Grammy Predictions: Pop & Dance Categories

Sam Smith will probably be a double-winner in the pop categories at the 57th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday. Here are the others that stand a shot at Pop category glory…

Best Pop Vocal Album: Smith’s In the Lonely Hour is the frontrunner. Ed Sheeran’s x has a chance of scoring an upset because he is more pop than Smith, whose music is more blue-eyed soul. Sheeran’s album has spawned three diverse top 15 hits. Smith’s has spawned two top five hits, both ballads.
Also nominated: Coldplay’s Ghost Stories, Ariana Grande’s My Everything, Katy Perry’s PRISM, and Miley Cyrus’s Bangerz.

Coldplay has had an interesting Grammy history. The band’s first two studio albums won for Best Alternative Music Album. Its next three studio albums were nominated for Best Rock Album. (2008’s Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends won that award.) Now the group’s sixth album is nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album.

PRISM is Perry’s second album to be nominated in this category. Teenage Dream was a finalist four years ago, but lost to Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster. (Gaga’s latest solo album, ARTPOP, was passed over for a nom here this year.)

Best Pop Solo Performance: As the front-unner for Record of the Year, Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” has a virtual lock on this award. Two of the other finalists here, Sia’s “Chandelier” and Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” are also Record of the Year finalists. The category is rounded out by live recordings of two of last year’s biggest hits, John Legend’s “All of Me” and Pharrell Williams’s “Happy.” (The studio versions of both of these songs were released in the previous eligibility year and thus were ineligible. Otherwise, both of those smashes would probably have been nominated for Record of the Year.)

This is such a strong field that Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass,” a Record and Song of the Year nominee, was squeezed out for a nom here.

Best Pop Duo/Group Performance: “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX is the frontrunner. The song was the biggest hit of any of these nominees (seven weeks at #1 on the Hot 100). Also, it’s the only finalist in this category that is also nominated for Record of the Year. But three of the five nominees here feature a rap component. Nicki Minaj teams with Jessie J and Ariana Grande on “Bang Bang”; Juicy J is featured on Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse.” These three entries could conceivably split the Academy’s hip-hop vote — not vast to begin with — and allow one of the other candidates to win. Those other nominees are Coldplay’s “A Sky Full of Stars” and “Say Something” by A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera.

This is the fourth year that collaborations have competed in the same category with hits by ongoing groups and duos. As the only ongoing group or duo nominated in this category this year, Coldplay would probably have won easily if collaborations still competed in a separate category, as was the case from 1994 through 2010. Coldplay won in this category six years ago with “Viva La Vida.”

Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album: Barbra Streisand’s Partners and the Tony Bennett/Lady Gaga album Cheek to Cheek are locked in a tight race. Bennett and Streisand have gone head-to-head five times in this category. Bennett has won every time. And this time he has Gaga along with him. That opposites-attract dynamic is usually surefire Grammy bait (see: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss). But Partners did much better than expected. And Streisand worked it, appearing on The Tonight Show and a Michael Bublé special. I think Streisand just may be headed for her first Grammy in 28 years. (That would be the Grammy equivalent to Meryl Streep winning her first Oscar in 29 years a few years ago.)

Bennett has won 11 times in this category, which was introduced in 1991. That’s more, by far, than any other artist. Michael Bublé is second, with four wins in the category.

(Side note: Want to be the hit of your Grammy viewing party? Tell your friends that Streisand and Bennett have been Grammy rivals for more than 50 years. They first went head-to-head in 1963, when both were nominated for Record of the Year — she with “Happy Days Are Here Again,” he with “I Wanna Be Around.”)

Gaga’s debut album, The Fame, won for Best Dance/Electronic Album. Her subsequent EP, The Fame Monster, won for Best Pop Vocal Album. If Cheek to Cheek wins here, she’ll become the first artist to win in all three of these categories.

Also nominated: Annie Lennox’s Nostalgia, Barry Manilow’s Night Songs, Johnny Mathis’s Sending You a Little Christmas.

Best Dance/Electronic Album: Deadmau5’s while (1<2) is the frontrunner. He was nominated in this category with 4X4=12 and > album title goes here <. (Both of these albums lost to Skrillex EPs. This year, Skrillex’s first full-length album, Recess, failed to get a nom.)
Also nominated: Aphex Twin’s Syro, Röyksopp & Robyn’s Do It Again, Mat Zo’s Damage Control, and Little Dragon’s Nabuma Rubberband.

Best Dance Recording: “F for You” by Disclosure featuring Mary J. Blige will probably edge out “Rather Be” by Clean Bandit featuring Jess Glynne. “Rather Be” was a much bigger hit. The song was a #1 U.K. smash and became a top 10 hit in the U.S. But Grammy voters adore Blige, who has won nine Grammys in four distinct genres: R&B, rap, pop, and gospel.

Disclosure’s original version of “F for You” (minus Blige) was included on the group’s debut album, Settle, which was nominated for Best Dance/Electronica Album last year.

Also nominated: Basement Jaxx’s “Never Say Never,” “I Got U” by Duke Dumont featuring Jax Jones, and Zhu’s “Faded.”