Album Of The Year:

“25” — Adele
“Lemonade” — Beyoncé
“Purpose” — Justin Bieber
“Views” — Drake

“A Sailor’s Guide To Earth” — Sturgill Simpson

The 2016 record year brought some of the most creative, high-reaching, and artistically daring albums of the decade. This year’s Album of the Year category, rather awfully, highlights almost none of them.

The Recording Academy’s allegiance to big name pop artists, regardless of artistic merit, is unsurprisingly evident in the nominees of its highest award. Fortunately for this year, one of those big name artists happens to be Beyoncé, whose “Lemonade” took a troubled marriage and turned it into a genre-blending masterpiece.

No other album in the category approaches the overwhelming power of Beyoncé’s performance in “Lemonade.” However, do not be surprised if Adele sneaks away with this category, as “25” continued her soaring style of emotional ballads that did well with critics and fans, selling over 20 million copies.

Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” and Drake’s “Views” both give horrid displays of successful artists attempting to keep up with mainstream trends. “Views” finds Drake fumbling around with messy trap rap and bits of dancehall for a grueling hour and 21 minutes, sounding tirelessly awkward and ingenuine. Bieber gives a more sincere performance with “Purpose,” but the experimental electropop only gets him so far when not every song has the refined production of “Love Yourself” or “Where Are U Now.”

Beyoncé’s only worthy, yet unlikely competitor in this category is the one that nobody has ever heard of. Not even Sturgill Simpson’s mother thought that Sturgill Simpson would be nominated for Album of the Year. But “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” brings a fresh, symphonic take on outlaw country that gives him a fighting chance to win this award. Simpson’s album comes from the same old school sect of country that earned Chris Stapleton the Grammy for Country Album of the Year and a nomination for Album of the Year in 2016. While Stapleton lost to Taylor Swift in the general category, it would not be unprecedented for this dark horse album to steal the Grammy from Beyoncé, as Beck’s “Morning Phase” did back in 2015.

With that said though, “Lemonade” should win this category, and given the headlines Beyoncé has made with this album and her power position in the pop world, it probably will win too.

Should Win- “Lemonade” — Beyoncé

Will Win-“Lemonade” — Beyoncé

Record Of The Year:

“Hello” — Adele
“Formation” — Beyoncé
“7 Years” — Lukas Graham
“Work” — Rihanna Featuring Drake
“Stressed Out” — Twenty One Pilots

Record of the Year, which focuses more on production and recording than songwriting, gives us a mostly weak offering this year. Like Album of the Year, this category is a clear two-woman race between a couple of the most powerful voices in music.

While the wildly popular “Hello” could win, the impact of Beyonce’s “Formation” cannot be understated. The song has been making waves since last February when Beyonce used it to steal Bruno Mars’ Super Bowl halftime show. In the rest of 2016, it became a self-pride anthem, a dance meme, and was deemed responsible for a 30% sales increase at Red Lobster. For its popularity alone, “Formation” should and will beat out “Hello.”

The remaining 60% of this category deserves 0% of this article.

Lukas Graham’s “7 Years” somehow makes the struggles of adolescence sound boring and insignificant, while being agonizingly repetitive.

Rihanna should really know better with “Work,” which is just as repetitive as “7 Years” and gives a bleak spot to her album, “ANTI,” an otherwise shining album.

Twenty One Pilots, while certainly one of the more unique emerging artists of the past year, does not give us much more than a poppier, and somehow angstier version of Linkin Park. That is not what the world needs right now.

Should Win- “Formation” — Beyoncé

Will Win- “Formation” — Beyoncé

Song of the Year:

“Formation” — K. Brown, A. Hogan, B. Knowles & M. Williams II, (Beyoncé)
“Hello” — A. Adkins & G. Kurstin, songwriters (Adele)
“I Took A Pill In Ibiza” — M. Posner (Mike Posner)
“Love Yourself” — J. Bieber, B. Levin & E. Sheeran, (Justin Bieber)
“7 Years” — L. Forchhammer, S. Forrest, M. Pilegaard & M. Ristorp, (Lukas Graham)

Song of the Year honors the best songwriting in music, putting less emphasis on production and more on lyricism and composition. This category has once again set up Beyoncé to win with “Formation,” but it is unlikely that she would win all three major categories in the same year.

But Song of the Year seems like the perfect place for the Recording Academy to hand the award to Adele. Adele’s booming voice and emotional lyrics won over the hearts of millions of radio listeners with “Hello.” Though the song suffered from gross overplay, Adele’s talent for popular songwriting is undeniable.

Just as emotional as Adele’s “Hello” is “I Took a Pill In Ibiza,” which is little more than Mike Posner guiltily lamenting over the same popularity that gave him the nomination for this award. While the song marks a much needed shift towards sincerity for Posner, “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” lacks the inventiveness to deserve the Grammy, and though it enjoyed its fair share of radio time, it does not stand a chance against Adele, Beyonce, and Bieber.

Which brings us to Bieber. While much of “Purpose” made excessive use of trendy house style production, “Love Yourself” has a minimalist vibe with a single guitar riff and carefully placed brass that actually complements Bieber’s voice quite well. Ed Sheeran’s influence is felt overwhelmingly, as Sheeran co-wrote the record and undoubtedly contributed to the witty sincerity of lines like, “My mama don’t like you and she likes everyone.” This song gives Bieber his best shot at a Grammy this year, but it probably will lose out to Adele for sheer popularity.

Oh yeah, Lukas Graham is nominated for this category too. Not sure why.

Should Win- “Love Yourself” — J. Bieber, B. Levin & E. Sheeran, (Justin Bieber)

Will Win-“Hello” — A. Adkins & G. Kurstin, songwriters (Adele)

Best New Artist:

Kelsea Ballerini
The Chainsmokers
Chance The Rapper
Maren Morris
Anderson .Paak

Best New Artist presents one of the more interesting groupings of any category at this year’s Grammys. Two innovators of rap soul and gospel meet two southern ladies breaking onto the country scene. And the Chainsmokers.

Chance the Rapper should not even be here. Until 40,000 of his fans signed a petition asking the Grammys to allow free music to be considered for awards, Chance’s streaming-only mixtape, “Coloring Book” did not even qualify for eligibility. Fortunately, the movement made the Recording Academy change its tune, and Chance now has the nominations he deserves, seven of them. “Coloring Book” was a truly inspiring mixtape that blended reverent poeticism with childish innocence and juke-worthy rap, a blend sure to convert haters (and atheists) into believers.

After creating a Twitter firestorm with his verse on Kanye West’s “Ultralight Beam,” Chance went onto drop “Coloring Book,” and followed his album with two performances on Saturday Night Live and a show-stopping appearance at the White House. All things considered, Chance makes the most well-rounded case for the year’s best new kid.

Anderson .Paak makes a pretty good case as well, though. .Paak’s “Malibu” gave a unique take on west coast R&B that defies genre, landing him a spot on the XXL Freshman roster as well as a Soul Train award. “Malibu” was only the beginning of .Paak’s breakout year, as he went on to contribute to albums by KAYTRANADA, Mac Miller, and SchoolboyQ, as well as a solid side project, “Yes Lawd!” with enigmatic producer Knxwledge. Perhaps without the hype of Chance, .Paak had a year almost as prolific and just as groundbreaking as a relatively new face in the industry.

Also breaking into the mainstream in the past year were Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris, two strikingly similar young artists that continue the trend of country tragically creeping towards electronically based pop.

With her debut, “The First Time,” Ballerini seems to make a desperate attempt to capture the sound of “Fearless”-era Taylor Swift, but falls far short with achingly generic songwriting and cringe worthy instrumentals that include hip-hop stlye scratches and drum kicks that sound more Boyz II Men than anything that resembles country.

Morris’ slightly bluesier approach on “HERO” gives her a more palatable sound that is reminiscent of Sheryl Crow. It hits the mark at times, but at other times is plagued by the same unflattering pop elements that drove Ballerini’s album completely into the dirt. For better or for worse, Morris probably will not win this Grammy for country music because of the stacked competition of the category. But fortunately, neither will Ballerini.

And then we have The Chainsmokers, the fist-pumping house duo that has taken over every radio station in the world since their arrival on the scene with “Roses” back in 2015. The Chainsmokers are yet to deviate from the same exhausting formula of shallow bouncy pop that landed them their first hit. Although every signature Chainsmoker party anthem that ascends from the fiery gates of hell seems to be as redundant as the last, the duo has also gained more popularity with every hit song they arbitrarily drop.

The Grammys will likely make their most tragic move here by handing over the award to The Chainsmokers. However, Chance the Rapper does pose a legitimate threat, as the Recording Academy could make Monday morning headlines by awarding an independent artist who never made a penny in album sales. Still, despite Chance’s prolific year of blessing the music world, it would be hard to predict him the winner of this particular category, which in the past four years has picked fun., Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Sam Smith, and Meghan Trainor over artists like Frank Ocean, James Blake, Alabama Shakes, Kendrick Lamar, The Lumineers, Haim, and Courtney Barnett. That would just be too much to ask.

Should Win- Chance The Rapper
Will Win- The Chainsmokers