Kendrick Lamar and Woman Gaga will face off for album of the yr on the 68th Grammy Awards, a first-time showdown between two megastars of contemporary music who’ve individually been nominated 4 earlier occasions with out profitable the Recording Academy’s most prestigious prize.
As introduced Friday morning by the academy, Lamar leads nominees for subsequent yr’s ceremony with 9 nods in all, adopted by Gaga and the producers Cirkut and Jack Antonoff, every of whom has seven nominations, and Unhealthy Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter and Leon Thomas, every of whom has six. Different prime nominees embody the rappers Doechii, Clipse and Tyler, the Creator in addition to the producers Sounwave and Andrew Watt, the rock band Turnstile and the recording engineer Serban Ghenea.
The 68th Grammys will happen Feb. 1 at Crypto.com Enviornment in downtown Angeles.
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For Lamar, the album of the yr nod — for his “GNX,” which got here out with about half an hour’s discover final November — follows a triumphant exhibiting at the newest Grammys ceremony, the place the Compton-born rapper received file of the yr and track of the yr with “Not Like Us,” the festive Drake diss he went on to carry out on the Tremendous Bowl halftime present. His album nomination makes him the primary solo artist in Grammys historical past to compete for that prize with 5 consecutive studio albums.
Lamar is nominated for the file and track prizes once more with “Luther,” his and SZA’s tender duet that samples Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s “If This World Had been Mine.”
Gaga’s album of the yr nod acknowledges “Mayhem,” a broadly praised return to her signature dance-pop sound that led to an much more broadly praised tour that launched at April’s Coachella competition. The singer may even go face to face with Lamar for file and track together with her single “Abracadabra”; her nominations in these classes, neither of which she’s ever received, are her fourth and fifth, respectively.
Additionally nominated for album of the yr, which might be understood because the Grammys’ equal of finest image: Carpenter’s “Man’s Greatest Pal,” Unhealthy Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Clipse’s “Let God Kind Em Out,” Thomas’ “Mutt,” Tyler’s “Chromakopia” and Justin Bieber’s “Swag.”
That is the primary time three rap LPs have been nominated for album of the yr on the similar ceremony — an achievement that comes simply days after Billboard reported that no rap songs had been within the prime 40 of its Scorching 100 singles chart for the primary time since 1990.
Extra firsts: Rosé’s “Apt.,” which the Blackpink member wrote and recorded with Bruno Mars, is up for file and track of the yr, whereas “Golden,” from the smash Netflix movie “KPop Demon Hunters,” is nominated for track of the yr; these are the primary major-category Grammy nods for artists from the world of Okay-pop.
The remaining nominees for file of the yr are Unhealthy Bunny’s “DtMF,” Carpenter’s “Manchild,” Eilish’s “Wildflower,” Chappell Roan’s “The Subway” and Doechii’s “Anxiousness,” the final of which prominently samples a earlier file of the yr winner in 2011’s “Anyone That I Used to Know” by Gotye and Kimbra.
“Anxiousness,” “DtMF” “Manchild” and “Wildflower” are additionally nominated for track of the yr. (The file prize goes to performers and producers, whereas the track prize acknowledges songwriters.) Eilish’s nod for “Wildflower,” which the 23-year-old wrote together with her brother, Finneas O’Connell, brings her profession nominations within the track class to 6 — and evens her up with Paul McCartney and Lionel Richie.
The robust exhibiting for hip-hop, Okay-pop and Latin pop — “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is simply the second Spanish-language LP to be nominated for album of the yr (after Unhealthy Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” in 2023) — might be seen on account of the academy’s efforts to diversify its membership alongside age, race and gender traces. This month the group mentioned it had added 3,800 new members, half of whom are beneath 40 and 58% of whom are individuals of colour; 35% of the brand new members establish as ladies, the academy mentioned.
But the foremost classes additionally had extra room due to the absence of dependable Grammy faves corresponding to Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Adele, none of whom launched recordings eligible for February’s ceremony. The window ran from Aug. 31, 2024 to Aug. 30, 2025 — only a few weeks earlier than Swift dropped her blockbuster “The Lifetime of a Showgirl,” which is able to little question be showered with nods on the 69th Grammys.
The academy mentioned greater than 23,000 recordings had been submitted for consideration this yr throughout 95 classes, together with one for audio guide through which a group of meditations by the Dalai Lama is up in opposition to Fab Morvan’s account of his days in Milli Vanilli. Nominations had been decided by roughly 15,000 business professionals, who will go on to determine the winners in a second voting spherical scheduled to start out Dec. 12.
Among the many nominees for finest new artist, solely Thomas scored a nod in one other of the present’s main classes — one thing of a rarity on the Grammys, the place younger stars corresponding to Carpenter, Roan, Eilish, Lizzo and Olivia Rodrigo have been nominated for all 4 large prizes lately. The opposite acts up for finest new artist are Olivia Dean, Katseye, the Marías, Addison Rae, Sombr, Alex Warren and Lola Younger.
Additional down the poll, “GNX,” “Chromakopia” and “Let God Kind Em Out” will compete with GloRilla’s “Wonderful” and JID’s “God Does Like Ugly” for the rap album award. For rock album, the nominees are Deftones “Personal Music,” Haim’s “I Give up,” Linkin Park’s “From Zero,” Turnstile’s “By no means Sufficient” and Yungblud’s “Idols.”
Following Beyoncé’s win for nation album at February’s ceremony with “Cowboy Carter” (which was additionally named album of the yr), the academy cut up the nation album award right into a prize for conventional nation album and a prize for up to date nation album — a transfer criticized by some for example of racialized gatekeeping.
The nominees for conventional nation album are Charley Crockett’s “Greenback a Day,” Margo Worth’s “Arduous Headed Girl,” Zach Prime’s “Ain’t In It for My Well being” and competing LPs by a father and son in Willie Nelson’s “Oh What a Lovely World” and Lukas Nelson’s “American Romance.” For up to date nation album, the nominees are Kelsea Ballerini’s “Patterns,” Tyler Childers’ “Snipe Hunter,” Eric Church’s “Evangeline vs. the Machine,” Jelly Roll’s “Fantastically Damaged” and Miranda Lambert’s “Postcards from Texas.”
Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Drawback” — the yr’s second-biggest album of any style after Swift’s “The Lifetime of a Showgirl” — wasn’t nominated as a result of Wallen didn’t submit his music for Grammys consideration. The nation famous person is one in every of a handful of musicians, together with Frank Ocean and Zach Bryan, who’ve declined to participate within the awards present lately as a sort of implied protest in opposition to what they view as a restrictive and old style system.
One former abstainer, the Weeknd, returned to the Grammys with a efficiency at the newest present that was launched by the Recording Academy’s chief government, Harvey Mason Jr. But the Weeknd’s album “Hurry Up Tomorrow” acquired no nominations for subsequent yr’s ceremony.
The 68th Grammys would be the final within the academy’s half-century-long pact with CBS, which has broadcast the awards present since 1973. In 2027, Disney’s ABC community will take management of the Grammys to start out a 10-year deal.
