(Lee Ann Womack)
• Diamond Rings And Old Barstools — Barry Dean, Luke Laird & Jonathan Singleton, songwriters (Tim McGraw)
• Girl Crush — Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna & Liz Rose, songwriters
(Little Big Town)
• Hold My Hand — Brandy Clark & Mark Stephen Jones, songwriters
(Brandy Clark)
• Traveller — Chris Stapleton, songwriter
(Chris Stapleton)
Pretty clever.
Best Country Album
• Montevallo — Sam Hunt
• Pain Killer — Little Big Town
• The Blade — Ashley Monroe
• Pageant Material — Kacey Musgraves
• Traveller — Chris Stapleton
Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media
• Empire: Season 1
• Fifty Shades Of Grey
• Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me
• Pitch Perfect 2
• Selma
They incorporated Mmmbop, how can I not choose them?
Best Song Written For Visual Media
• Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Grey) — Ahmad Balshe, Stephan Moccio, Jason Quenneville & Abel Tesfaye, songwriters (The Weeknd)
• Glory — Lonnie Lynn, Che Smith & John Stephens, songwriters (Common & John Legend)
• Love Me Like You Do — Savan Kotecha, Max Martin, Tove Nilsson, Ali Payami & Ilya Salmanzadeh, songwriters (Ellie Goulding)
• See You Again — Andrew Cedar, Justin Franks, Charles Puth & Cameron Thomaz, songwriters (Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth)
• Til It Happens To You — Lady Gaga & Diane Warren, songwriters (Lady Gaga)
I did not cry in the back of the theater of AN ACTION MOVIE or nothing.
Best Music Video
• LSD — ASAP Rocky
• I Feel Love (Every Million Miles) — The Dead Weather
• Alright — Kendrick Lamar
• Bad Blood — Taylor Swift Featuring Kendrick Lamar
• Freedom — Pharrell Williams
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