It is one other Beyoncé vs Taylor showdown

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

The ceremony, which takes place in LA on Sunday evening, 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 thing from finest pop album to finest choral efficiency.

Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have each confirmed their attendance, as they sq. off within the album of the 12 months class for the primary time since 2010 (Swift received 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.

Here is every thing you have to know concerning the ceremony.

The massive query of the evening is whether or not Beyoncé will lastly win album of the 12 months, after 4 earlier losses within the class?

Throughout final 12 months’s ceremony, her husband Jay-Z addressed the oversight, telling the viewers: “I do not need to embarrass this younger girl, however she has extra Grammys than everybody and by no means received album of the 12 months. So even by your personal metrics, that does not work.”

Beyoncé’s newest document, Cowboy Carter, is a wildly bold try and contextualise and commemorate the black roots of nation music. It is the form 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 – may depend towards it.

Billie Eilish is at present the bookmakers’ favorite along 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 along with her brother, Finneas.

Charli XCX’s Brat is a career-defining pop document that turned 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 should be loopy to disregard Taylor Swift. Her eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Division, was the biggest-seller of final 12 months; a reality that can undoubtedly be taken into consideration, even when the document is considered one of her weaker efforts.

If she wins, Swift will acquire her fifth album of the 12 months trophy – greater than another artist in Grammy historical past.

One of many 12 months’s most stacked classes is document of the 12 months – higher understood as “finest single”.

Except for a rogue nomination for The Beatles (see beneath), the shortlist displays a stellar 12 months 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 track of the 12 months prize – which recognises achievement in songwriting – the sensible cash is on Bruno Mars and Girl Gaga’s Die With A Smile.

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

Their competitors consists of Shaboozey’s A Bar Tune (Tipsy), which was America’s longest-running primary single of 2024. Nonetheless, the truth that it is primarily based 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 the same masterclass in songcraft – making this class one of many hardest to foretell.

In contrast, the coveted finest 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 at the least 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 document is at present held by Santana, who received 9 trophies for his album Supernatural in 2000 (coincidentally, the identical 12 months that Beyoncé obtained her first Grammy nomination, as a part of Future’s Little one).

And if Cowboy Carter does not take dwelling finest album, Beyoncé nonetheless breaks a document, for probably the most nominations in that class and not using a win.

Billie Eilish may turn into 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 be poised to make historical past. If he wins finest instrumental composition, he does so with the longest track 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 document holders, in case you had been questioning, are Oklahoma band The Flaming Lips. In 2007, they received finest rock instrumental efficiency for the magnificently-titled The Wizard Activates the Big 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 at present 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, resembling 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 evening. These are: album of the 12 months, document of the 12 months, track of the 12 months, finest new artist, songwriter of the 12 months and producer of the 12 months.

The 2025 awards recognise music launched between 16 September 2023 and 30 August, 2024. The winners are usually 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: document of the 12 months and finest rock efficiency.

Each nominations recognise Now and Then, a track that John Lennon demoed within the Seventies, and which was lastly accomplished by his surviving bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr final 12 months.

Grammy voters, with their eyes firmly skilled on the previous, hardly ever miss a chance 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 finest music movie.

In some methods, that is correcting an historic fallacious. Of their prime, the Beatles had been nominated for document of the 12 months 4 occasions – for I Need 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 part 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 know-how.

Rather a lot.

All of the hoopla surrounding the Grammys has gone. No pre-parties, no after-parties. The whole lot besides the ceremony itself has been cancelled. All the cash that may 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 Hearth Aid fund, which has thus far 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 replicate the devastation, with segments honouring the primary responders who risked their lives to sort out the inferno and defend 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. To date, the listing consists of:

• 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 elements, 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 value tuning in. The winners within the extra obscure classes are much less polished and extra enthusiastic about profitable, 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 reside.grammy.com.

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

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

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

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

That mentioned, the awards themselves are notoriously ridiculous. In line with legend, they had been created in 1959 as a panicked response to the recognition of rock ‘n’ roll. Report corporations 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 “finest 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 mix of the 2.

Famously, The Beatles received 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 one of the best album of 2008 – the 12 months 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.