Grammys Predictions: Who Should Win the Big Four Awards

by KAYLIE WU

Each year, the Recording Academy presents the Annual Grammy Awards to recognize famous artists and their teams for outstanding achievement in the music industry. The awards show is meant to accurately represent an entire year’s worth of music; this means that Recording Academy members must carefully vote upon nominee lists that not only resonate with international fanbases, but that also align with the major events that took place within the music world that year, or between Oct. 1, 2021 and Sept. 30, 2022. On Nov. 15, 2022, when the list of nominees for the upcoming 65th Grammy Awards was released, fans were surprised to see a few of their favorite artists completely left out; ultimately, the Recording Academy’s full list of nominees more or less accurately represents the 2022 music industry as a whole, while simultaneously still snubbing a few major artists, like Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj.

The Grammys’ “Big Four” awards — “Record of the Year,” “Song of the Year,” “Album of the Year” and “Best New Artist” — succeeded not only in summarizing what music was most popular in 2022, but also in including a very diverse range of artists. This year, recently popular musicians such as Steve Lacy were nominated for “Record of the Year,” along with artists and bands who have been famous for much longer time spans, such as Beyonce and ABBA.

Although Steve Lacy is not nearly as famous as the iconic Beyonce or ABBA, his nomination is easily just as deserved, and his music has the popularity to prove it. Steve Lacy’s nominated “Bad Habit” went viral on TikTok immediately after its release in June 2022, helping to expose the rest of his discography to millions of users. The song also has more Spotify streams than both Beyonce’s “BREAK

MY SOUL” and ABBA’s “Don’t Shut Me Down.” Even when these “BREAK

MY SOUL” and “Don’t Shut Me Down” streams are added together, “Bad Habit” was still played about 200 million more times, asserting that Steve Lacy’s slightly less “mainstream” music is just as Grammy-worthy.

Meanwhile, it’s highly reputable to see that the “Album of the Year” category incorporates many genres besides pop and rap, from country to soul to alternative rock to even Latin trap and reggaeton. In 2022, Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” was the most consumed album in the United States, not to mention that it was the first all-Spanish album to accomplish this. Given that the album has already gone down in American history, there is absolutely no doubt that “Un Verano Sin Ti” rightfully earned its nomination.

“Un Verano Sin Ti” is also the first all-Spanish album to be nominated for “Album of the Year” in the 65 years that the Annual Grammy Awards have existed, meaning that if Bad Bunny wins, he will have the first non-English album to receive this honor.

Despite the recognition of these record-breaking superstars, there are still a few other significant artists who did not receive any of their well-deserved nominations.

It was especially surprising for Megan Thee Stallion’s name to be completely left out of this year’s nominations. In March 2022, Megan Thee Stallion released “Sweetest Pie” with Dua Lipa, which was even included in Billboard’s male artist since Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” in 1998. Even if not nominated in one of the “Big Four” categories, “Super Freaky Girl” still deserved some sort of recognition from the Recording Academy; the song generated much more buzz and emotionally impacted fans way more than songs nominated in “Rap” categories, including Gunna’s “pushin P” and DJ Khaled’s “Beautiful.”

Nicki Minaj is not new to feeling snubbed by the Recording Academy, either; while the rapper has been nominated ten times in past years, she still has yet to win an award. “Never forget the Grammys didn’t give me my best new artist award when I had 7 songs simultaneously charting on billboard & bigger first week than any female rapper in the last decade,” Nicki Minaj tweeted in 2020.

“Hot 100 Songs” in 2022, ranking in the 62nd spot. Statistically, Megan Thee Stallion’s second studio album, “Traumazine,” was also much more successful than several Grammy-nominated albums, including Mary J. Blige’s “Good Morning Gorgeous” and Brandi Carlile’s “In These Silent Days.” While these two artists are certainly deserving of their nominations, given that even Billboard considers “Sweetest Pie” to have had a big cultural impact in 2022, it would make sense for Megan Thee Stallion to have earned at least one nomination this year as well.

Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” was shockingly excluded from this year’s list of Grammy nominations as well. Similarly placed in Billboard’s 2022 “Hot 100,” the song became a massive dance trend on TikTok, not to mention that it was also the first No. 1 debut for a hip-hop song by a solo fe-

Drake also released two of this year’s biggest albums — “Honestly, Nevermind” and “Her Loss” — both of which did not receive any nominations. According to Forbes, this is because Drake himself chose for his work to not even be considered, as the artist has expressed several problems regarding discrimination with the Recording Academy in the past; however, Drake’s “Jimmy Cooks” with 21 Savage was still one of the biggest hits of the year, making it especially difficult to agree that the Grammys are accurately depicting the 2022 music world without any acknowledgement of it.

Bruno Mars also shared with Rolling Stone that Silk Sonic, his band with Anderson Paak, would similarly not be submitting any music to be considered for the Grammys this year. In 2022, Silk Sonic only released one song: “Love’s Train.” While the band certainly did not have nearly as big of an impact as Drake this year, the song is still an important homage to rhythm switches and vocal hiccups in the ‘70s, and deserved at least a nomination in one of the R&B categories.