19 December 2012
By Shelby Clemons, Staff Writer
It’s that time of year again, and I’m not talking about the holiday season. It’s time for the release of the nominations for the upcoming award season. On December 5, LL Cool J and Taylor Swift co-hosted the “Grammy Nominations Concert Live!! — Countdown To Music’s Biggest Night” in Nashville to announce the 55th Annual Grammy Award nominations. As always, there were hits, misses and snubs.
There are a whopping 81 categories (which can be seen on the Grammy website) in which artists can be nominated, but the most important ones (the only ones anyone ever pays attention to) are Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist.
Up for Record of the Year is “Lonely Boy” by the Black Keys, “Stronger” (What Doesn’t Kill You) by Kelly Clarkson, “We Are Young” by fun., “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye, “Thinking Bout You” by Frank Ocean and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift. Kelly Clarkson’s nomination is a bit surprising, as she seems to have just recently come back onto the music scene. My hope is that the Black Keys get one of many Grammys, but fun. may be a good contender. As long as Taylor Swift’s obnoxiously catchy song doesn’t snub the other deserving artists in this category, everything will be fine.
The Album of the Year nominees are The Black Keys’ El Camino, fun.’s Some Nights, Mumford and Sons’ Babel, Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, and Jack White’s Blunderbuss. Thankfully, T. Swift wasn’t able to touch this category. The Black Keys definitely deserve recognition for their brilliant album, as do Mumford and Sons, but up-and-coming artists Frank Ocean and fun. may have just as good a chance. It’s slightly surprising that Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto wasn’t nominated, but perhaps that’s just my wishful thinking.
For Song of the Year, the nominees are “The A Team” by Ed Sheeran, “Adorn” by Miguel, “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepson, “Stronger” by Kelly Clarkson, and “We Are Young” by fun. Both “Stronger” and “We Are Young” are likely top contenders.
Lastly, the Best New Artist nominations include Alabama Skakes, fun., Hunter Hayes, The Lumineers and Frank Ocean. My guess is that it will either be Frank Ocean or fun. but certainly not The Lumineers, who only have one song that could be recognized by active radio listeners.
Groups like One Direction (though they may be a little too fresh to get recognition) and old favorites like “The Biebs” or even Nicki Minaj may have been expected to get nominations, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were snubbed.
The nominations are a bit mediocre, but we’ll just have to see how the show itself is on February 10, 2013 on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
For the full list of Grammy nominees click on the link below:
http://www.grammy.com/nominees
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