Here are the 2021 Grammy nominees in the general, country, and country-adjacent categories.
GENERAL FIELD
Record of the Year
- Beyoncé, “Black Parade”
- Black Pumas, “Colors”
- DaBaby Featuring Roddy Ricch, “Rockstar”
- Doja Cat, “Say So”
- Billie Eilish, “Everything I Wanted”
- Dua Lipa, “Don’t Start Now”
- Post Malone, “Circles”
- Megan Thee Stallion Featuring Beyoncé, “Savage”
Album of the Year
- Jhené Aiko, Chilombo
- Black Pumas, Black Pumas (Deluxe Edition)
- Coldplay, Everyday Life
- Jacob Collier, Djesse Vol. 3
- HAIM, Women in Music Pt. III
- Dua Lipa, Future Nostalgia
- Post Malone, Hollywood’s Bleeding
- Taylor Swift, folklore
Song of the Year
- “Black Parade” – Denisia Andrews, Beyoncé, Stephen Bray, Shawn Carter, Brittany Coney, Derek James Dixie, Akil King, Kim “Kaydence” Krysiuk & Rickie “Caso” Tice, songwriters (Beyoncé)
- “The Box” – Samuel Gloade & Rodrick Moore
- “Cardigan” – Aaron Dessner & Taylor Swift
- “Circles” – Louis Bell, Adam Feeney, Kaan Gunesberk, Austin Post & Billy Walsh
- “Don’t Start Now” – Caroline Ailin, Ian Kirkpatrick, Dua Lipa & Emily Warren
- “Everything I Wanted” – Billie Eilish O’Connell & Finneas O’Connell
- “I Can’t Breathe” – Dernst Emile II, H.E.R. & Tiara Thomas
- “If the World Was Ending” – Julia Michaels & JP Saxe
Best New Artist
- Ingrid Andress
- Phoebe Bridgers
- Chika
- Noah Cyrus
- D Smoke
- Doja Cat
- Kaytranada
- Megan Thee Stallion
COUNTRY
Best Country Solo Performance
- Eric Church, “Stick That in Your Country Song”
- Brandy Clark, “Who You Thought I Was”
- Vince Gill, “When My Amy Prays”
- Mickey Guyton, “Black Like Me”
- Miranda Lambert, “Bluebird”
Best Country Duo/Group Performance
- Brothers Osborne, “All Night”
- Dan + Shay and Justin Bieber, “10,000 Hours”
- Lady A, “Ocean”
- Little Big Town, “Sugar Coat”
- Old Dominion, “Some People Do”
Best Country Song
- “Bluebird” – Luke Dick, Natalie Hemby & Miranda Lambert
- “The Bones” – Maren Morris, Jimmy Robbins & Laura Veltz
- “Crowded Table” – Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby & Lori McKenna
- “More Hearts Than Mine” – Ingrid Andress, Sam Ellis & Derrick Southerland
- “Some People Do” – Jesse Frasure, Shane McAnally, Matthew Ramsey & Thomas Rhett
Best Country Album
- Ingrid Andress, Lady Like
- Brandy Clark, Your Life is a Record
- Miranda Lambert, Wildcard
- Little Big Town, Nightfall
- Ashley McBryde, Never Will
AMERICAN ROOTS MUSIC
Best American Roots Performance
- Black Pumas, “Colors”
- Bonny Light Horseman, “Deep in Love”
- Brittany Howard, “Short and Sweet”
- Norah Jones & Mavis Staples, “I’ll Be Gone”
- John Prine, “I Remember Everything”
Best American Roots Song
- “Cabin” – Laura Rogers & Lydia Rogers
- “Ceiling to the Floor” – Sierra Hull & Kai Welch
- “Hometown” – Sarah Jarosz
- “I Remember Everything” – Pat McLaughlin & John Prine
- “Man Without a Soul” – Tom Overby & Lucinda Williams
Best Americana Album
- Courtney Marie Andrews, Old Flowers
- Hiss Golden Messenger, Terms of Surrender
- Sarah Jarosz, World On the Ground
- Marcus King, El Dorado
- Lucinda Williams, Good Souls Better Angels
Best Bluegrass Album
- Danny Barnes, Man On Fire
- Thomm Jutz, To Live in Two Worlds, Vol. 1
- Steep Canyon Rangers, North Carolina Songbook
- Billy Strings, Home
- Various Artists, The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Vol. 1
Best Folk Album
- Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman
- Leonard Cohen, Thanks For the Dance
- Laura Marling, Song For Our Daughter
- The Secret Sisters, Saturn Return
- Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, All the Good Times
I’m happy Ingrid Andress got a New Artist nomination (since for country the other options were probably gonna be Morgan Wallen and/or Gabby Barrett).
Also in the Best Music Film category–LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE.
I am so tired of Beyonce getting a slew of nominations for anything she releases.
At least the Grammys know women are making good country music, but there are still so many overall issues with the voting.
I’m a fan of Beyoncé’s, but if Papa Knowles could find something of hers to submit to Best Album Notes and Best Improvised Jazz Solo, don’t think for a second that he wouldn’t.
Seeing some predictable backlash to the nominations for Guyton, Clark, and Carlile as pandering to “wokeness” or “virtue signaling” and other such garbage hot takes. There are 20 nomination slots in the Country field; white men are represented in 12 of those 20 slots.
Would I cut the nominations for Lady (Redacted), Little Big Town, and Wildcard? I sure would. Do I think “What Are You Gonna Tell Her” is even stronger than “Black Like Me?” I do, but that doesn’t mean “Black Like Me” isn’t deserving, too.
Solo Performance, Song, and Album all have at least one entry that I’m excited to see, along with several nominations I’m, at best, neutral on. Group Performance is a mess, but it often is; The Highwomen, Maddie & Tae, Midland, Runaway June, American Aquarium, and a slew of others would have been preferable to these five.
Clearly the folks making the nominations in the Bluegrass Category are either comatose or quite ignorant. The Billy Strings nominations is okay, but where is Doyle Lawson’s Live in Prague (the IBMA album of the year), Michael Cleveland’s Tall Fiddler, Chicago Barn Dance by Special Consensus, and Larry Sparks’ New Moon Over My Shoulder ???
All of these are better albums than the other bluegrass Grammy nominees and I can think of several other outstanding bluegrass albums that were snubbed by the Academy in favor of what is essentially an Americana category overflow of nominees
@Paul
I haven’t followed Bluegrass as much this year as I typically do, but I have seen a *lot* of online chatter among the Bluegrass community that this slate of nominees is just baffling.
Glad to see Brandy Clark get some attention after being snubbed by the cma (caps omitted deliberately).
Bluegrass complaints have prompted me to ask what category would Western Swing fall under? One of my favorite groups is Canada’s The Western Swing Authority. I love their music, have all their albums.
Jonathan there is of course that Beyonce/her team submits everywhere, but it’s also that she then gets nominated. Does anyone consider her music to be among the best of this past year?
I guess western swing would fall into country but jazz would be another possible landing spot. Canada’s Western Swing Authority is terrific, I do not have all of their albums but the ones I do have are top shelf.
The academy sometimes plays favorites to ensure the results they want. if I’m not sure who currently has the most Grammy awards BUT if the his category hadn’t been arbitrarily discontinued, the answer might be Jimmy Sturr who had 18 wins when his category was discontinued in 2009. Sturr is an excellent musician, arranger and occasional songwriter, probably as much overall talent as any of the nominees this year
@ Paul – thanks for your response. Whether it’s Stacey Lee Guse or husband Shane Guse on lead, they are terrific. Besides the albums, they released 2 Christmas Songs, “I’m Sending You My Heart This Christmas” and “Christmas Bonus” which I got from I-tunes.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
The recording artist with the most Grammy Awards is Alison Krauss, with 27, although one of those wins is for production of Nickel Creek.
Beyoncé has 24.
Both women benefit from their versatility and willingness to collaborate. Krauss benefits additionally from her instrumental prowess, while Beyoncé benefits from her songwriting talent.
Alison has won Grammys in the pop, country, bluegrass, gospel, and Americana fields.
Beyoncé has won in the pop, traditional R&B, urban contemporary, rap, and visual media fields.
KJC – Beyonce’s fraud as a songwriter is well-documented.
@ Jason re. Beyonce:
Something else that may be going on with Beyonce, and the number of times she’s been nominated, is that she need only release something in any given nominating period, and it indeed ends up being nominated. I don’t know if it’s a Pavlovian reaction, or whether they are being forced to do so at gunpoint, but it does seem like Beyonce gets nominations for everything she does by the Grammy voters; and I am not of the opinion that all of it is warranted.
@KJC:
I think the all-time winner for Grammys is the Hungarian-born British classical conductor Sir Georg Solti, who got 31 awards, primarily for recordings he made during his 1969-1991 tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, followed by Quincy Jones with 28.
@ bob and PWD,
My best guess is that any Western Swing albums would be submitted in the Best Regional Roots Music Album category within the American Roots Music field. There’s a Cajun album nominated in that category this year alongside a Native American music album. I’d imagine NARAS using the category as a catch-all that would encompass Western Swing, too.
And yes, Jimmy Sturr got shafted by the category reconfigurations, seeing as how he won the Polka Album award pretty well every year he released something eligible.
@ Jason,
“Fraud” a stronger word than I’d use to describe how Beyoncé embellishes her songwriting credits, but it’s a fair point, and she really seemed to legitimize that practice in a way it hadn’t been before her.
I’m a fan of hers, but I honestly don’t know of anyone outside of the Beyhive or her immediate family who believes she released the best music of 2019-2020. Her General field nominations pretty obviously should have gone to The Weeknd, Fiona Apple, The Chicks, or The Highwomen.