Sarahindie

You guys, let’s talk seriously about Grammy nominations. Like how far I’m going to get into this list before I can no longer take them seriously and flounce off.

Record of the Year (Which actually means single of the year, and is given for performance, not writing. Maybe it’s time to change the names of these categories.)
Adele – Rolling in the Deep
Bon Iver – Holocene
Bruno Mars – Grenade: For serious?
Mumford & Sons – The Cave
Katy Perry – Firework
Thoughts: Adele’s gonna win, so everyone else should probably go ahead and try to beat the rush at valet. And I can’t tell if the Grammys are ever being serious. They feel that, of all of the songs this year, Katy Perry’s shrieking is one of the five best performed.

Album of the Year
Adele – 21
Foo Fighters – Wasting Light
Lady Gaga – Born This Way
Bruno Mars – Doo-Wops & Hooligans
Rihanna – Loud
Thoughts: God, I want Wasting Light to win. It’s their best album in easily ten years and the most addictive rock album I’ve heard in years, but I got my one Grammy wish last year when Arcade Fire won. I wouldn’t mind at all if Adele won, but I’m already over Bruno Mars.

Song of the Year (This one is the writing one.)
Kanye West – All of the Lights
Mumford & Sons – The Cave
Bruno Mars – Grenade
Bon Iver – Holocene
Adele – Rolling in the Deep
Thoughts: Super grateful that Adele will likely take this one as I can’t honestly believe that “I would jump on a grenade for you” represents the pinnacle of songwriting.

Best New Artist:
The Band Perry
Bon Iver
J. Cole
Nicki Minaj
Skrillex
Thoughts: AHAHAHAHAH SKRILLEX??? OMG AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Anyway, I bet J. Cole or The Band Perry wins, because I think people are genuinely worried about the Best New Artist curse. (Though my dad saw Esperanza Spaulding this year and said she was mind-blowing.) I’d bitch about Bon Iver, but even I’m sick of my “You can’t be Best New Artist on your third album” rant.

Best Pop Solo Performance:
Adele – Someone Like You
Lady Gaga – You and I
Bruno Mars – Grenade
Katy Perry – Firework
Pink – Fuckin’ Perfect
Thoughts: Let’s give it to Pink. She’s great and no one ever recognizes that. Plus, of all of this year’s self-empowerment anthems, Fuckin’ Perfect was the best (i.e. the only one I could stand).

Best Pop Duo/Group Performance:
Tony Bennett & Amy Winehouse – Body and Soul
The Black Keys – Dearest
Coldplay – Paradise
Foster the People – Pumped Up Kicks
Maroon 5 & Christina Aguilera – Moves Like Jagger
Thoughts: No point in even really discussing how this one is going to turn out, but at least it means Moves Like Jagger won’t be officially recognized.

Best Pop Vocal Album
Adele – 21
Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer
Lady Gaga – Born This Way
Bruno Mars – Doo-Wops & Hooligans
Rihanna – Loud
Thoughts: [Editor: c&p in last year's rant about the messed up eligibility year before posting.] Hopefully Adele gets it.

Best Dance Recording
Deadmau5 & Greta Svabo Bech – Raise Your Weapon
Duck Sauce – Barbara Streisand
David Guetta & Avicii: Sunshine
Robyn – Call Your Girlfriend
Skrillex – Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
Swedish House Mafia – Save The World
Thoughts: Robyn’s finally nominated for Grammys and she’s going to lose to Sonny Moore. The world is bereft of hope.

Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
Cutting to the chase on this one. We all know that they just don’t release that many albums that fit into this category anymore, but this year’s nominees are Tony Bennett, Susan Boyle, Harry Connick Jr, Barbra, and Seth MacFarlane. Creator of Family Guy. That Seth MacFarlane. Though, his album wasn’t bad.

Best Rock Performance
Coldplay – Every Teardrop is a Waterfall
The Decemberists – Down By the Water
Foo Fighters – Walk
Mumford & Sons – The Cave
Radiohead – Lotus Flower
Thoughts: You guys, I totally forgot about The Decemberists. Like, plum forgot they existed. But they should probably just rename this the Coldplay Memorial Achievement in Being Coldplay.

Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance
Dream Theater – On the Backs of Angels
Foo Fighters – White Limo
Mastodon – Curl of the Burl
Megadeth – Public Enemy No. 1
Sum 41 – Blood in My Eyes
Thoughts: My friend Erin and I are usually united in our hatred of the way bands jump around between genre classifications in the Grammys, but this is the exception that proves the rule. White Limo is a straight up metal song. It’s all super-fast singing and shrieking and crazy drums. It’s different enough that it moves itself into the new category. The real trouble will come when we get down to the “Alternative” bits. (Moving on without acknowledging Sum 41 in 3, 2, 1.)

Best Rock Song
This is the writing award and, proving how completely pointless it is to divide these two categories, the nominees are exactly the same as for performance.

Best Rock Album
Jeff Beck – Rock ‘N’ Roll Party Honoring Les Paul
Foo Fighters – Wasting Light
Kings of Leon – Come Around Sundown
Red Hot Chili Peppers – I’m With You
Wilco – The Whole Love
Thoughts: Honestly had no idea there was a new RHCP album. And one solitary nomination is as close to a flop as Kings of Leon have experienced in quite some time.

Best Alternative Music Album
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Death Cab for Cutie – Codes and Keys
Foster the People – Torches
My Morning Jacket – Circuital
Radiohead – The Kings of Limbs
Thoughts: The Radiohead Memorial Achievement in Being Radiohead.

Best Rap Performance
Chris Brown, Lil’ Wayne, & Busta Rhymes – Look at Me Now
Jay-Z & Kanye – Otis
Lupe Fiasco – The Show Goes On
Nicki Minaj & Drake – Moment 4 Life
Wiz Khalifa – Black and Yellow
Thoughts: Oh man, Black and Yellow. That song was overplayed by the last Grammys. (Admit it, just reading the words got the song stuck in your head.) I’m kind of looking forward to watching Jigga and Yeezy try to share an acceptance speech.

Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
Beyonce & Andre 3000 – Party
DJ Khaled, Drake, Rick Ross & Lil Wayne – I’m On One
Dr. Dre, Eminem, & Skylar Grey – I Need a Doctor
Rihanna & Drake – What’s My Name
Kelly Rowland & Lil’ Wayne – Motivation
Kanye, Rihanna, Kid Cudi, & Fergie – All of the Lights
Thoughts: Drake fascinates me. He’s in this category twice, but once as the rap half and once as the sung half. He’s a triple threat! (Canadians among you will know that he also dabbles in acting.) This is a pretty fair fight, but I’m thinking Eminem takes it, just because he’s not nominated anywhere else.

Best Rap Song
Kanye – All of the Lights
Wiz Khalifa – Black & Yellow
Eminem – I Need a Doctor
Chris Brown – Look at Me Now
Kanye & Jay-Z – Otis
Lupe Fiasco – The Show Goes On
Thoughts: Yeah, uh-huh, you know what it is.

Best Rap Album
Jay-Z & Kanye – Watch the Throne
Lil Wayne – Tha Carter IV
Lupe Fiasco – Lasers
Nicki Minaj – Pink Friday
Kanye – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Thoughts: Kanye’s solo effort might take it on critical hype alone, but I’d love to see Nicki get it. Also, I love Lil Wayne for just not caring about what his albums are called. He came up with a passable title once and he’s going to keep recycling it forever.

-Jazz Categories: Need to note that a lady got nominated for making a whole album of Randy Newman covers.
-Country Categories: There is a country group now called The Civil Wars.
-Is Americana a new genre? I suspect it is simply a fancy name for alt-country, since Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams were nominated.

Best Folk Album (Including it because it is some kind of weird catch-all.)
The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow
Steve Earle – I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive
Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
Eddie Vedder – Ukulele Songs
Gillian Welch – The Harrow & the Harvest
Thoughts: Fleet Foxes are a folk band? How did I miss that? Maybe I had them confused with someone else.

-Regional Roots is where they shoved all of the Hawaiian music, since that category was abolished last year.
-Every single “World Music” album is from Africa. Including Femi Kuti’s “Africa for Africa.”
-There’s a Children’s album nominated that’s by The Papa Hugs Band. Man, I wanna go see that band. It sounds awesome.

Best Comedy Album
Weird Al Yankovic – Alpocalypse
Patton Oswalt – Finest Hour
Louis C.K. – Hilarious
Kathy Griffin – 50 & Not Pregnant
The Lonely Island – Turtleneck and Chain
Thoughts: I know no one cares about comedy but me, but this is a pretty intense fight. Patton always blows everyone out of the water, but based on his current critical popularity, I say Louis takes it.

-Movie & TV stuff: All things I do not care about, though I hope Daft Punk wins for Tron: Legacy.

Best Song Written for Visual Media (The category where they put the songs intentionally written to appear in this category.)
Born to Be Somebody, from Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never The Remixes
Christmastime is Killing Us, from Family Guy
I See The Light, from Tangled
So Long, from Winnie the Pooh (by She & Him, apparently)
Where the River Goes, from Footloose
You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me, from Burlesque
Thoughts: There was a Winnie the Pooh movie?

-Best Packaging nods for The Suburbs deluxe edition and Watch the Throne.
-How good is Wasting Light? Butch Vig is nominated for Producer of the Year and it’s the only album he made. (Though, he did record it on reel-to-reel in Dave’s garage.)

Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical (I have no idea what the classical version is, but I want it.)
Cinema – Song by Benny Benassi, Remix by Skrillex
Collide – Song by Leona Lewis, Remix by Afrojack
End of Line – Song by Daft Punk, Remix by Photek
Only Girl (In the World) – Song by Rihanna, Remix by Rosabel
Rope – Song by Foo Fighters, Remix by Deadmau5
Thoughts: I want Rope to win, simply because it’s a nice guy remixing nice guys.

Best Short Form Music Video
Adele – Rolling in the Deep
Memory Tapes – Yes I Know
OK Go – All Is Not Lost
Radiohead – Lotus Flower
Skrillex – First of the Year (Equinox)
Weird Al Yankovic – Perform This Way
Thoughts: Thom Yorke’s dancing gets nominated and Robyn’s doesn’t? Highway robbery. But srsly, it’s just OK Go v. Adele, and I worry it will break OK Go’s little hearts if they lose to a lady in a chair. (But man, what if Al won?)

Best Long Form Music Video
Beyonce – I Am … World Tour
Foo Fighters – Back and Forth
Kings of Leon – Talihina Sky
A Tribe Called Quest – Beats, Rhymes and Life
TV On the Radio – Nine Types of Light
Thoughts: I got through three minutes of I Am before I changed channels, Back and Forth made me cry, Talihina Sky is a mess. The Tribe will take it.

Questions? Comments? Dissent? That’s why the good Lord gave us comment boxes!