Grammy nominations 2024: SZA leads a female-dominated year
Female artists are set to dominate next year’s Grammy awards with SZA, Phoebe Bridgers, Victoria Monét and Taylor Swift leading the way.
SZA has scored the most nominations with nine overall for her album SOS and the songs from it, covering pop, rap and R&B fields. The singer has so far won one Grammy from her 14 previous nominations. She competes in the record of the year category with Billie Eilish, boygenius, Jon Batiste, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift and Victoria Monét.
Victoria Monét, Phoebe Bridgers and the mixing engineer Serban Ghenea all follow with seven nominations apiece. Monét is also nominated in the category of best new artist alongside others including Ice Spice and Jelly Roll.
Both song and record of the year categories are almost entirely female with just Batiste as the male nominee in both. Batiste won five key Grammy awards in 2022.
Swift, with six nominations, could potentially make Grammys history if she wins album of the year, which would make her the first artist ever to win in that category four times. Rodrigo, who has previously won three Grammy awards, has scored six nominations for her album GUTS and the song Vampire.
The Barbie album has also made a strong showing with 12 nominations and songs from Eilish, Nicki Minaj and Dua Lipa featuring prominently. Songs from the soundtrack make up four out of the five nominees for best song from visual media.
Nominees beyond the world of music include Meryl Streep, Michelle
Obama, Bernie Sanders and Dave Chappelle, for audiobook, storytelling or comedy awards.
This year sees three new categories: best African music performance, best alternative jazz album and best pop dance recording. Kylie Minogue and Troye Sivan are among the nominees for the latter category.
Notable snubs include country singer Morgan Wallen, who scored just one nomination for Last Night for best country song. The song has spent 16 weeks at No 1 in the US this year.
Earlier this year, Beyoncé become the most awarded artist in Grammys history, winning four awards at the 65th ceremony and bringing her total to 32. Harry Styles took home album of the year for Harry’s House.
The 66th Grammy awards will take place on 4 February with a host yet to be announced.
2024 Grammy nominations: the major categories
Record of the year
Billie Eilish – What Was I Made For? boygenius – Not Strong EnoughJon Batiste – WorshipMiley Cyrus – FlowersOlivia Rodrigo – VampireSZA – Kill BillTaylor Swift – Anti-HeroVictoria Monét – On My Mama
Album of the year boygenius – The RecordJanelle Monáe – The Age of PleasureJon Batiste – World Music RadioLana Del Rey – Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean BlvdMiley Cyrus – Endless Summer VacationOlivia Rodrigo – GUTSSZA – SOSTaylor Swift – Midnights
Song of the year
Billie Eilish – What Was I Made For? Dua Lipa – Dance the NightJon Batiste – ButterflyLana Del Rey – A&WMiley Cyrus – FlowersOlivia Rodrigo – VampireSZA – Kill BillTaylor Swift – Anti-Hero
Best new artist
Gracie AbramsFred Again..Ice SpiceJelly RollNoah KahanVictoria MonétThe War and Treaty
Best pop solo performance
Miley Cyrus – FlowersDoja Cat – Paint the Town RedBillie Eilish – What Was I Made For?Olivia Rodrigo – VampireTaylor Swift – Anti-Hero
Best rap performance
Baby Keem ft Kendrick Lamar – The HillbilliesBlack Thought – Love LetterCoi Leray – PlayersDrake and 21 Savage – Rich FlexKiller Mike ft André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane – Scientists & Engineers
Best rock performance
Arctic Monkeys – Sculptures of Anything GoesBlack Pumas – More Than a Love Songboygenius – Not
Strong EnoughFoo Fighters – RescuedMetallica – Lux AEterna
Best metal performance
Disturbed – Bad ManGhost – Phantom of the OperaMetallica – 72 Seasons Slipknot – Hive MindSpiritbox – Jaded
Best R&B performance
Chris Brown – Summer Too HotCoco Jones – ICURobert Glasper ft SiR and Alex Isley – Back to LoveSZA – Kill BillVictoria Monét – How Does It Make You Feel
Best country solo performance Tyler Childers – In Your LoveBrandy
Clark – BuriedLuke Combs – Fast CarDolly Parton – The Last Thing on My MindChris Stapleton – White Horse
Best global music performance Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily – Shadow Forces Burna Boy – AloneDavido – Feel Silvana Estrada – Milagro y Desastre Falu and
Gaurav Shah (ft PM Narendra Modi) – Abundance in Millets Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain ft Rakesh Chaurasia – PashtoIbrahim Maalouf ft Cimafunk and Tank and the Bangas – Todo Colores
Best dance/electronic recording Aphex Twin – Blackbox Life Recorder
21FJames Blake – LoadingDisclosure – Higher Than Ever BeforeRomy and Fred again.. – StrongSkrillex, Fred again.. and Flowdan – Rumble
measure. “We can trust Arizonans to make good decisions, and they want to restore their freedom to access abortion without government interference.”
However, in some states, ballotmeasure organizers are already running into interference from state officials.
In Missouri, which bans almost all abortions, two groups have proposed separate sets of ballot amendments. One set of amendments would overturn Missouri’s abortion ban by enshrining reproductive rights writ large into the state constitution. The other would add a number of exceptions into the state’s existing abortion ban, including for rape and incest, as well as potentially legalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. (As each group submitted a number of proposals, the language varies from proposal to proposal.)
But both groups have ended up in court over the amendments, arguing that Missouri’s secretary of state, John Ashcroft – who is in charge of writing summaries of the ballot initiatives that will appear in front of voters – wants to rewrite the initiatives with misleading language. For example, Ashcroft suggested telling voters that one amendment would “nullify Missouri laws protecting the right to life”.
Meanwhile, Florida’s attorney general, Ashley Moody, has asked that state’s court to keep a proposed initiative to protect abortion rights off the ballot. The initiative is “part of a similar overall design to lay ticking timebombs that will enable abortion proponents later to argue that the amendment has a much broader meaning than voters would ever have thought”, Moody argued in a late October filing.
The ballot initiative, should it end up in front of voters, would protect abortion until fetal viability – a benchmark that generally occurs around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Florida currently bans abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy, but the state supreme court is now weighing a lawsuit over that ban. If the state supreme court upholds it, then a six-week ban would be cleared to take effect.
“You can have situations where a state court or state legislature will find reasons to throw out your ballot language because you put a comma in the wrong place, or they decide the definition of a word needs to be something else,” Schifeling said. “They’ll use whatever they can use to, to disqualify a ballot initiative.”