Song of the Year

Alright – Kendrick Lamar
Girl Crush – Little Big Town
Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars
FourFiveSeconds – Rihanna & Kanye West & Paul McCartney
Can’t Feel My Face – The Weeknd

Alternatives:  Glory – Common Featuring John Legend, Thinking Out Loud – Ed Sheeran, Blank Space – Taylor Swift

An interesting mix of songs for the main two categories this year and some omissions in my choices that may seem surprising. My picks lean heavily towards the Pop/RnB side of things, with the obvious outlier being Girl Crush by Little Big Town. It’s the most obvious country nominee here, despite Sam Hunt’s Take Your Time seeming like a surer bet 6 months ago. Girl Crush has a mass appeal, but remains rooted in the style of Country music Little Big Town have perfected. It’s the sort of country crossover that has performed well with both critics and consumers alike, where acts like Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line have failed when it comes to big Grammy nominations. I’d be very surprised if Girl Crush isn’t up for Song of the Year.

The rest of the list features a few Grammy favourites, most notably the perfect trio: Rihanna, Kanye and McCartney. I imagine I’ll be one of the few people who thinks FourFiveSeconds is in contention for one of the big awards, especially considering my alternatives include Ed Sheeran’s biggest hit, an Oscar winning song and Taylor Swift, but it’s a song that has such a wide reach of potential voters that I can’t imagine it being excluded here. It’s much more likely to be found in Song than Record I’d say, but when one of the Beatles has a worldwide hit with the current leaders of Pop and Rap I wouldn’t bet against FourFiveSeconds here.

Kendrick Lamar’s inclusion here is probably the most unlikely, but Alright has begun to generate quite a lot of buzz as a potential nominee here since To Pimp A Butterfly‘s release. Given that he scored 7 nominations in his debut Grammy year I think Kendrick will sneak into at least one of the big 4 awards, Song of The Year being one of them.

That leaves the final two songs, Can’t Feel My Face and Uptown Funk. Going into this Grammy season I had pegged Uptown Funk for a clean sweep, it’s the sort of timeless song that rarely comes along these days. As I’ve started to make my choices though Abel Tesfaye, or The Weeknd as most know him, has chipped away at Uptown Funk’s guaranteed trophies. It’s still a two horse race for sure, but Can’t Feel My Face just sounds like a Song of the Year. One of these two songs will win this award, even though I think a lot of potential voters will find it hard to pick between them. It’s hard to deny that either is deserving of Song of The Year either.