Saturday, December 10, 2011

2012 Grammy Nominations

Grammy nominations for the 2012 awards show were announced a few weeks ago. There were a few surprises and a lot of fulfilled expectations.


My first surprise was the extension of the "indie effect" on this years nominees (well, mostly just Bon Iver). The artist was nominated for a total of four awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album.

The second surprise was the (relative) snubbing of Kanye West. Although he led the pack with seven nominations, for both My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne (with Jay Z), his solo album was conspicuously missing from the Album of the Year category. Given the praise he received for the album on last year's best of lists, one has to wonder if his past award show behavior is the reason for the snub, although he blames the release of two albums in one year.

Unsurprisingly, Adele's 21 racked up a decent number of nomination, six. While I personally preferred her first album, there's no denying this girl had a banner year and should fare well in February.

As usual, I'm more excited for the so-called "specialty" categories and what awards they may offer up this year. Always satisfying is the Best Alternative Music Album, which sees Bon Iver, My Morning Jacket, Death Cab for Cutie, Radiohead and Foster the People nominated. Fleet Foxes also saw a nomination in the Best Folk Album category and Cut Copy was recognized in the Best Dance/Electronica Album category. It's a shame that these categories won't be televised, but it's nice to see some of my favorite music get the recognition.

Oh, can't forget, The Black Keys, who took home three awards last year, were nominated again! This time for the song "Dearest" off a Buddy Holly tribute album.

The awards are on CBS on February 12 at 8:00 PM.

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