Last Friday, Nov. 7, the nominees for the 68th Grammy Awards were announced. The awards show, due to be broadcast live from the Crypto.com Arena (formerly the Staples Center) on Feb. 1, 2026, will honor outstanding recording artists and creatives. This year’s nomination announcement came with the usual surprises and disappointments, as well as two new categories: Best Traditional Country Album and Best Album Cover. Lady Gaga and Kendrick Lamar received the most nominations, with eight each. Not far behind are producers Cirkut and Jack Antonoff with seven nods each, and artists Bad Bunny, Leon Thomas III, and Sabrina Carpenter with six.
Music’s Biggest Night got its start in 1957 when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce made plans to expand the Walk of Fame beyond movie stars to include famous entertainers in other industries. The original idea was to add stars for recording artists who sold over one million records or 25,000 albums, but this criterion left many notable artists unacknowledged. In order to properly honor significant musicians, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences was formed to create an award to recognize popular and talented artists, regardless of sales. The Grammy Awards, named after the gramophone (and after which the awards are modeled), were first held in Beverly Hills, California (and New York City, simultaneously) in 1959.
This year’s nominations feature a lot of familiar faces. After sweeping at last season’s awards with “Not Like Us” and earning himself five golden gramophones, Kendrick Lamar is back with nominations for his collaborative single “Luther” featuring SZA in both the Record of the Year (awarded for technical proficiency and production) and Song of the Year (for songwriting and melody) categories. His album “GNX” is also up for Album of the Year. Lady Gaga’s return to form in the album “MAYHEM” and its second single “Abracadabra” have likewise received nominations in those categories. Bad Bunny, who’s set to headline the Super Bowl half-time show, is also picking up nominations for Record and Song of the Year for “DtMF” off of his nominated album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.” The album, which was recorded entirely in Puerto Rico, marks the first time a Spanish-language artist has earned nominations across those three categories in the same year.
Other contenders in both the Record of the Year and Song of the Year categories are Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” from her nominated album “Man’s Best Friend,” Doechii’s Gotye-sampling “Anxiety,” ROSÉ & Bruno Mars’ banger "APT" and Billie Eilish’s “WILDFLOWER” from her 2024 album “HIT ME HARD AND SOFT,” a song that is eligible because it was released as a single in February 2025. Competing in only the Record of the Year category is “The Subway” by Chappell Roan. The Song of the Year category is home to a nomination for “Golden” from the unescapable Netflix animation “K-pop Demon Hunters.”
In Best Albums, Justin Bieber’s seventh album “SWAG,” Tyler, the Creator’s “Chromakopia,” Clipse’s “Let God Sort Em Out” and Leon Thomas’ “MUTT” are among the nominations. Former “Victorious” actor Leon Thomas is up for Best New Artist, too, along with Olivia Dean, KATSEYE, The Marías, Addison Rae, sombr, Alex Warren, and Lola Young.
While those artists had the night of their lives, others had a bitter pill to swallow, with zero nods across the board. Lorde, whose June album “Virgin” hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 charts, was nowhere to be found among the nominations, nor was Gracie Abrams, who had a viral, Top 10 single in “That’s So True.” The Weeknd, no stranger to Grammy snubs, didn’t receive any nominations for his well-received, American Music Award-winning album “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” which may be his last album under his current stage name. Fans are also disappointed about the exclusion of artists like Benson Boone, Megan Moroney and Role Model. While there is a Taylor Swift-sized gap in the nominations this year, she was not the victim of the Grammys’ cold-shoulder; her polarizing album “The Life of a Showgirl” came out after the eligibility period, which finished at the end of August.
While nominations are an honor of their own, in the end, there can only be one winner. I’m no music industry guru, but if I were voting on the Grammys this year, these would be my picks:
Record of the Year
Lady Gaga - “Abracadabra”
Song of the Year
Bad Bunny - “DtMF”
Album of the Year
Bad Bunny - “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS”
Best New Artist
Olivia Dean
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.