New Jersey artists among 2016 Grammy nominees

It should come as a shock to absolutely nobody that Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift are littered across almost every category, and it’s hard to believe they won’t be the ones taking home Song Of The Year and Album of The Year in some combination.

Elsewhere, Englewood’s Tony Bennett and pianist Bill Charlap were nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for “The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern”.

Courtney Barnett, an Australian indie-rock favorite, is nice to see in the Best New Artist category.

Finally, Blake Mills, the tremendous guitarist and Fiona Apple collaborator, somehow made it to the Producer of the Year category: he worked on Alabama Shakes’ “Sound & Color”.

Best country album: “Montevallo”, Sam Hunt; “Pain Killer”, Little Big Town; “The Blade”, Ashley Monroe; “Pageant Material”, Kacey Musgraves; “Traveller”, Chris Stapleton.

— “I am so grateful to the fans, the Nashville music community and the Recording Academy for their appreciation and recognition”.

In the world of dance music, it was good to see the voting committee branch out a bit with nominations for both Flying Lotus and Galantis, but the fact that Giorgio Moroder failed to be recognized for his collaboration with Foxes, titled “Wildstar,” is nothing short of baffling. Meanwhile for Best Alternative Album, Alabama Shakes are joined by Bjork, My Morning Jacket’s The Waterfall, Tame Impala’s Currents and Wilco’s surprise release Star Wars. The enduring smash reappeared in the Best Country Duo/Group Performance alongside recordings by Brothers Osborne, Joey+Rory and others. “But the real question is, what the hell am I going to wear?”

– “i’m nominated for a Grammy.my heart is heavy & i am just speechless” – New artist nominee Tori Kelly, via Instagram. One would think that an artist who has already received Grammy nominations loses the whole “new” moniker in the process.

Though Lamar, Swift and the Weeknd led all artists, many in the Twitterverse was wondering about the woman who just sold 4.5 million albums in two weeks: Adele. – Kelly Clarkson, nominated for pop solo performance and pop vocal album for “Piece by Piece”, via Twitter. The point we’re trying to make is that nobody has forgotten about 1989 and it looks like Taylor is going to walk away with quite a few awards for the album, so we wouldn’t worry about Adele’s “25” as it will no doubt clean up in 2017.