The Best Pop Vocal Grammy Category Will Be Packed With Superstars
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Leading up to the Grammy nominations on Nov. 10, Rolling Stone is breaking down 16 different categories. For each, we’re predicting the nominees, as well as who will (and who should) win on Grammy night.
You might think that Taylor Swift would dominate in this category, but she has just one win out of four nominations. It’s likely that voters think of Swift as so strong in the general fields that they don’t mark their ballot for her here. Miley Cyrus has a good shot, but her smash hit “Flowers” has overshadowed all of the other songs on Endless Summer Vacation; likely she will have better odds in Record or Song of the Year. But Sam Smith is a Grammy favorite, with four wins in 2015 for their debut album and the momentum of another win in 2023 for “Unholy.” Their combination of classic songcraft, diva vocals, and edge makes them the one to beat. However, Alex Tear, vice president of music programming at SiriusXM, thinks there’s one album not mentioned here that shouldn’t be ruled out: SZA’s SOS. “It’s super diverse and well-rounded,” he says. “I think she’s due.”
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Ed Sheeran
Subtract
Taylor Swift hooked Sheeran up with the National’s Aaron Dessner, who had helped create her stripped-down albums Evermore and Folklore. When Sheeran was looking to take on a similar project with Subtract, Dessner became his producer and co-writer. Sheeran was dealing with a plagiarism lawsuit, his wife’s cancerous tumor, and the death of a close friend. (He won the lawsuit, and his wife is now cancer-free.) He poured his sorrow into songs like “Eyes Closed” (“I’m still holdin’ back these tears”) and “Salt Water” (“Now I’m standing on the edge, gazing into Hell”). It’s a largely acoustic album, with Dessner adding piano, organ, guitar, and Mellotron. “Ed doesn’t take himself that seriously, but he’s taken his music really seriously,” says Rob Kruz, program director of Hot 99.5 in Washington, D.C. “His talent is astronomical. He’s also someone you root for because he’s such a good guy. That makes him really Grammy friendly.”
Lana Del Rey
Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
Despite six nominations over the past nine years, Del Rey has yet to win a Grammy. That might finally change with this collection of dreamy, lush ballads, produced by Jack Antonoff, Drew Erickson, and Zach Dawes. The songs didn’t receive much radio play, but Antonoff told Rolling Stone UK that wasn’t what they were trying for. “Lana is boundaryless,” he said. “She has reached a point in her work — which is really my favorite place to work from — where there’s nowhere to go but way out into the fucking wilderness artistically. Go chase radio? That’d be so stupid. Go chase trends? So stupid. She created all of the trends. It’s a freeing place, if you can accept it. The only place to go is to be a leader.”
Sam Smith
Gloria
WILL WIN
Sam Smith made music history this year when “Unholy,” their duet with Kim Petras, became the first song by openly nonbinary and transgender artists to top the Billboard Hot 100. The song, about a family man who sneaks out at night to do “something unholy,” saw Smith putting their trademark ballads aside in favor of edgier, club-ready fare, and Smith stays in this mode throughout much of Gloria. “It feels like emotional, sexual, and spiritual liberation,” they said. “Oddly, it feels like my first-ever record. And it feels like a coming of age.” Smith has won five Grammys, including Best Pop Duo/Group Performance in 2023 for “Unholy” — the song preceded Gloria, which followed in January. But an early release can sometimes hurt an album’s chances. “It might be an afterthought for Grammy voters at this point,” says Tear.
Taylor Swift
Midnights
SHOULD WIN
On Midnights, created with longtime producer/co-writer Jack Antonoff, Swift confronts her insecurities (“Anti-Hero”), her blissful (at the time) relationship with English actor Joe Alwyn (“Lavender Haze”), and her insatiable need to see her enemies brought down (“Karma”). It’s a return to the full-tilt pop of 1989, Reputation, and Lover, and it connected in a huge way with Swifties worldwide. “When you look at Taylor and her ability to affect pop culture, it would be a shock to not see her nominated here,” says Kruz. “You couldn’t turn around without hearing about Taylor Swift this year. She owned 2023.”
Miley Cyrus
Endless Summer Vacation
Working with a group of songwriters and producers that includes Greg Kurstin, Kid Harpoon, BJ Burton, and Michael Pollack, Cyrus fuses dance-pop with country and rock in novel ways, especially on “Thousand Miles,” on which she duets with Brandi Carlile. “This is a mature project,” says Tear. “There are songs on here that won’t materialize on radio, but her fans are going to love them. It really shows her evolution as an artist.”
This story is adapted from Rolling Stone’s fourth annual Grammy Preview issue, released ahead of the start of first-round voting on Oct. 13th. We featured SZA on the cover, spoke to some of the year’s biggest artists about the albums and singles that could earn them a statue come February, made our best predictions for the nominees in the top categories, and more, providing a full guide to what to watch for in the lead-up to the 2024 awards.
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