The 66th edition of the GRAMMY Awards® will take place on Sunday, February 4, 2024, at the Crytpo.com Arena in Los Angeles. The awards show will be available for live viewing on CBS and Paramount+ with SHOWTIME®.
This year, 94 awards will be given in 12 categories. In addition to awards in the general field like Album Of The Year and Record Of The Year, awards will be presented in 11 categories for specific genres or technical aspects of recording.
Here’s everything you need to know as you get ready for the GRAMMYs® 2024.
The Host
The host of the event will be South African comedian Trevor Noah. He began to work for The Daily Show in 2014 and became its host after Jon Stewart retired in 2015.
Noah has hosted the GRAMMYs® every year since 2021, so he will be taking his fourth consecutive turn as host. His one-hour special I Wish You Would is one of five nominees for Best Comedy Album this year.
New Awards
The Recording Academy, whose members vote to choose GRAMMY® nominees and winners, has added three new awards in 2024. They are Best African Music Performance, Best Alternative Jazz Album, and Best Pop Dance Recording.
When announcing the new awards in June 2023, the CEO of the Recording Academy, Harvey Mason jr., explained that they will help the Recording Academy “to acknowledge and appreciate a broader array of artists.”
Award Nominees
Since we can’t cover all nominees, we’ll start with an overview of nominations for the premier awards. Then, we’ll highlight the musical success of last year’s films – particularly Barbie!
Generally, each GRAMMY® award has five nominees, but there are eight nominees for the most celebrated and fiercely contested awards: Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist.
Five artists nominated for Record of the Year reappear in nominations for both Album and Song of the Year. They are Jon Batiste, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, and SZA.
Batiste earned his best record nomination for “Worship” but his best song nomination for “Butterfly.” If Taylor Swift wins Album of the Year for Midnights, she will take home her fourth award in that category.
Among the eight candidates for Best New Artist, one also received a Record of the Year nomination: Victoria Monét.
Make sure to watch the full music video for Monét’s “On My Mama” to hear a budding artist, Monét’s daughter Hazel, singing, “I look fly. I look good.” Fair warning: Ariana Grande said it made her cry!
SZA received a total of nine nominations, more than any other artist, but Barbie was recognized an astounding 10 TIMES in this year’s GRAMMY® nominations. Of course, Greta Gerwig’s $1.4 billion blockbuster featured prominently in categories closely related to film, but it commanded recognition even in purely musical categories.
Nominations for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media went to the team behind Barbie, Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt, and just two other composers.
Ronson, who holds seven GRAMMYs®, won Record of the Year (as producer) for “Rehab” in 2007 and “Uptown Funk” in 2015. Wyatt, who holds two GRAMMYs®, won Best Rock Album (as producer) for Patient Number 9 in 2023.
Ludwig Göransson was nominated for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and for Oppenheimer. He won Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media for the first Black Panther film in 2018, when he also won both Song and Record of the Year (as songwriter and producer) for “This Is America,” performed by Childish Gambino (the musical alias of Donald Glover).
John Williams was nominated for The Fabelmans and for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Williams already has 10 GRAMMYs® for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, making him the record holder for that award.
As Billboard reminded us, three of those GRAMMYs® came from Star Wars films: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Force Awakens. The others came from Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Memoirs of a Geisha.
Demonstrating the remarkable extent to which Barbie was a multimedia event, the film accounted for four out of the five nominees for Best Song Written for Visual Media.
Those nominees were “Barbie World,” performed by Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice (featuring Aqua), “Dance the Night,” performed by Dua Lipa, “I’m Just Ken,” performed by Ryan Gosling, and “What Was I Made For?” performed by Billie Eilish.
The remaining nominee, “Lift Me Up,” performed by Rihanna, was featured in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Barbie also reached the top of nominations in two musical genres. “Barbie World,” performed by Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice (featuring Aqua), was nominated for Best Rap Song. Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance.
Finally – and most remarkably – two of the eight nominees for Song of the Year came from Barbie. They were Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” and Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” The latter was even nominated for Record of the Year.
Enjoy the 2024 GRAMMYs®!
This year, could some of the most prestigious GRAMMYs® go to Barbie?
Of course not! Barbie is a doll, but a staggering array of talented creatives continue to make this doll into a commercial, cinematic, and musical success.
Let’s keep our attention focused on artists at the 2024 GRAMMYs®. Please join us in wishing good luck to all the amazing nominees!
