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LOS ANGELES — Jazz musician Jon Batiste led Tuesday’s Grammy nominations with 11 nominations, followed by Justin Bieber, Doja Cat and HER with eight each.
Batiste and Bieber will compete for the top prize – album of the year – along with pop singer Billie Eilish, R&B artist Doja Cat, singer-songwriter HER, rapper Kanye West, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, the newcomer Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift and rapper Lil Nas X, organizers said.
The Grammys, the highest honors in the music industry, will be presented at a ceremony in Los Angeles on January 31.
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The nominees in the top three categories – album, song and record of the year – jumped from 8 to 10 for the first time. “Adding more nominees is a way to cast a wider net for more music, more artists and more genres,” Recording Academy chief executive Harvey Mason Jr said, announcing the change on Tuesday.
Eilish, Rodrigo, Bieber and Batiste were also among the 10 nominees for Record of the Year, along with Swedish band Abba’s new single, “I Still Have Faith in You”.
But Swift, who earned a best album nod for “Evermore,” was left out of both record of the year and song of the year.
Teen phenom Rodrigo, 18, who burst onto the US charts in January when his single ‘Drivers License’ went viral, earned seven nods, including Best New Artist and for his debut album ‘Sour’ .
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Batiste, who also fronts the band on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” scored nominations across the board, from his music video “Freedom” to the album “We Are,” inspired by Black Lives Matter protests from 2020.
“!!!!!!!!!!!! Batiste wrote on Twitter.
The Recording Academy, organizers of the Grammy Awards, earlier this year changed the way nominations and winners are chosen after persistent allegations that the process was open to rigging.
The Academy came under fire last year when Canadian artist The Weeknd failed to earn a nomination despite delivering one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2020 with ‘After Hours’.
This year’s nominations were selected by the Recording Academy’s 11,000 voting members, instead of small committees of industry experts whose names have not been revealed. The winners are also chosen by the musicians, producers and songwriters who make up the members of the Recording Academy.
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“Everyone will have their opinion and give their analysis. We will say a lot and the reason is simple. Music matters and the people who make it matter,” Mason Jr. said Tuesday, anticipating the backlash to the slate of nominations.
K-pop group BTS, who have yet to win a Grammy despite topping the US music charts for nearly two years, received a nod on Tuesday for their performance of their best-selling single “Butter” in the pop group field but failed in other major categories.
The South Korean boy band was named Artist of the Year on Sunday at the fan-chosen American Music Awards.
Bennett, 95, who has Alzheimer’s disease, and Gaga received several nods for their album of American standard duets “Love for Sale,” which is expected to be Bennett’s last.
The eligibility period for the Grammys ran from September 2020 to September 2021, which means Adele’s new album will have to wait until next time.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, editing by Nick Zieminski)
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