Is Olivia Rodrigo a lock for best new artist?
Female artists are on a streak here as well, with Alessia Cara, Dua Lipa, Eilish and Megan Thee Stallion winning the previous four years. Rodrigo is the natural next woman up after topping the pop charts with unstoppable “Drivers License” and the album charts with “Sour.” The last male artist to win was Chance the Rapper in 2017. Like the metal category, before they sorted it out, this one is always a head-scratcher. Take Glass Animals. According to the guidelines, the category is “for a new artist who releases, during the eligibility year, the first recording which establishes the public identity of that artist.” Formed in 2010, Glass Animals had a Top 20 album in the U.S. in 2016 with “How to Be a Human Being” and headlined Stage AE on that tour.
Tony Bennett: Grammy winner at 95?
At the other end of the spectrum, there has yet to be a centenarian winner. But we’ve gotten close. The oldest artist to win a Grammy was 97-year-old Pinetop Perkins, for traditional blues album, in 2011. Sadly, he died a month later. Bennett, who finally retired in late 2021, has won 19 Grammys and will likely become the second-oldest winner ever, for his work with Lady Gaga on “Love for Sale.” Album of the year and record of the year would be long shots, but pop duo/group performance (“I Get a Kick Out of You”) and traditional pop vocal album are well in play. The competition in the latter includes 76-year-old Dolly Parton and 88-year-old Willie Nelson.
Will Jackson Browne win his first-ever Grammy?
The mild-mannered Rock and Roll Hall of Famer with the poetic touch got his first Grammy nominations in 1979 for “Running on Empty”: album of the year and best male pop vocal performance for the song. Unfortunately, he ran up against the juggernaut of the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack for AOY, and Barry Manilow knocked him off for pop vocal with “Copacabana,” because that’s how Grammy voters rolled in the ’70s. In all, he’s been nominated eight times, this year for best Americana album for 15th effort “Downhill From Everywhere,” which included protest songs about climate change and immigration. The competition is John Hiatt with The Jerry Douglas Band, Los Lobos, Allison Russell and the potentially dangerous Yola, a British country-soul artist who was nominated for best new artist in 2020.
Who else could win their first Grammy?
Believe it or not, ABBA. The Swedish pop legends have their first-ever nomination, record of the year, for “I Still Have Faith In You,” a single from their first new album in 40 years. “Voyage,” which came out in November, will be eligible in 2023. Some other artists who could pick up their first Grammys: Selena Gomez, Gang of Four, Sun Ra Arkestra, Valerie June, BTS, Dream Theater, Gojira, Rob Zombie, Fleet Foxes, Halsey, Luke Combs, Thomas Rhett, Brothers Osborne, Elvin Bishop and Joe Bonamassa.