Year after year, legacy celebrities take the stage at the Grammy Awards. Wins and losses are met on social media with shallow comments, congratulations and claims that the votes are fraud.
Every year since 1959 the number of Grammy categories has been growing. This year, at the 67th Grammy Award Ceremony, there will be 95 categories. The “Big Four” are still Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist. The Big Four are part of the General Field, which also includes Producer of the Year and Songwriter of the Year.
Currently, Beyoncé is ahead of all other nominees with 11 nominations, totaling 99 nominations throughout her career. The “Thank you, Beyoncé” phenomenon has truly skyrocketed: a trending theory started on social media that noted how artists thanked Beyoncé consistently on stage, now with people thanking Beyoncé in a superstitious, religious manner. Or it could be because her most recent album, “Cowboy Carter,” has sold over 407,000 units in the United States, making it the biggest album debut of 2024. The other big artists following Beyoncé’s nomination are Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish and Charli xcx.
2024 has been a historic year for pop musicians and thus social media users. Social media has turned musicians and albums into personality traits and tests, making support for albums grow immensely. It’s becoming increasingly common for musicians to have a social media presence in order to “make it” — in this case make their album known through trends and user support. The nominations for 2025 are reminiscent of Eilish’s 2020 win of Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album. Now, Roan and Carpenter have a chance at sweeping some, or all, of the Big Four categories just as Eilish did in 2020 and Christopher Cross in 1981.
