It’s going to be a huge year at the Grammy’s, with tons of well deserving artists being nominated for awards!

Overall Awards:

I wasn’t very surprised by the nominees for Record of the Year: Adele’s “Rolling In The Deep”, Bon Iver’s “Holocene”, and Katy Perry’s “Firework” are all well deserving. However, I was very surprised by the nominees for Album of the Year. Adele should hands down take the category for her album 21, it would be complete insult to good music if she didn’t. Rihanna’s Loud had a couple decent songs, but nothing worthy of a Grammy, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way was complete rubbish in comparison to her first album, the Foo Fighters are terribly overrated, and while Bruno Mars has a good voice, his music is miserable. Ultimately, I will eat my sock if Adele doesn’t win this award.

Having said that, I am extremely impressed with the choices for Best New Artist, and it very well may be the night’s most competitive category. Over the past year, each artist nominated in this category has become absolutely HUGE in their perspective genres of music. You’ve got: The Band Perry, Bon Iver, J. Cole, Nicki Minaj, and our very own Skrillex. Unfortunately, I feel like Nicki Minaj is going to take down the award just because her mass radio appeal, but I feel like The Band Perry and Skrillex have done a lot more for their genres than Nicki Minaj has done for pop/hip-hop. I’m actually a little surprised not to see Avicii in the running for this category, he’s been absolutely killing it this year.

Dance & Electro:

As I mentioned in my earlier post, Deadmau5 is up for Best Dance Recording for “Raise Your Weapon,” as is Skrillex for “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.” Swedish House Mafia is also joining them in the category for “Save The World,” alongside David Guetta & Avicii for “Sunshine,” Duck Sauce for “Barbra Streisand,” and Robyn for “Call Your Girlfriend.” All of these were really big songs, and as much as it kills me not to choose “Raise Your Weapon, being that it’s one of my favorite songs of all time, I think this award has to go to Skrillex. “Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites” completely changed electronic dance music, and launched Sonny into absolute dance stardom.

Nominations for Best Dance/Electronica Album are much the same as Best Dance Recording, only having Swedish House Mafia swapped out for Zonoscope. Again, even though I love 4×4=12, and think Deadmau5 is the best producer on the planet, I think the award needs to go to Skrillex due to the fact that Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites completely changed dance music. He blurred the boundaries between dubstep, glitch, and house to create what I call a mega-genre. Rather than produce music that fit perfectly into the confines of a specific electro sub-genre, Skrillex didn’t just think outside the box, he literally tore it to pieces. He created music that took the best aspects of all the genres he liked, and threw them together to form something totally unique. It would be unfair if this award went to anyone but him. I know David Guetta is a huge superstar, but there wasn’t really anything special about Nothing But the Beat.

Rock:

I’m not even going to analyze the nominees for rock categories out of my disappointment in the genre over the past year. It’s actually kind of sad, my roots have always been in rock music, but I have been severely let down in recent days. This pretty much explains my complete lack of rock content on the site the past few months. Sure Radiohead is ok, and the Mumford & Sons are decent, but there’s really been nothing jaw-dropping. It seems like rock in general is backtracking towards something more… umm… Beatles? And we all know how I feel about that rubbish band… The best rock we’ve heard in the past couple of years actually comes from country, so let’s jump into that next.

Country:

For once, I am actually extremely pleased with the nominations in the country segment. They’re are actually spot on. For Best Country Solo Performance, the competition is fierce: Jason Aldean for “Dirt Road Anthem,” “I’m Gonna Love You Through It” by Martina McBride, Blake Shelton with “Honey Bee,” Taylor Swift for “Mean,” and Carrie Underwood for “Mama’s Song.” Every one of these songs is well deserving of the award, but I’m going to stick with my boy Jason on this one. Since Jason Aldean released My Kinda Party back in November, 2010, I’ve racked up an unbelievable 456 plays of “Dirt Road Anthem.” It is simply one of the best country songs ever written.

Best Country Duo/Group Performance is another totally stacked group with Jason Aldean & Kelly Clarkson’s “Don’t You Wanna Stay,” Kenny Chesney ft. Grace Potter’s “You And Tequila,” The Civil Wars with “Barton Hollow, and Thompson Square for “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not.” I’m going to rule the The Civil Wars out of this one right off the bat, but honestly it could go any way between the other three. I think “Don’t You Wanna Stay” and “You And Tequila” are both amazing and powerful songs, however, I think “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not” is going to take down this award out of sheer radio listenability and overall popularity.

For Best Country Song, I’m just going to say straight out that I would pick Blake Shelton’s “God Gave Me You.” It’s going to be close, but I think it’s a little more powerful than Taylor Swift’s “Mean,” Thompson Square’s “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not,” and Chesney ft. Grace Potter’s “You And Tequila.”

Best Country Album is where things get really interesting. As we all know, I absolutely love Taylor and think the world of her work… however, I think I would vote for Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party over Speak Now to take down this category. Speak Now is an amazing album, but My Kinda Party is my overall favorite album of the past year. Not to mention the fact that it is simply a country album. Speak Now should really be winning Album of the Year for its ability to speak to fans of many genres. I am actually very surprised that it isn’t in the running… what’s wrong with these people?

Overall, really tough choices… Like I said, everyone in the country segment deserves their nominations. But I don’t think I can say the same for Rap.

Rap/Hip-Hop:

Quick overview of how I see things for the rap genre. For Best Rap Performance, I would have to say Wiz Khalifa should take the award home for “Black And Yellow.” It’s a far catchier song than any of the others, and more importantly has much more appeal to the average listener. Jay-Z & Kanye West’s “Otis,” is an absolutely miserable song, and Lupe Fiasco’s “The Show Goes On” was subpar at best. I won’t even bother to mention the others up for this award; complete embarrassment to music.

Best Rap/Sung Collaboration is actually a tough one this year. Personally, I’d say that it is between DJ Khaled ft. every rapper in existence’s “Im On One,” Rihanna & Drake’s “What’s My Name?,” or Kanye West ft. 10,000 artist’s “All Of The Lights.” These are three great songs, but I’m going to have to pick “What’s My Name?” for it’s catchiness, popularity, and replay value.

Best Rap Song belongs to “Black and Yellow.” Just forget about all of the other nominations, they’re not even worth mentioning. As for Best Rap Album, my personal pick would be Lupe Fiasco’s Lasers, but I have a feeling someone else is going to win the award. I don’t think Watch The Throne was really good enough to win this, nor was Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV. However, even though I hate to say it Nicki Minaj has a shot with Pink Friday due to its huge popularity, and Kanye could possibly win for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy due to its amazing reviews, even though I fail to see anything so special about it.

Any way, that’s all I am going to comment on. I just wanted to provide you guys with my rundown of who deserved what at this years Grammy Awards. For the full list of nominations, please click here!