2011 Grammy Nominations -- Reaction!

Now, you may not know that I posted my Grammy Prediction Blog literally 45 minutes before the nominations were announced. I was on Twitter and Grammy.com's Live blog getting the announcements of who was nominated and who was snubbed. The reaction I had when the full list of nominations was finally available on the Grammy website was WTF!? Literally.

I'm not mad, not even all that surprised, just a little confused. Like last year, when GaGa, Beyoncé, Black Eyed Peas and Taylor Swift were up for Album of the Year it  just felt like the Grammy voters were choosing the most popular and best selling artists. This year with the Big 4 including a diverse group of artists like Cee-Lo Green, Ray Lamontagne, Katy Perry and Bruno Mars it's not clear what the Grammy voters were thinking. I'll pick the nominees apart in another post, but let's first talk about how I was pretty spot on predicting which artists would be nominated, just not too spot on with the actual categories they'd be nominated for.

Of course Eminem was the King of nominations scoring 11. He got the Album, Single and Record of the Year nods I predicted and 6 of his nominations are in the Hip Hop category (competing against himself in two of those categories) which I also predicted. The remaining two nods are for Short Form Music Video for "Love the Way You Lie" (really???) and for his feature work in "Airplanes Part II" by B.o.B. Unfortunately he is really the only Hip Hop artist to dominate the Big 4 categories this year, so that goes against my earlier prediction that Drake, Jay-Z and the aforementioned B.o.B. would be big contenders. Jay-Z only nabbed a Record of the Year nomination for his "Empire State of Mind" with Alicia Keys, same story for B.o.B. who finds himself in the same category with "Nothing On You" with Bruno Mars. And Drake's only Big 4 nomination comes in the form of Best New Artist, in fact, despite having one of the best albums of the year Drake is only up for 4 total awards.

Lady GaGa ended up being a nominations leader again this year, and given the artists that were snubbed for Album of the Year (Jay-Z, Drake, Robyn, Sade, Rihanna, Janelle Monáe) it's really upsetting that her 8 track EP "The Fame Monster" is actually up for that category. That undeserved nomination brings this years total to 6 nominations, though she missed out on Song and Record of the Year "Bad Romance", "Telephone" and oddly enough "Dance in the Dark" are up for multiple nominations. Katy Perry also ended up doing better than I thought, as she did grab a nomination for Album of the Year even when I said it probably wouldn't happen. Her "Teenage Dream" album helped to score her 4 nominations, not in the Song of the Year or Record of the Year category, but I was correct about the title track nabbing Pop Vocal Performance and "California Gurls" up for Pop Collaboration.

Country group Lady Antebellum also did well for themselves as I predicted.  They pulled 6 total nominations, 3 coming from the Big 4 categories Album of the Year, Record and Song of the Year for "Need You Now", all of which I accurately predicted. Of the most nominated acts this year, the only one who surprised me was Bruno Mars who is also competing in 6 categories. His debut album "Doo-Wops and Hooligans" missed the cut-off for this year, but his singles feature work and writing made him a leading competitor. Another big surprise, the song he wrote for Cee-Lo Green "F**k You" (or "Forget You" the censored, radio friendly version) is up for both Song and Record of the Year.

And since I'm giving my honest reactions, maybe that song didn't deserve it's nods. It's a fun song, but it didn't make too many waves on the charts so I'm really surprised it's up for such high honors.

Arcade Fire did score a nod for Album of the Year as I predicted for "The Suburbs", but weren't nominee leaders this year with only two other nominations. Another big surprise is the virtual snubbing of Sade, who only scored two nominations Pop Vocal, Group ("Babyfather") and R&B Vocal, Group ("Soldier of Love"). Maybe it's because their album was released so early in the year, voters forgot about them, but it was really a shock to see them only in two categories (however, looking back, they've never been nominee leaders, generally only getting one nomination per album).

Most of the other acts I mentioned as shoe-in's in my Nominee Prediction post were named. Vampire Weekend, The Black Keys, Ludacris, Gorillaz, Young Jeezy, Nicki Minaj, Train and Janelle Monae are all up for at least one award.

And even some picks from my "For Your Consideration" portion are up. Very pleased by the nominations for Broken Bells, Robyn, Maroon 5, Big Boi, and Adam Lambert. And I was very pleased to see John Legend and The Roots' collaboration album "Wake Up" nominated in 5 categories, but the homage to the old school of R&B isn't really a surprising choice.

Which leads to what I think are the biggest snubs. Actually, most of the artists I wanted to be nominated got at least one. However I feel a lot of them were shortchanged in categories they were more deserving of. For instance, Jay-Z and Drake should have definitely been up for Album of the Year. Katy Perry, who maybe got more than she deserves as far as nominations, should have gotten more love for her excellent pop Single "Teenage Dream". And even though I personally like "Nothin on You" more than "Airplanes" by B.O.B., I feel like the latter is way more Grammy friendly and a great convergence of Hip Hop meets Rock with Hayley Williams on board.

Rihanna scored 4 nominations, 3 coming from Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie" (the other for Dance Single "Only Girl (In the World)") but to see zero nominations for her superior "Rated R" album, and none for her deliciously pop single "Rude Boy" is surprising. Another great Pop single that was snubbed was Neon Trees' "Animal", which should have at least been up for Pop Vocal, Group if not more.

I also feel that Christina Aguilera should have been up for something, if only Pop Vocal, Female for her second single "You Lost Me" over Beyoncé's live rendition of "Halo" (which she won Pop Vocal, Female for last year).

Two terrible omissions came in the R&B category where Fantasia and Monica's subpar albums are nominated instead of Erykah Badu's "New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)" and Toni Braxton's "Pulse". And while Janelle Monáe scored two nominations, she was probably the biggest snub in the New Artist category (Justin Bieber got nominated over her).  I'm also really surprised that Trey Songz is not up for anything this year, and especially not for his addictive single with Nicki Minaj (who also I was surprised only scored one nomination after more than a dozen collaborations the past year) "Bottoms Up".

And finally in the Dance categories, which is relegated to two categories (Dance Recording and Electronic/Dance Album) and only 10 spots, Kelly Rowland should have definitely knocked one of them out for Dance Recording with probably the best true Dance single of 2010 "Commander", while Kelis switched up her whole style on the stellar Dance album "Flesh Tone". Also it was very strange to not see one of the most critically acclaimed Electronic albums LCD Soundsystem's "This is Happening" not up for anything.

So those are my very overdue reactions, and sometime next week (before my Birthday on Thursday) I'll post my Predictions for Winners as the Grammy's are just 9 days away.