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Record of the year
Bad Bunny – DTMF
Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild
Doechii – Anxiety
Billie Eilish – Wildflower
Kendrick Lamar & SZA – Luther
Lady Gaga – Abracadabra
Chappell Roan – The Subway
Rosé & Bruno Mars – APT.
The Grammys can certainly feel familiar: Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar, Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish were all nominated in this category last year, plus there are appearances from Lady Gaga (who has 45 total nominations), Bruno Mars (36) and Bad Bunny (16). But the favouritism is justified in this strong field.
The record of the year winners tend to be those who combine huge commercial success with the more nebulous sense of having defined the year in pop. Despite being popular, none of Carpenter, Eilish, Gaga or Roan’s songs truly dominated the zeitgeist. Manchild was huge, but still no Espresso.
After teeing herself up with the best live performance of last year’s ceremony, Doechii got her true commercial breakthrough with Anxiety and is up for five awards this year – though for all its huge virality, it heavily samples, and so rather sits in the shadow of, the 2013 winner in this category: Gotye and Kimbra’s Somebody That I Used to Know.
APT. has a big chance, as a globe-dominating multi-billion streamer that sent nursery schools, cocktail bars and wedding dancefloors into equal levels of pandemonium thanks to its multiple earworms (even if it’s basically the Ting Tings’ That’s Not My Name with a Hollywood budget).
But Luther spent 13 weeks at US No 1, making it one of the most commercially successful R&B and hip-hop songs ever, and – with a typically keening SZA chorus melody – a demonstration of the artistic chemistry between two all-time American greats.
Will win Kendrick Lamar & SZA
Should win Kendrick Lamar & SZA
Album of the year
Bad Bunny – Debí Tirar Más Fotos
Justin Bieber – Swag
Sabrina Carpenter – Man’s Best Friend
Clipse – Let God Sort ‘Em Out
Lady Gaga – Mayhem
Kendrick Lamar – GNX
Leon Thomas – Mutt
Tyler, the Creator – Chromakopia
Shorn of the type of bloodless Grammy-bait that has pockmarked this category in recent years – where musicianship seems to be prized over songwriting rigour, eg Jacob Collier or Jon Batiste – there isn’t a truly duff album here. The weakest are Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia, eclipsed by his much more nimble Don’t Tap the Glass last year, and Justin Bieber’s Swag, which contains a handful of his best ever songs (the minimalist marvel Yukon deserves to win best R&B performance) but features some cringeworthy skits and lyrics. Rap devotees will split their votes between the equally good Kendrick and Clipse, and again, Gaga’s and Carpenter’s albums didn’t feel as culture-defining as earlier ones.
Instead, the year has very much been defined by Bad Bunny and his outrageously accomplished sixth album. Weaving between reggaeton, salsa, plena and myriad other Latin styles, it is a torrent of pure musicality, and while DTMF may not be big enough on its own to win in song categories, he could triumph here.
The closest this category has to Grammy catnip is rising funk and soul star Leon Thomas, who could create an upset: his success has been built on classic songcraft and old-school touring, and his self-deprecating songs about being ruled by his own desires will appeal to Recording Academy members who remember Curtis Mayfield and James Brown as much as those who love neo-soul and hip-hop.
Will win Bad Bunny
Should win Bad Bunny
Song of the year
Bad Bunny – DTMF
Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild
Doechii – Anxiety
Billie Eilish – Wildflower
Huntr/x – Golden
Kendrick Lamar & SZA – Luther
Lady Gaga – Abracadabra
Rosé & Bruno Mars – APT.
Given that casual observers often wonder what the difference between record and song of the year is – and the Grammys themselves make it vague, calling the latter merely “a songwriter(s) award” – it feels especially redundant that this list replicates the record of the year nominees, except with Golden by the fictional band from KPop Demon Hunters swapped in for Chappell Roan.
As a fantastically executed pop-cultural phenomenon, Golden has a good chance despite its hackneyed lyrics. Golden or APT. would be a first bilingual winner in the category – and Bad Bunny’s Spanish-language DTMF would be the first non-English one. His lyrics about absent friends who have emigrated from their Puerto Rico home are affecting and magnificently musical, but could easily lose out to APT.: absolute fluff nonetheless bolstered by solid construction, plus Bruno Mars has won this award in previous years for the knowingly silly That’s What I Like and Leave the Door Open.
But don’t discount Lamar and SZA, nor indeed Eilish, who has been nominated in this category in six of the last seven years, winning twice. Wildflower was released in May 2024 but the Grammys justify their Eilish obsession (nine wins, 34 nods) by claiming it “came to prominence” in the eligibility period, as if it weren’t prominent enough being on her huge hit album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. No matter. It is masterful songwriting, full of the unease of the subject matter: falling for someone who broke the heart of someone else you care about.
Will win Huntr/x
Should win Bad Bunny
Best new artist
Olivia Dean
Katseye
The Marías
Addison Rae
Sombr
Leon Thomas
Alex Warren
Lola Young
This is the first year since 2018 to have no British artists in the record, album or song of the year categories, but there are two in this other “big four” category: Olivia Dean and Lola Young, each of them essaying affairs of the heart as well as anyone in pop history. The timing is perfect for Dean, who is now enjoying a huge upswing of popularity, enough to edge out Leon Thomas (who will surely pick up at least one R&B category win), with her album The Art of Loving likely to feature heavily in 2027’s nominations.
Also in the running are “global girl group” Katseye, and Addison Rae, who may not be a commercial juggernaut but as the favourite of pop musos will have fans in the Academy. Perhaps Sombr has an outside chance: his well-turned tales of miserable yearning, sung from between pop’s sharpest cheekbones, have rightly generated hundreds of millions of streams, though he was surprisingly shut out of the pop categories.
Will win Olivia Dean
Should win Olivia Dean
Best pop solo performance
Justin Bieber – Daisies
Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild
Lady Gaga – Disease
Chappell Roan – The Subway
Lola Young – Messy
Carpenter deservedly won in this category last year for Espresso, and while Manchild isn’t in the same songwriting league, Carpenter has an unmatched ability to sell a song. Her grip on pop may secure her a win, though you could say the same for Chappell Roan, whose vocals on The Subway – half Elizabeth Fraser, half Broadway belle – pack more power.
Bieber tends to go home empty-handed from the Grammys, even in the pop fields – only two wins from his 23 nominations prior to this year – and Daisies isn’t distinctive enough in this company. Gaga is in magnificently hammy form on Disease, though it’s not seen as A-grade Gaga material by most listeners.
The best performance, and the biggest hit on streaming, is Lola Young with Messy, which achieves the near impossible feat of expressing the emotionally disorientating rhythm of a domestic argument while still being a perfect pop song – but she is a relative outsider in this company.
Will win Chappell Roan
Should win Lola Young
Best rock performance
Amyl and the Sniffers – U Should Not Be Doing That
Linkin Park – The Emptiness Machine
Turnstile – Never Enough
Hayley Williams – Mirtazapine
Yungblud – Changes (Live from Villa Park, Back to the Beginning)
This is the category’s most impressive lineup since 2021, when all the nominees were women or female-fronted. In terms of pure performance, there is a clear winner: Yungblud’s take on Ozzy Osbourne’s Changes, performed at Black Sabbath’s final concert (backed by members of Anthrax and Sleep Token, and with a splendid Nuno Bettencourt guitar solo). It is a masterclass in rock singing: pure and corrupted all at once.
His greatest contenders are Linkin Park, who overcame the death of frontman Chester Bennington to release one of the most successful rock singles in years. The Emptiness Machine is exhilaratingly exacting, peeling back the skin of a rotten relationship. It’s also a terrific performance, especially by new vocalist Emily Armstrong, who points the song’s loathing inward and outward all at once.
Will win Linkin Park
Should win Yungblud
Best rap performance
Cardi B – Outside
Clipse – Chains & Whips (ft Kendrick Lamar and Pharrell Williams)
Doechii – Anxiety
Kendrick Lamar – TV Off (ft Lefty Gunplay)
Tyler, the Creator – Darling, I (ft Teezo Touchdown)
Lamar has won in seven of the last 11 years in this category, and with two mentions here, could well win again – although TV Off may pale next to last year’s awards-sweeping Drake diss song Not Like Us, excellent though it is. As usual Cardi B provides pure entertainment and mic mastery on Outside but her second album was long delayed, stalling momentum: this just doesn’t feel like her year.
Tyler’s track feels rather stuck in his 80s-funk comfort zone. Doechii lost out in 2025 with Nissan Altima – arguably the most technically astounding track in this field for years – but Anxiety is a bigger hit and a more rounded song. And yet Clipse will probably triumph. Not only is Lamar involved, but the story of the returning prodigal sons is irresistible, and Chains & Whips has it all: a tangy hook, and verses filled with Clipse’s trademark amused malevolence, as if they’re wandering around a foe who is being dangled upside down.
Will win Clipse
Should win Clipse
Best country solo performance
Tyler Childers – Nose on the Grindstone
Shaboozey – Good News
Chris Stapleton – Bad As I Used to Be
Zach Top – I Never Lie
Lainey Wilson – Somewhere Over Laredo
Another one where Grammy voters have clear favourites: Stapleton has won five of the six times he’s been nominated in the flagship country category, including the last two years, so he’s the obvious winner. But while Bad As I Used to Be has an engaging tune, Stapleton is more at home singing of his flaws and foibles, and just doesn’t have the necessary danger for outlaw country like this. Shaboozey couldn’t beat him last year despite having one of country’s biggest ever hits in A Bar Song (Tipsy), so the pale stomp-clap of its follow-up Good News won’t be enough in the rematch. Childers’ Nose on the Grindstone is excellent – his Snipe Hunter will surely win best contemporary country album – but is possibly too moody and pared back for a win in a category where traditionalism reigns. Lainey Wilson’s sumptuous punning ballad has a good chance but Zach Top could clinch this: I Never Lie was a big hit and as well as being old school down to the pedal steel, his performance, wryly affecting not to be bothered about his ex’s new man, is pure charm.
Will win Zach Top
Should win Zach Top
