2025 Grammy Nominations: 10 Takeaways: NPR

The pop music landscape is awash with superstar juggernauts (Taylor Swift, Beyoncé), headline-grabbing sluggers (Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar, etc.), and a fresh-faced crop of hitmakers like Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, and Shaboozey. Fittingly, each of the artists mentioned above — with the exception of Drake, who stopped submitting his music to the Grammys some time ago — received plenty of nominations when the nominees for next year's Grammy Awards were announced on Friday.

That doesn't mean everything went exactly as expected. And as we wait for the Grammys to air on February 2, 2025, there are plenty of subplots and storylines to reveal:

1. It's been a massive year for women in pop. Remember in 2018 when Neil Portnow, then head of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, said women needed to “step up” after the Grammys were won overwhelmingly by men that year? Yes, he sucked. This year, women dominate the main categories: in the Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year categories, six of the eight nominees are led by women, although some share the awards with male counterparts. And while the field of best new artists is split 50-50, the overwhelming frontrunners (Roan and Carpenter) are both women.

2. As expected, Beyoncé leads the field. The two most nominated musicians of all time share a household: As of Friday, Beyoncé and Jay-Z were tied with 88 nominations each, while Beyoncé holds the record for all-time Grammy wins with 32. Now Queen Bey has an impressive 99 nominations to her name, as Cowboy Carter and a number of his songs have received 11 awards. That helps Cowboy Carter spans multiple genres and features plenty of collaborators, making it eligible in more categories than, say, Chappell Roan, which lacks suitable collaborations and didn't submit in any genre outside of pop.

3. Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter join a select group. The Grammys have four broad, genre-spanning categories, collectively known as “The Big Four”: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist. In the history of the awards, only 13 artists have been nominated in all four categories in the same year – most recently Olivia Rodrigo three years ago. (FINNEAS somehow made it this year, too, but it didn't count; he was nominated for Best New Artist as a solo act, but his other Big Four nominations this year were led by his sister Billie Eilish.) In the In In the last round of nominations, Roan and Carpenter are each nominated for the Big Four. If either of them prevails, she would be only the third artist ever to achieve this, after Christopher Cross in 1981 and Eilish in 2020.

4. Wait, Sabrina Carpenter – theirs Short and sweet is their sixth album – upcoming best new artist? Yes, the Best New Artist category could really use a renaming, perhaps to Best Breakthrough Artist, because novelty here is all in the eye of the beholder. But Carpenter's big break came in 2024, so she was eligible. (The rules are more Byzantine than that, but that's the gist of the matter.) The same goes for her fellow contestant Khruangbin, who has been releasing albums since 2015 but has only recently become popular enough to fill stadiums.

5. Speaking of confusing categories… Grammy viewers have long been confused about the difference between record and song of the year. As it turns out, the same goes for Grammy voterswho heard Shaboozey's chart-topper “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and nominated it for song of the year, but not record of the year. Song of the Year is an award for composition, while Record of the Year is an award for the overall package: the production, the performance, the mood. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is great; it's great fun. But it’s more of a “record of the year” kind of song than a “song of the year.”

6. The Record of the Year field contains one very old song. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is the famous interpolation of J-Kwon's 2004 hit “Tipsy,” but the Recording Academy went even further back in the award's highest category. John Lennon wrote and recorded his demo of the Beatles' “Now and Then” sometime around 1977, but the song was not completed or released until late 2023. Naturally, it caused a great fanfare, although it is a rather curious classic; Nevertheless, it is one of eight songs nominated for Record of the Year 2025. If he wins, it will be the first time a Beatles song has won a Grammy since February 2024, when a remastered reissue of “I'm Only Sleeping” won best music video.

7. The Album of the Year field contains two extremely dark horses. Six of the eight nominees for Album of the Year were pretty much deadly curls: Beyoncé's Cowboy CarterSabrina Carpenter's Short and sweetCharli XCX's bratBillie Eilish's Hit me hard and softChappell Roan's The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess and Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department. These six albums dominated 2024 – not just in sales and streaming, but also in their overall cultural footprint. The next two? Not so much.

One of them is Jacob Collier Djesse Vol. 4which marks Collier's first Album of the Year nomination since he was nominated for, um,. Djesse Vol. 3. With thanks to NPR Music editor Jacob Ganz, who called this nomination “filling the Jon Batiste jazz spot with a smile,” the Collier nod feels strange given such a crowded field of powerhouse contenders. Still, it's not as unexpected as the André 3000 nomination New blue sun – which, as you recall, is an epic collection of instrumental flute odysseys. OutKast was certainly a Grammy staple and many people were curious about André's first record in 17 years. But… album of the year? Really?

8. Of course there were snubs. Being left out of a field of five, six or eight nominees isn't technically a “snub” — it's actually just a calculation — but there were still surprises among this year's Grammy omissions. Dua Lipas Radical optimism didn't fare as well as its predecessor, and the women in pop field was unusually crowded and strong this year, but its lack of nominations is notable. (See also: Ariana Grande, who received three nominations but was left out of the Big Four.) Fans might be surprised to not see Zach Bryan on the field, considering how well his records performed in 2024, but He refused to give in to any of his music for consideration, so he's out. The biggest surprise of all might be Vampire Weekend Only God was above us was considered a lock-in for nominations in several categories – possibly even Album of the Year – but was excluded in all categories.

9. Speaking of which: Ye's Grammy star might finally be fading. The artist formerly known as Kanye West was nominated for 75 Grammys and won 24 of them. Even a long series of controversies couldn't dampen the Grammys' enthusiasm for him Donda was nominated for Album of the Year just three years ago. But Ye's latest album, the collaboration with Ty Dolla $ign Vulture 2There was only one nomination for best rap song (“Carnival”). Ye is either matched or surpassed by an impressive array of women, as this year's rap categories include nominations for Cardi B, Doechii, GloRilla, Beyoncé (along with Linda Martell), Latto and Rapsody (with Erykah Badu).

10. Never overlook Taylor Swift. Wait, did you just read 12 paragraphs? one Taylor Swift you mentioned? Is that even legal? Really, how dare you? Swift received six more nominations this year, bringing her total to 58, with 24 wins – including four for Album of the Year. She picked them up seventh Nomination for Album of the Year (for The Tortured Poets Department), is in the running for song and record of the year (for “Fortnight”) and… hey, where are you going?