Fields
- General
- Pop & Dance/Electronic
- Rock, Metal & Alternative
- R&B & Rap
- Country, Americana, & Folk
- Latin, African, & Global
You can feel the Grammys both contracting and expanding lately as new categories seek to address ancient and emerging issues. This decade’s addition of awards for African artists, dance-pop recordings, and, just this year, traditional country albums spreads acclaim and opportunities around a wider palate of nominees. But the willingness to include more artists leaves critics’, viewers’, and performers’ existing Grammy gripes feeling particularly egregious. The 50th anniversary of the Ramones self-titled arrives in spring, and this Sunday’s ceremony recognizing contemporary and traditional country, folk, Americana, bluegrass, roots, and the blues as distinct entities forces punk music to fight with spicy pop and rock acts in alternative and metal categories, narrowing chances for alternative and metal bands. Spanish-speaking rock artists end up squeezed in with urbano megastars under a vast Latin pop umbrella. The Grammys are changing; the Grammys are desperately in need of still more change.
In spite of these and other frustrating inconsistencies, this year is a great class of nominees, led by Kendrick Lamar with nine. It’s also full of potential for the kind of tomfoolery that has inspired people to avoid the voting process or ceremony over the years. The complaint that the Grammys are disrespectfully stingy with which awards get shown during the main event — this was the sticking point in a hip-hop artist boycott in 1989 — will probably hold true of achievements in dozens of genres tucked away in the pre-show. And some of the cooler nominations still feel ornamental to what often turns into a celebration of massive mainstream impact in music. This stings less thanks to the healthy variety of all-timers currently in the field.
General
Record of the Year
“DtMF,” Bad Bunny
“Manchild,” Sabrina Carpenter
“Anxiety,” Doechii
“Wildflower,” Billie Eilish
“Abracadabra,” Lady Gaga
“Luther,” Kendrick Lamar featuring SZA
“The Subway,” Chappell Roan
“APT.,” Rosé featuring Bruno Mars
Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” built on the massive success of “Not Like Us,” upending a couple of the Drake diss’s hip-hop chart feats by pivoting to radio-ready romanticism and a tandem stadium tour. It exudes a self-assured lightness, a function of time spent refining a craft. “Luther” will mow through the competition here. Sabrina Carpenter’s song about guys being goofy and Bad Bunny’s single about wishing to be more present in fleeting moments might’ve been more pertinent to a rough last year animated by masculine aggression. But Record of the Year is not a pertinence or a lyric award. It salutes the auditory components of a track, and “Luther” boils over with fluttering keys, strings, vocals, and samples in addition to being a 14-week No. 1 hit on the “Billboard Hot 100.”
Will Win: “Luther”
Should Win: “Luther”
Album of theYear
Debí Tirar Más Fotos, Bad Bunny
Swag, Justin Bieber
Man’s Best Friend, Sabrina Carpenter
Let God Sort Em Out, Clipse
Mayhem, Lady Gaga
GNX, Kendrick Lamar
Mutt, Leon Thomas
Chromakopia, Tyler, the Creator
Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is the Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters or the Ray Charles’s Genius Loves Company of the 2026 pack. It works toward the same goals as those studio albums infused with lessons in history and musicology that used to devour top honors prior to a deluge of pop-star wins in the 21st century. FOToS squeezes a great deal of Puerto Rican culture and politics into the format of an event album that is aching to get children and grandparents on the same page. But there are seven other high-water marks in wildly different careers to contend with, like Sabrina Carpenter’s Republican-reviled Man’s Best Friend, Lady Gaga’s self-mythologizing Mayhem, and Tyler, the Creator’s versatile Chromakopia. One reality that’s clear from this selection is that hip-hop is no longer an Album of the Year outlier: Half this crop raps. Kendrick Lamar’s commercial juggernaut GNX is going to stomp through here after last year’s quintuple “Not Like Us” win, looking to pick up where he left off. It would be his first AOTY win after five nominations — for each of his Interscope studio albums and the Black Panther soundtrack — in this category.
Will Win: GNX
Should Win: Debí Tirar Más Fotos
Song of the Year
“Abracadabra,” Lady Gaga
“Anxiety,” Doechii
“APT.,” Rosé featuring Bruno Mars
“DtMF,” Bad Bunny
“Golden [From KPop Demon Hunters],” HUNTR/X: EJAE, Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami
“Luther,” Kendrick Lamar featuring SZA
“Manchild,” Sabrina Carpenter
“Wildflower,” Billie Eilish
Fourteen of Bruno Mars’s last 15 nominations resulted in a win. He’s going home with something. But he seems likely to lose the same award that also eluded him last year, when he was nominated with Lady Gaga. Song of the Year is a writer’s category and his and Blackpink star Rosé’s rework of Tony Basil’s “Mickey” isn’t that interested in its lyrics. It’s a tougher sell arguing for it here than in Record of the Year, a more producer-centric reward. That’s where the soul of this locomotive collaboration lies. But in both categories Mars sits alongside tentpole singles from the biggest albums of the year. The Doechii and Kendrick singles deserve spots for a showily manicured verboseness that doesn’t tug too far away from the structure of a classic hit record. Sabrina Carpenter drove trolls insane across the political spectrum with “Manchild,” but the Billie Eilish single, which touts a renewed interest in bubbly pure pop music after years of pointed introversion, is probably our champion. A more fun outcome would be a win for the title track from the Bad Bunny album, a wistful snapshot of the relatable ache of grief bumrushing a party.
Will Win: “Wildflower”
Should Win: “DtMF”
Best New Artist
Olivia Dean
Katseye
The Marias
Addison Rae
Sombr
Leon Thomas
Alex Warren
Lola Young
Figuring out the logic of any Best New Artist class will blow your mind, as people who’ve been around for ten years end up rubbing elbows with debut-album and press-cycle newcomers. This group is a blast, though it also reflects a nagging run on frowny male adult contemporary kinda-rock. Katseye, the Dream Academy graduate sextet currently zooming through the stages of global girl group domination, should win, as should TikTok success story Addison Rae, and so should the Marias if the indie-pop band could manage to get in having been active since the fitfully droll Sombr was 10 years old. But the calculatingly chipper Alex Warren is present, and his triple-platinum “Ordinary” dominated enough of 2025 that we began to speak of “dethroning” him like errant royalty.
This category has straightened out considerably over the last few years after ages of choices that could prove instantly hilarious (Fun. over Frank Ocean) or boldly left-field (the brilliant Esperanza Spalding over the reigning Justin Bieber). So it’s possible that this goes to Britain’s newest star Olivia Dean, whose hard work touring the hushed and smoldering The Art of Loving and defending fans against predatory sky-high ticket resale prices is paying off in the global ascent of the lilting “Man I Need.” But the only parties being recognized in other categories this year are Katseye, the plucky U.K. singer Lola Young, and 32-year-old actor and R&B sensation Leon Thomas, a six-time nominee this year whose sophomore effort Mutt stews in the Album of the Year pot. Previous Best New Artist nominees in a similar top honors windfall include Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo, who didn’t nab AOTY but did hit here.
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Will Win: Leon Thomas
Should Win: Katseye
Producer of the Year, Non-classical
Dan Auerbach
Cirkut
Dijon
Blake Mills
Sounwave
Canadian auteur Cirkut being nominated here raises the question of whether a Gaga sweep is in the cards; he worked on Mayhem. This category is a log jam for the widely influential acoustic and electric R&B approach of Dijon Duenas, who’s here for his work on Justin Bieber’s immense Swag and for his exemplary solo album Baby. Blake Mills, a routine engineer for plush indie-rock and folk albums, and the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who is turning out to be a more prolific producer than recording artist, will all need to make room for Compton’s Sounwave. The Kendrick collaborator might win on the duo’s sixth trip to Album of the Year and cascade across the other general and genre categories where the album is represented.
Will Win: Sounwave
Should Win: Dijon
Songwriter of the Year, Non-classical
Amy Allen
Edgar Barrera
Jessie Jo Dillon
Tobias Jesso Jr.
Laura Veltz
Tobias Jesso Jr.’s nomination in a songwriter category (with Dijon in a producer space) makes you wonder whether Justin Bieber’s Swag will be the belle of the ball this year. The co-writer for Bieber, Haim, Olivia Dean, Bon Iver, Miley Cyrus, and FKA twigs is resurgent, even releasing his first solo album in a decade last fall. But this award, which was inaugurated in 2023 with a Jesso win, circles the same handful of writers, and country scribes like Jessie Jo Dillon, pop bards like Amy Allen, and reggaeton men-at-arms like Edgar Barrera are just as up next. Allen worked on the last two Sabrina Carpenter albums and won last year for 2024’s Short n’ Sweet — 2025’s successful Man’s Best Friend will likely produce a similar outcome.
Will Win: Amy Allen
Should Win: Tobias Jesso Jr.
Pop & Dance/Electronic
Best Pop Solo Performance
“Daisies,” Justin Bieber
“Manchild,” Sabrina Carpenter
“Disease,” Lady Gaga
“The Subway,” Chappell Roan
“Messy,” Lola Young
“Daisies” typifies the childlike simplicity that the best Justin Bieber songs angle for, while Lola Young’s “Messy” bristles with stress beyond its years. But this category’s for singing ass singers, which is why the shoutier but inferior Gaga single “Disease” is here. This award probably goes to Sabrina Carpenter, whose smirking, cooing, crooning “Manchild” performance swerves coolly through a few other contenders’ lanes. There’s no way Carpenter — a singer who is conversant in the folk and rock traditions that the Bieber and Chappell Roan singles explore but also the self-effacing, lived-in grit of a Lola — gets shut out this year, right?
Will Win: “Manchild”
Should Win: “Daisies”
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance
“Defying Gravity,” Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande
“Golden [From KPop Demon Hunters],” HUNTR/X: EJAE, Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami
“Gabriela,” Katseye
“APT.,” Rosé, Bruno Mars
“30 for 30,” SZA With Kendrick Lamar
It makes the most sense for someone with the sky-high Grammy success ratio of a Bruno Mars and a smash collab like “APT.” to succeed in a category like this one, which Mars previously won for “Uptown Funk” and “Die With a Smile.” But the cartoon K-pop group Huntr/x was nothing to play with last year. And SZA has accrued enough of these to make you wonder why more hip-hop and R&B songs aren’t talking shit like her and Kendrick Lamar’s “Throw Some D’s” interpolation “30 for 30.”
Will Win: “APT.”
Should Win: “30 for 30”
Best Pop Vocal Album
Swag, Justin Bieber
Man’s Best Friend, Sabrina Carpenter
Something Beautiful, Miley Cyrus
Mayhem, Lady Gaga
I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2), Teddy Swims
Teddy Swims did so well on the Billboard Hot 100 that the chart reworked its rules to prevent situations like the years-long reign of 2023’s somehow still sort of omnipresent “Lose Control.” He’s nominated here for the sequel to the album that spawned his diamond-certified single, which was never nominated; it’s probably not enough to box with the more established heavy hitters who’ve avoided other genre categories to campaign for this award. Gaga’s Mayhem was likely a lock for the dance album category but it has a tougher fight here alongside Miley Cyrus and Sabrina Carpenter records whose quality hinged on their colorful vocal delivery; Bieber’s intensive R&B exploration Swag skips that field entirely to joust with this lot. Competition is steep but Sabrina’s album made the biggest splash of the group, and here in Taylor Swift and Adele territory that’s prime currency.
Will Win: Man’s Best Friend
Should Win: Man’s Best Friend
Best Dance/Electronic Recording
“No Cap,” Disclosure & Anderson .Paak
“Victory Lap,” Fred Again.., Skepta, & PlaqueBoyMax
“Space Invader,” Kaytranada
“Voltage,” Skrillex
“End of Summer,” Tame Impala
Dance-pop singles getting funneled into a separate category (coincidentally the year after Beyoncé won this award, a running theme with this ceremony in the 2020s) ought to have been license for this one to skew very heady. This pack is more interested in electronic grooves as a means of exploration than pop hits that use the beat to rocket us to a chorus, but the pool remains rather mainstream nevertheless. The lost 2010s Skrillex single “Voltage” takes the cake for not giving a shit about any of these dichotomies.
Will Win: “Voltage”
Should Win: “Voltage”
Best Dance Pop Recording
“Bluest Flame,” Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco
“Abracadabra,” Lady Gaga
“Midnight Sun,” Zara Larsson
“Just Keep Watching (From F1 the Movie),” Tate McRae
“Illegal,” PinkPantheress
U.K. singer-producer PinkPantheress’s bubbly “Illegal” felt inescapable last year but Lady Gaga’s thumping return to form “Abracadabra” is the kind of single this relatively new addition to the Grammy repertoire — which has so far awarded Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” and Charli xcx’s “Von Dutch” — got peeled off from the main Best Dance/Electronic Recording running to celebrate.
Will Win: “Abracadabra”
Should Win: “Illegal”
Best Dance/Electronic Album
Eusexua, FKA Twigs
Ten Days, Fred Again.
Fancy That, PinkPantheress
Inhale / Exhale, Rüfüs Du Sol
F*** U Skrillex You Think Ur Andy Warhol But Ur Not!!
