Tune in Tuesday: Grammy Edition

Going into this past weekend’s 59^th Annual GRAMMY Awards, everyone was buzzing over how many of her 9 nominations Beyoncé was going to win. After Sunday’s show we know the answer is 2 (Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best Music Video for “Formation”). The big winner of the night was Adele, who walked away with five awards for her album 25 and single “Hello.”

The four big awards of the night are Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Album of the Year.

The winner of Best New Artist may look familiar to you, but you might not know his music. Chance the Rapper has been popping up all over the place this past year from Kit-Kat commercials to H&M ads. His nominations were history making, since his albums can only be found on streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify. You can find him appearing on other albums owned by the library system.

The other Best New Artist nominees were: Kelsea Ballerini (Country), The Chainsmokers (Rock/Dance), Maren Morris (Country/R&B/Pop), and Anderson .Paak (Hip Hop).

Song of the Year is an award that goes to the writers of the song. Adele won this one with co-writer Greg Kurstin for “Hello.” Beyoncé and Justin Bieber were also nominated. Lesser known nominations in this category were Lukas Graham and Mike Posner.

Lukas Graham is a Danish pop group that made their worldwide debut with their single “7 Years”. Until last night, I did not know that Lukas Graham was a group and not a solo artist. I do love the song!

Mike Posner was an unknown to me in this category. He has been around since 2010, but has had a slow climb in mainstream music publishing. He started out performing as part of the multi-artist Warped Tour and worked his way up to being the opening act for artists like Justin Bieber, Kesha and Demi Lovato. His nominated song “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” can be found on his album At Night, Alone.

Since Song of the Year goes to the writers, Record of the Year goes to the performer. Twenty One Pilots was the unknown in this group of nominations. (Interesting fact: the name of the group came from Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.) This duo started off self-releasing albums before being signed in 2012 to an alternative record label, which led to their climb to the GRAMMYs. They started opening for bigger groups like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco. In 2015 they headlined their own tour and started making television appearances to promote their newest album Blurryface which features their GRAMMY winning song “Stressed Out.” Their song “Heathens,” from the Suicide Squad soundtrack was also nominated for multiple awards.

Album of the Year had four familiar names—Adele, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber and Drake. It was that fifth nomination that lead to a number of people scratching their heads, Sturgill Simpson? Simpson’s third album A Sailor’s Guide to Earth was nominated for Album of the Year and won the Best Country Album category. This was not his first Grammy nomination; he was also nominated in 2015 for Best Americana Album for Metamodern Sounds In Country Music. He self-released his first two albums and released his third album with a major recording studio. He has been compared to Waylon Jennings and others in the sub-category of Outlaw Country.

For more Grammy honorees, you can check out:

2017 GRAMMY® Nominees

Blackstar by David Bowie (Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Alternative Music Album, and more)

Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin (Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album)

Skin by Flume (Best Dance/Electronic Album)

Culcha Vulcha by Snarky Puppy (Best Contemporary Instrumental Album)

Tell Me I'm Pretty by Cage the Elephant (Best Rock Album)

Lalah Hathaway Live by Lalah Hathaway (Best R&B Album)

White Sun II by White Sun (Best New Age Album)

Take Me to the Alley by Gregory Porter (Best Jazz Vocal Album)

In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox by Carol Burnett (Best Spoken Word Album)

—Amelia R.