From Best New Artist and Album of the Year to key genre categories, we forecast the hottest races
THE 66TH ANNUAL Grammy Awards will have some awfully tight races when the trophies are handed out on Sunday. The Best New Artist category alone is flush with deserving talent, from Ice Spice to Noah Kahan, while Album of the Year is dominated by women at the peak of their powers.
After running the numbers, talking to experts, and, most importantly, digesting all that music, we predict the winners in eight categories — the Big Four, plus genre contests in rap, country, Latin, and rock.
The 2024 Grammys, hosted by Trevor Noah, air Sunday, Feb. 4, at 8 p.m./ET on CBS.
Grammy Winner Predictions for Album of the Year
The Nominees
Jon Batiste – World Music Radio
boygenius – The Record
Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation
Lana Del Rey – Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
Janelle Monáe – The Age of Pleasure
Olivia Rodrigo – Guts
Taylor Swift – Midnights
SZA – SOS
The Lowdown
Taylor Swift’s Midnights and SZA’s SOS feel like the undeniable front-runners — but then again, Recording Academy voters are capable of being both totally predictable and wildly unpredictable. Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts pipping those two albums certainly wouldn’t be a shocker. As John Stein, Spotify’s head of North America editorial says, not winning AOTY last year might make Rodrigo a good bet this year: “I think in the Grammy conversation, having an album as huge as Sour not win sets her up really nicely for this one.” On the other hand, if Midnights, SOS, and Guts all split votes, that could leave room for someone like 2022 winner Jon Batiste, Lana Del Rey, or everyone’s favorite supergroup, boygenius.
Who Should Win
SZA, SOS
It was absolutely worth the wait: SZA’s second album, released five years after her breakthrough debut, is a stunning exhibition in futuristic pop R&B, flush with unparalleled vocal acrobatics, brilliant bars, and profound, intimate revelations.
Who Will Win
Taylor Swift, Midnights
Few things in life are certain: Death, taxes, and Taylor Swift Album of the Year nominations. Midnights is another triumph in a catalog filled with them, and it’s been backed by one of the biggest tours in history. Swift already has three AOTY wins, and another here would make her the first artist to take the prize home four times (a feat only accomplished, so far, by mixing and mastering engineers).
Grammy Winner Predictions for Record of the Year
The Nominees
Jon Batiste – “Worship”
boygenius – “Not Strong Enough”
Miley Cyrus – “Flowers”
Billie Eilish – “What Was I Made For?”
Victoria Monét – “On My Mama”
Olivia Rodrigo – “Vampire”
Taylor Swift – “Anti-Hero”
SZA – “Kill Bill”
The Lowdown
Of all the top categories, Record of the Year — which rewards the best finished song, not the underlying songwriting — might be the hardest to predict, with variables everywhere you look. “Anti-Hero” may seem like an obvious pick, but Taylor Swift has never won this category, despite four noms over the years. There’s no shortage of other hits that could claim the title in her place, from Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” to SZA’s “Kill Bill.” Plenty of other songs have a shot at crashing the party, too, like Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” and Billie Eilish’s Barbie ballad “What Was I Made For?” Rob Kruz, the program director of Hot 99.5 in Washington, D.C., says all roads lead to SZA. “It’s going to be ‘Kill Bill,’“ Kruz says. “Based on what we’ve seen from the Grammy voting, I think that’ll be a very interesting choice. And it’s well-deserved.”
Who Should Win
Miley Cyrus, “Flowers”
Prior to “Flowers,” it had been 10 long years since Miley Cyrus had a Number One hit. After years of stylistic shifts — from alt-rock stoner to Malibu hippie singer-songwriter — it was unclear she still had a hold on the mainstream pop audience, especially after the modest performance of her 2020 Dua Lipa collaboration, “Prisoner,” which failed to crack the Top 40. “Flowers” answered those doubts practically overnight. Written in the aftermath of her divorce from actor Liam Hemsworth, it’s a song of self-empowerment and cathartic rage, its bubbling shifts between darkness and light courtesy of Harry Styles collaborators Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson. The song hit in January 2023, was played a record 96 million times in its first week on Spotify, and spent eight weeks at Number One. It’s still in heavy rotation on Top 40 radio.
Who Will Win
SZA, “Kill Bill”
After years of sharing the spotlight with bigger names on huge songs (“Love Galore” with Travis Scott, “The Weekend” with Calvin Harris, “All the Stars” with Kendrick Lamar), SZA dominated the charts on her own with “Kill Bill.” Over atmospherics that are part movie soundtrack and part nightmare, SZA unfurls a modern murder ballad in the vein of “Goodbye Earl,” by the Chicks, with a video that pays loving homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, culminating in a gruesome scene where a ninja SZA rips her ex’s heart out of his body and licks it. The song rose up the charts throughout early 2023, eventually knocking Morgan Wallen’s seemingly unstoppable “Last Night” out of the top spot.
Grammy Winner Predictions for Song of the Year
The Nominees
Lana Del Rey – “A&W”
Taylor Swift – “Anti-Hero”
Jon Batiste – “Butterfly”
Dua Lipa – “Dance the Night”
Miley Cyrus – “Flowers”
SZA – “Kill Bill”
Olivia Rodrigo – “Vampire”
Billie Eilish – “What Was I Made For?”
The Lowdown
Morgan Wallen’s juggernaut “Last Night” was snubbed in the Song of the Year nominations, which may portend a showdown between Taylor Swift and SZA, with the former being the safest bet. “I like Taylor; she’s a generational talent,” says Ebro Darden, the global editorial head of hip-hop and R&B at Apple Music. “In my world, it was more SZA, but when it comes to Grammy voting, I don’t know if SZA has the cachet and the relationships that Taylor has.”
Who Should Win
SZA, “Kill Bill”
“Kill Bill” is the rare combo of commercial smash and critical darling. It’s “one of the most important songs of the year,” says J.J. Italiano, head of global music curation and discovery at Spotify. “It’s catapulted her to a whole other level in the pop-music ecosystem.” “Kill Bill” was also the only song popular enough to interrupt Wallen’s multi-month chart reign earlier in the year, elevating SZA from critical favorite to arena headliner. “The song is just well written, well done, and well worth the wait,” says Darden, who views SZA as “one of the greatest songwriters of a generation.”
Who Will Win
Taylor Swift, “Anti-Hero”
Expect Swift to score her first win in this Big Four category. “Anti-Hero” is a nuanced pop smash that spent eight weeks at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Swift’s longest-running chart topper. “Everybody should buckle up,” says Darden, “because it’s shaping up to be Taylor Swift’s year.”
Grammy Winner Predictions for Best New Artist
The Nominees
Gracie Abrams
Fred again..
Ice Spice
Jelly Roll
Coco Jones
Noah Kahan
Victoria Monét
The War and Treaty
The Lowdown
Best New Artist will be an especially tight race this year, thanks to big songs and thoroughly effective marketing campaigns helping those moments feel bigger than 15 seconds. Leading the pack is Ice Spice, whose hit remix of PinkPantheress’ “The Boy’s a Liar” took every possible music-discovery medium by storm. Not many artists can say they pulled the attention of both Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift before they even released a debut album. Nothing’s a sure thing — the Grammys don’t have the best history with hip-hop, and fellow likely nominee Gracie Abrams has her own Taylor Swift boost. And there are plenty of other artists across genres who made their mark this year in a way that’s likely to attract some Recording Academy attention. Can you say Jelly Roll?
Who Should Win
Ice Spice
The New York-native rapper had four Top 10 hits this year, among them her remix of “Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2” with PinkPantheress. Veteran hitmakers took the buzzy new star under their wing, with Taylor Swift adding her to a “Karma” remix and Nicki Minaj jumping on a remix of Ice Spice’s “Princess Diana.”
Who Will Win
Gracie Abrams
Singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams had already headlined two tours and opened for Olivia Rodrigo by the time she released her debut album, Good Riddance, in February. With the help of the National’s Aaron Dessner, she crafted a masterfully vulnerable LP worth waiting for. On top of all that, she spent her summer opening for Taylor Swift on the biggest tour of the year, a major boost for any prospective Best New Artist nominee.
