It is one other Beyoncé vs Taylor showdown

The Grammys are music’s largest night time, each actually and figuratively.

The ceremony, which takes place in LA on Sunday night time, runs for a staggering eight hours, attracting the most important stars in pop, rock, nation and hip-hop.

Organisers will hand out 94 awards, recognising every little thing from greatest pop album to greatest choral efficiency.

Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have each confirmed their attendance, as they sq. off within the album of the yr class for the primary time since 2010 (Swift gained on that event, reality followers).

There’ll even be performances from Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, Benson Boone, Shakira, Stevie Surprise, Teddy Swims and Raye – and an in memoriam tribute to Thriller producer Quincy Jones.

This is every little thing it’s good to know in regards to the ceremony.

The massive query of the night time is whether or not Beyoncé will lastly win album of the yr, after 4 earlier losses within the class?

Throughout final yr’s ceremony, her husband Jay-Z addressed the oversight, telling the viewers: “I do not wish to embarrass this younger woman, however she has extra Grammys than everybody and by no means gained album of the yr. So even by your personal metrics, that does not work.”

Beyoncé’s newest report, Cowboy Carter, is a wildly bold try and contextualise and commemorate the black roots of nation music. It is the kind of factor that delights Grammy voters, who historically want albums that elevate America’s musical historical past over modern, cutting-edge productions.

However the album’s extreme size – together with a couple of weaker tracks in its latter half – might depend towards it.

Billie Eilish is presently the bookmakers’ favorite together with her third album Hit Me Onerous and Gentle. Mixing passionate energy ballads with violent digital shifts and hip-hop swagger, it marks a brand new evolution within the star’s songwriting partnership together with her brother, Finneas.

Charli XCX’s Brat is a career-defining pop report that grew to become a cultural phenomenon. The best-reviewed album of 2024, it is in all probability too abrasive for the Grammys’ extra conservative voters, however that is their loss.

And also you’d must be loopy to disregard Taylor Swift. Her eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Division, was the biggest-seller of final yr; a reality that can undoubtedly be taken under consideration, even when the report is certainly one of her weaker efforts.

If she wins, Swift will acquire her fifth album of the yr trophy – greater than every other artist in Grammy historical past.

One of many yr’s most stacked classes is report of the yr – higher understood as “greatest single”.

Apart from a rogue nomination for The Beatles (see beneath), the shortlist displays a stellar yr for pop music, with Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso and Charli XCX’s 360 up towards Beyoncé’s Texas Maintain ‘Em and Billie Eilish’s Birds Of A Feather.

However the front-runner is Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us. A livid take-down of his rap nemesis, Drake, it is as catchy as it’s legally contentious. If it wins, it will be solely the second hip-hop single to win the class, following Infantile Gambino’s This Is America in 2019.

Within the parallel tune of the yr prize – which recognises achievement in songwriting – the good cash is on Bruno Mars and Girl Gaga’s Die With A Smile.

Each artists are perennial Grammy favourites, and their virtuoso ballad might be catnip to voters.

Their competitors contains Shaboozey’s A Bar Music (Tipsy), which was America’s longest-running primary single of 2024. Nevertheless, the truth that it is based mostly on a earlier hit (J-Kwon’s Tipsy) is more likely to depend towards it.

Chappell Roan’s breakout single Good Luck Babe is one other sturdy contender, notable for its hovering excessive notes and a piercing lyric that skewers internalised homophobia. Billie Eilish’s gossamer ballad Birds of a Feather is an analogous masterclass in songcraft – making this class one of many hardest to foretell.

Against this, the coveted greatest new artist prize is just about a two-way break up between Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, each of whom established a dominant chart presence in 2024 after years on the pop sidelines.

That is unhealthy information for the only British nominee, six-time Brit Award winner Raye. However not less than she’s in good firm, alongside breakout rap star Doechii and big-hearted pop singer Teddy Swims.

Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter has 11 nominations, doubtlessly making it the most-rewarded album in Grammy historical past.

The report is presently held by Santana, who obtained 9 trophies for his album Supernatural in 2000 (coincidentally, the identical yr that Beyoncé acquired her first Grammy nomination, as a part of Future’s Youngster).

And if Cowboy Carter does not take house greatest album, Beyoncé nonetheless breaks a report, for essentially the most nominations in that class with out a win.

Billie Eilish might grow to be the primary feminine artist to win Report of the Yr thrice with Birds of a Feather. Paul Simon and Bruno Mars are the one different artist with three wins within the class.

Rapper turned flautist André 3000 can also be poised to make historical past. If he wins greatest instrumental composition, he does so with the longest tune title in Grammy historical past: I Swear, I Actually Needed To Make A ‘Rap’ Album However This Is Actually The Means The Wind Blew Me This Time.

The present report holders, in case you have been questioning, are Oklahoma band The Flaming Lips. In 2007, they gained greatest rock instrumental efficiency for the magnificently-titled The Wizard Activates the Large Silver Flashlight and Places On His Werewolf Moccasins.

Greater than 13,000 members of the Recording Academy vote for the Grammys yearly – together with musicians, producers, lyricists, and even the individuals who write CD liner notes.

To qualify, they have to be presently working within the music trade, and pay an annual subscription of $150 (£120). All former winners are additionally eligible to vote.

Each member is allowed to vote in as much as 10 classes throughout three fields, reminiscent of rock, classical and R&B. They’re inspired solely to vote in genres the place their experience lies.

Moreover, each member, no matter their background, will get to vote for the six largest awards of the night time. These are: album of the yr, report of the yr, tune of the yr, greatest new artist, songwriter of the yr and producer of the yr.

The 2025 awards recognise music launched between 16 September 2023 and 30 August, 2024. The winners should not revealed till the ceremony.

The Beatles might need damaged up 55 years in the past, however they’re up for 2 prizes on Sunday: report of the yr and greatest rock efficiency.

Each nominations recognise Now and Then, a tune that John Lennon demoed within the Nineteen Seventies, and which was lastly accomplished by his surviving bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr final yr.

Grammy voters, with their eyes firmly educated on the previous, not often miss a possibility to reward the Beatles. Eight years in the past, for instance, the band’s documentary Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years beat Beyoncé’s groundbreaking Lemonade for greatest music movie.

In some methods, that is correcting an historic improper. Of their prime, the Beatles have been nominated for report of the yr 4 instances – for I Wish to Maintain Your Hand, Yesterday, Hey Jude and Let It Be – however misplaced each time.

A win in 2025 would show that Beatlemania by no means fades – however voters could also be delay by The Beatles’ use of machine studying (a type of synthetic intelligence), which was used to scrub up Lennon’s scratchy outdated cassette recordings.

The Recording Academy’s guidelines on AI say that “solely human creators” can win Grammys, and that “the human authorship element of the work submitted have to be significant”.

That is true within the case of Now And Then, however many creators stay sceptical of the expertise.

Rather a lot.

All of the hoopla surrounding the Grammys has gone. No pre-parties, no after-parties. Every part besides the ceremony itself has been cancelled. All the cash that will have been spent on champagne and vol au vents is being funnelled into reduction efforts.

The Recording Academy and its affiliated MusiCares charity have additionally arrange a Fireplace Reduction fund, which has to date pledged greater than $3.2 million (£2.6 million) in emergency assist to help music professionals affected by the fires.

And the telecast itself will mirror the devastation, with segments honouring the primary responders who risked their lives to deal with the inferno and shield the susceptible.

“We’ll nonetheless have performances, we’ll nonetheless have awards and honour music,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason, Jr instructed Selection journal.

“However you may know that one thing’s occurred, and you may know that we’re utilizing music to do good.”

You betcha. Up to now, the record contains:

• Benson Boone
• Sabrina Carpenter
• Jacob Collier
• Sheryl Crow
• Billie Eilish
• Cynthia Erivo
• Chappell Roan
• Charli XCX
• Doechii
• Herbie Hancock
• Brittany Howard
• John Legend
• Chris Martin
• Janelle Monáe
• Brad Paisley
• Raye
• Shakira (pictured)
• Teddy Swims
• Lainey Wilson
• Stevie Surprise
• St. Vincent

The ceremony is break up into two components, with the primary 80 awards distributed throughout what’s known as the “premiere ceremony” at 12:30 in Los Angeles / 20:30 in London on Sunday.

It is typically price tuning in. The winners within the extra obscure classes are much less polished and extra enthusiastic about successful, and the performances are looser and, dare I say it, extra musical than the grandiose set items you may see later.

You may watch the entire thing on the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel, and on stay.grammy.com.

That is additionally the place you wish to go to observe crimson carpet protection, which kicks off at 15:00 in Los Angeles / 23:00 within the UK.

Lastly, the principle present kicks off at 17:00 Los Angeles / 01:00 Monday within the UK. It is broadcast stay within the US on CBS and streamed internationally on Paramount Plus. Speeches and choose performances are often uploaded to YouTube the next day.

After all not! However have you ever seen what is going on on in every single place else on this planet?

Musicians, nonetheless take the Grammys very critically certainly. An enormous win can increase album gross sales and bump you up competition payments.

That stated, the awards themselves are notoriously ridiculous. Based on legend, they have been created in 1959 as a panicked response to the recognition of rock ‘n’ roll. Report firms hoped that by highlighting “good” music, they’d steer the general public away from Elvis’s swivelling hips.

As if for example that time, they did not hand Mr Presley a trophy till 1968, and even that was for “greatest sacred efficiency”, recognising his first gospel album, How Nice Thou Artwork.

Since then, the awards have remained wilfully arbitrary, woefully out of contact, or a mixture of the 2.

Famously, The Beatles gained extra awards after they break up up than they did collectively; and there have been no rap classes till 1989.

And if anybody nonetheless thinks that Herbie Hancock’s jazz tribute to Joni Mitchell was the very best album of 2008 – the yr of Amy Winehouse’s Again To Black and Kanye West’s Commencement – I would have an interest to listen to your arguments.

So if Beyoncé does not win on Sunday (or even when she does) do not let it have an effect on your enjoyment of her music.