Kendrick Lamar leads Grammy nominations; see entire list

When the nominees for the 58th Grammy Awards were announced this week, a trio of country artists helped boost the format’s profile with some major-category nominations. The next time a hip-hop artist won was in 2004, when Album of the Year went to Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, a double album that also benefited from a “rap-but-not-really” vibe thanks to the massive success of “Hey Ya!”, which won a Grammy in the category of “Best Urban/Alternative Performance” (a.k.a. “Best Euphemism Coined By A Confused Elderly White Person”). I also expect Taylor Swift to shout out Kendrick Lamar on stage and be 2016’s Macklemore.

Other nominees include “All About That Bass” performer Meghan Trainor, big-voiced singer Tori Kelly, Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett and rock musician James Bay, who is also nominated for best rock album and rock song.

“Artists are pushing boundaries in exciting ways, making it an exceptionally strong year for music”, he said in a statement.

Swift’s domination of awards shows and of the music business in general continues with this group of Grammy nominations. In addition, her single “Blank Space” is nominated both for record of the year _ which honors vocal performance, songwriting and production _ and again in the song category, which is strictly a songwriter’s award. Taylor Swift tied Tesfaye with seven nominations.

“Tis the season for Grammy nominations, and the subsequent kvetching that follows their announcement”. Lamar put out a thoughtful piece of work with “To Pimp a Butterfly” and it seemed like the Weeknd came out of nowhere with “Beauty Behind the Madness”.

Others well placed for this year’s Grammy Awards are producer/musician Max Martin, with a total of six nominations, and rapper Drake with five.

For best rock performance, the nominees included Elle King and Wolf Alice along with Alabama Shakes, Florence + the Machine and Foo Fighters. It let down a sector of Kendrick Lamar fans who were looking for more of the same from good kid, m.A.A.d city or something with a little more bounce when he would presumably trot out songs from the LP during his then forthcoming sets.

Best country album: Sam Hunt, “Montevallo”; Little Big Town, “Pain Killer”; Ashley Monroe, “The Blade”; Kacey Musgraves, “Pageant Material”; Chris Stapleton, “Traveller”. Seven months later, the collaboration is up for the best pop duo/group performance and best music video Grammys.

Adele managed to smashed through records as she set the record for the most downloads of her single Hello, as well as managing to shift 3.38 million of her album in the first week.

He’ll finish off the year performing a string of sold-out concerts before hitting the road with Rihanna on her upcoming world tour. The Grammy web site states that eligible recordings had to have been released between October 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015.

I don’t know why Kanye West’s “All Day” got nominated and I am amused that Drake’s diss track “Back to Black” scored one, too, but overall, I did not look at the rap categories and think, “What the hell is wrong with these old, white folks?”