Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Lil Nas X lead Grammy nominations
Freshman-class recording artists Lizzo, Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X collectively landed 20 Grammy Award nominations for 2020 on Wednesday, as the Recording Academy, which determines nominees and, ultimately, award recipients, wholeheartedly embraced the music industry’s newest faces and sounds.
The singer, rapper and instrumentalist Lizzo, 31, whose sassy empowerment songs became unexpected chart-topping anthems, leads the field with eight nominations. Seventeenyear-old goth-pop phenom Eilish, who tied with rapper Lil Nas X for the second-most nominations with six, and Lizzo further distinguished their nascent careers by landing nominations in all of the Grammys’ top four general categories: record, album, song and best new artist, the first time in the awards’ 62year history that two artists have done so in the same year.
Nominations were revealed in New York during a televised announcement on CBS by Deborah Dugan, the Recording Academy’s new president and chief executive; the academy’s board chair, Harvey Mason Jr.; Alicia Keys, who will host the upcoming ceremony; singer Bebe Rexha and
“CBS This Morning” anchor Gayle King.
Eilish, a native of Los Angeles’ Highland Park, also earns the distinction of becoming the youngest artist in Grammy history nominated for album of the year, for her chart-topping debut, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”
“I never thought it would be a reality in my life,” she told The Times recently when asked about the prospect of Grammy recognition. “I grew up watching the Grammys with my family. I would judge all the girls’ dresses and all the dudes’ suits. To think about sitting in a room with, like, every person I grew up idolizing,” Eilish added, “is terrifying.”
The history-making aspect of the latest Grammy slate extends to Lil Nas X, the openly gay rapper who earned nominations for record, album and new artist, propelled by his genre-hopping, recordbreaking hit single “Old Town Road.”
“Today’s announcement reflects a new era for the Recording Academy — an army of engaged members that welcomes diversity, embraces creativity and champions young musicians on the rise,” Dugan said in a statement issued Wednesday.
The nominations recognize hundreds of musicians, songwriters, producers and engineers stretching across 84 categories spanning pop, rock, rap, R&B, country, folk, gospel, Latin music, jazz, classical and film music. Winners will be announced Jan. 26 at Staples Center in Los Angeles in a ceremony that will be telecast on CBS.
With its nomination slate dominated by so many young acts, women and hiphop artists, the academy also tacitly has embraced the shifting tides of music consumption today. Increasingly left behind is the old model: music in physical form predominantly exposed via terrestrial radio. In the digital age, artists cultivate audiences for their music through a plethora of new outlets such as TikTok _ the social media platform that gave Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” its initial attention _ before seeing it more broadly disseminated by dominant streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music.
The other album of the year nominees are plaintive indie-rocker Bon Iver, singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey, pop singer Ariana Grande, R&B singer-guitarist H.E.R. and long-running alt-rock group Vampire Weekend.
Among the biggest surprises was the single nomination in the top four categories for Taylor Swift, whose seventh album, “Lover,” was the year’s biggest seller as well as being widely praised by critics.
The title track earned her a nomination among song of the year contenders, joining Lady Gaga’s “Always Remember Us This Way” from “A Star Is Born"; Eilish’s “Bad Guy"; veteran country star Tanya Tucker’s comeback hit “Bring My Flowers Now"; H.E.R.’s “Hard Place"; Del Rey’s “Norman F — Rockwell"; Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi’s wounded ballad “Someone You Loved"; and Lizzo’s breakthrough hit “Truth Hurts.”