With 84 trophies up for grabs, the 60th annual Grammy Awards is already giving fans a lot to talk about. From the questionable nominations to the ones that are not-so-surprising, I am here to offer my predictions for the 2018 Grammy general categories.
Record of the Year Nominees:
Redbone-Childish Gambino
Despacito-Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber
The Story Of O.J.-Jay-Z
HUMBLE.-Kendrick Lamar
24K Magic-Bruno Mars
Who I want to see win: Kendrick Lamar’s HUMBLE.
Who is more likely to win: Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic… possibly Despacito
The Record of the Year is awarded to the performer and production team of a song. While I believe that Kendrick Lamar deserves this award for HUMBLE., we all know that the Grammy Awards are far from fair and rarely are the winners the ones who are most deserving. The Grammy’s tend to favour the records which had a large amount of radio time, as well as those who have won in the past (for the specific category). See where I’m going with this?
Album of the Year Nominees:
Awaken, My Love! – Childish Gambino
4:44 -Jay-Z
DAMN. -Kendrick Lamar
Melodrama by Lorde
24K Magic by Bruno Mars
Who I want to see win: Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN.
Who is more likely to win: Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN…. but possibly Lorde’s Melodrama
This award is given to the performer and production team of an entire album. Lyrically speaking, Kendrick Lamar has always been a top contender, but his recent work has been blowing minds. I really think he has a good shot at winning this, mainly because I can’t even think of a weak point in the album. The entire album is so perfectly intricate that I can’t see any of the other nominees beating it. In the 2017 end of year countdown of best albums, DAMN. was included as number 1 of 50 in the Rolling Stone countdown, the Billboard top 50 Picks, the Pitchfork countdown, number 2 for The Guardian, and number 3 for NME. If anyone stood a chance at beating Kendrick it would be Lorde, since Melodrama was also wildly popular, both critically and in popularity. In each of the countdowns I just mentioned, Lorde was not far behind. The only one she managed to beat Kendrick in, however, was the NME countdown.
Song of the Year Nominees:
“Despacito”- Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee ft. Justin Bieber
“4:44” – Jay-Z
“Issues” – Julia Michaels
“1-800-273-8255” – Logic ft. Alessia Cara & Khalid
“That’s What I Like” -Bruno Mars
Who I want to see win: …meh.
Who is more likely to win: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee ft. Justin Bieber…. possibly Logic ft. Alessia Cara & Khalid
Song of the Year is awarded to the songwriters and composers of the song. I truly believe that “Despacito” has a strong chance of winning this category (as much as I wouldn’t like to admit it). However, as popular and well received as “Despacito” was, we shouldn’t forget that Logic’s suicide prevention song lead to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline receiving the second-highest daily call volume ever at that time on the day of the song’s release-over 4,573 calls. After the song was performed at the VMA’s, where suicide survivors joined the artists on stage, the Lifeline received over 5,000 calls. Website and social media traffic also reached all time highs, including general Google searches for suicide prevention helpline numbers. Were all of the calls and searches legitimate? Probably not, I’m guessing there was a lot of curiosity and a lot of prank calling. But most of the calls probably were legitimate, and this is the kind of thing that the Grammy’s will be taking into consideration when making final decisions. The impact of a song may hold more importance than the likeability or popularity in this instance.
Best New Artist Nominees:
Alessia Cara
Khalid
Lil Uzi Vert
Julia Michaels
SZA
Who I want to see win: Alessia Cara
Who is more likely to win: Alessia Cara… possibly Khalid
I was hooked as soon as Alessia dropped her debut single “Here”. She is also Canadian, which makes me a little biased, but I digress. She really does have a strong chance of winning this category since she has already won 6 Breakout Artist of the Year awards (or variations thereof) since 2015. Additionally, she had a ton of radio play for being so new to the scene and is also featured on 2 other Grammy nominated songs (Logic’s “1-800” and Zedd’s “Stay”). In short, Alessia Cara has really created a name for herself in only a few short years. The only thing that may hurt her is that her album came out in 2015 and as of most recently has only been featured on songs. Khalid, on the other hand, is a little newer and a little more popular in terms of radio play and fan choice.
The 2018 Grammy Awards is probably one of the most diverse in recent years and for the first time in a while I am actually looking forward to watching! If you’re equally as excited, tune in on January 28th to see which (if any) of these predictions come true.
