Luke Combs is due for his first Grammy: Will he get it in 2024?
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Luke Combs has been one of the biggest country music stars of the past 10 years. Since debuting on the scene with his country radio chart-topper “Hurricane,” Combs has amassed a plethora of hits, including the top-two Hot 100 smash “Forever After All.” It’s rare for country artists to have the career Combs has had, being a force to reckon with on both singles and albums charts. However, while Combs probably doesn’t have much left to check off his bucket list, there’s still one thing that hasn’t come his way: a Grammy Award. The recording academy has been somewhat slow to get on the Combs train, although he has managed to get six nominations, including Best New Artist at the 2019 ceremony. It’s clear that, with such success, Combs will likely win a Grammy someday. And that day could come in 2024.
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Combs’s Grammy history is sketchy, but it might not be from a lack of industry enthusiasm. To get a Best New Artist nomination as a country act is a big achievement, so clearly Combs had voters’ attention there. However, he has come up short in country field nominations relative to other award shows. That might’ve been a choice of those secret review committees that used to decide the nominations. His album “What You See Is What You Get” was a front-runner for Best Country Album, having won the ACM and CMA Awards for Album of the Year, but Combs was completely shut out. Luckily for him, the panels are a thing of the past now, and as evidenced by his three nominations at the last Grammys, country voters are still excited to nominate him.
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Combs’s ticket to a Grammy this year may be “Fast Car.” His cover of the Tracy Chapman classic has been a major success, cracking the top 10 on the Hot 100 mostly thanks to its huge streaming numbers. Grammy voters love covers, and that’s especially true in the country field. And “Fast Car” is already a Grammy-winning song, so voters surely will dig a new version bringing the song back to the airwaves. As such, it could be a very strong contender for Best Country Solo Performance, especially with the year looking a bit weak thus far. Right now the only songs bigger than Combs’s cover in the country world this year are Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” — which will probably not win due to Morgan being so controversial — and Bailey Zimmerman’s “Rock and a Hard Place,” but covers have beaten bigger hits before.
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Of course, Combs also has a chance to win Best Country Album with “Gettin’ Old,” the sequel to his previous record, the Grammy-nominated “Growin’ Up.” There are other strong contenders, but perhaps Combs could edge them out. Morgan Wallen has the biggest album of the year with his “One Thing at a Time,” but voters might still be hesitant to reward him; in his case, the nomination would be the win. And then there’s Lainey Wilson’s “Bell Bottom Country,” which recently won the ACM Award for Album of the Year. However, “Gettin’ Old” has more hit songs so far with the Hot 100 top 20s “Fast Car” and “Love You Anyway,” so voters could be more inclined to go with Combs, especially since he’s starting to seem overdue while this would be Wilson’s first time being nominated.
Time will tell if Grammy voters agree that it’s time to award Combs after more than half a decade of consistent hit-making. But whether it is for “Fast Car,” “Gettin’ Old,” or something else, voters will have to recognize one of country music’s most accomplished artists of recent years. It’s definitely been a “fast” ride to country greatness for Combs. It’s up to the Grammys to catch up.
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