With the 2021 Grammy’s approaching soon, there’s a lot of anticipation around what songs and albums will win the big categories. 

The first category is Record of the Year. This category is awarded to single or track off of an album. This category isn’t about just the performer, but also about the people who helped write and produce the track. The nominees for the 2021 Record of the Year are:

• “Black Parade”: Beyonce
• “Colors”: Black Pumas
• “Rockstar”: Dababy featuring Roddy Ricch
• “Say So”: Doja Cat
• “Everything I Wanted”: Billie Eilish
• “Don’t Start Now”: Dua Lipa
• “Circles”: Post Malone
• “Savage”: Megan Thee Stallion featuring Beyonce

Out of these nominees, I think “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa is a strong contender for the win. The retro sound makes for a fun dance track that gained popularity quickly when it was released in late 2019. Along with Lipa’s track, I think “Savage” is also a potential choice for a winner. Megan Thee Stallion has skyrocketed in popularity through social media. The song is upbeat and has great production. I also think that “Rockstar” by Dababy could be a potential winner. “Rockstar”, like “Don’t Start Now” and “Savage”, has gained a lot of popularity through social media. The song also reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was at number one for seven non-consecutive weeks. It ended up spending 39 weeks on the chart in 2020.

The next anticipated category is Song of the Year. This category is based on the actual songwriting rather than the production of the song. The nominees for this category are:

• “Black Parade”: Beyonce
• “The Box”: Roddy Ricch
• “Cardigan”: Taylor Swift
• “Circles”: Post Malone
• “Don’t Start Now”: Dua Lipa
• “Everything I Wanted”: Billie Eilish
• “I Can’t Breathe”: H.E.R
• “If the World Was Ending”: JP Saxe, Julia Michaels

Personally, I believe “Everything I Wanted”, “I Can’t Breathe”, and “Cardigan” have a good chance at winning. With this category focusing on songwriting and song involvement I think these songs are good because they all have very strong lyrics. With Swift being known for her songwriting I think she’s the most likely to win out of these songs. I think H.E.R is a close runner-up because of the message in her song. She wrote this song during the time of the Black Lives Matter movement and uses the lyrics to address what was going on. She also has a monologue talking about how she feels about it. Since Billie Eilish won last year I believe it’ll make her song “Everything I Wanted” a little less likely to win than the others. 

The most anticipated category of the night is probably Album of the Year. This award goes to the album as a whole. The nominees for this category are: 

• Chilombo: Jhene Aiko
• Black Pumas: Black Pumas
• Everyday Life: Coldplay
• Djesse Vol. 3: Jacob Collier
• Women in Music PT. III: HAIM
• Future Nostalgia: Dua Lipa
• Hollywood’s Bleeding: Post Malone
• Folklore: Taylor Swift

In this category, I think Folklore and Future Nostalgia are most likely to win because of the success of both of these albums. Dua Lipa released Future Nostalgia on March 27th, 2019 as her second studio album. The pre-album singles had already gained popularity through social media networks like TikTok. With an album full of radio-friendly songs, I see this as a potential winner. Swift released Folklore in July of 2020 as a surprise release. This album went number one and also had a number one song (along with two other top 10 songs) in the first week making her the first person to debut at the top of the album and singles chart in the same week. Another album I could see winning is Hollywood’s Bleeding by Post Malone. While it was released towards the beginning of the eligibility period, it is a more well-known album amongst the nominees. It also had a number one song “Circles” which is also nominated in other categories. However, I feel since it was released at the beginning of the eligibility period, it’s less likely to win because it’s not as talked about anymore since it came out so long ago compared to the other albums on the list.

Overall, I think all of the nominees deserved to be in the categories they were nominated for. 2020 was a great year for music despite everything that was going on in the world. The Grammy’s will premiere on March 14th at 8 p.m on CBS.