Will you become gold? Who will – and should – win the major awards at the 2026 Grammy Awards | Grammy

General record

Bad Bunny – DTMF
Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild
Deutsche – Anxiety
Billie Eilish – Wildflower
Kendrick Lamar and SZA – Luther
Lady Gaga – Abracadabra
Chapel Rouen – Subway
Rosie and Bruno Mars – APT.

The Grammys certainly look familiar: Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar, Chappelle Rowan, and Billie Eilish were all nominated in this category last year, as well as appearances from Lady Gaga (who has a total of 45 nominations), Bruno Mars (36), and Bad Bunny (16). But nepotism is justified in this powerful field.

Record of the Year winners tend to be those who combine huge commercial success with the more vague feeling that they defined the year in pop music. Despite their popularity, none of Carpenter’s, Eilish’s, Gaga’s, or Rowan’s songs have dominated the zeitgeist. The Manchild was huge, but there was no espresso.

Having equipped herself with the best live performance at last year’s ceremony, Doechii has had a real commercial breakthrough with Anxiety and is nominated for five awards this year – despite its massive reach, it samples heavily and therefore falls in the shadow of 2013’s winner in this category: Gotye and Kimbra’s Somebody That I Used to Know.

APT. It has a big chance, as a multi-billion dollar world-dominating streaming company that has sent nursery schools, cocktail bars and wedding dance halls into equal levels of pandemonium thanks to multiple earworms (even if it’s basically “That’s Not My Name” for the Ting Tings on a Hollywood budget).

But Luther spent 13 weeks at No. 1 in the US, making it one of the most commercially successful R&B and hip-hop singles of all time, and – with SZA’s familiar chorus tune – a showcase of the artistic chemistry between two of America’s all-time greats.

He will win Kendrick Lamar and SZA
He must win Kendrick Lamar and SZA

Album of the year

Bad Bunny – more pictures
Justin Bieber – swag
Sabrina Carpenter – Man’s best friend
Clipse – Let God sort them out
Lady Gaga – Chaos
Kendrick Lamar – GNX
Leon Thomas – Death
Tyler, the Creator – Chromacopia

Far from the kind of bloodless Grammy-bait that has characterized the category in recent years — where musicianship seems to be prized over the precision of songwriting, say Jacob Collier or Jon Batiste — there’s no truly duff album here. The weakest are Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia, which was overshadowed by last year’s sillier “Don’t Tap the Glass,” and Justin Bieber’s Swag, which contains some of his best songs ever (the Yukon’s minor marvel deserved to win Best R&B Performance) but has some cringe-worthy skits and lyrics. Rap fans will split their votes between the equally good Kendrick and Clipse, and again, Gaga and Carpenter’s albums didn’t feel as culture-specific as their predecessors.

Instead, the year was largely defined by Bad Bunny and his massively accomplished sixth studio album. Weaving together reggaeton, salsa, plena and a myriad of other Latin styles, it’s a torrent of pure music, and while DTMF may not be big enough on its own to win in the song categories, it can triumph here.

The closest this category has to Grammy catnip is rising funk and soul star Leon Thomas, who could create a surprise: He’s built his success on classic hits and old-school tour de force, and his self-deprecating songs about being governed by his own desires will appeal to Recording Academy members who remember Curtis Mayfield and James Brown as much as those who love new soul and hip-hop.

He will win Bad bunny
He must win Bad bunny

Song of the year

Bad Bunny – DTMF
Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild
Deutsche – Anxiety
Billie Eilish – Wildflower
Hunter/x – gold
Kendrick Lamar and SZA – Luther
Lady Gaga – Abracadabra
Rosie and Bruno Mars – APT.

Given that casual observers often question the difference between record and Song of the Year — and the Grammy Awards themselves make the matter ambiguous, describing the latter as merely a “songwriter’s award” — it seems particularly redundant that this list repeats the Year’s nominees, with the exception of Golden of the fictional KPop band Demon Hunters being replaced by Chappell Roan.

As a fantastically executed pop culture phenomenon, Golden stands a good chance despite its clichéd lyrics. Golden or APT. He will be the first bilingual winner in this category – and Bad Bunny’s Spanish-language DTMF will be the first winner in a language other than English. His lyrics about absent friends who have emigrated from their homeland of Puerto Rico are poignant and wonderfully musical, but they could easily lose to APT.: absolute fluff backed by a solid structure, plus Bruno Mars had won this award in previous years for the intentional silliness of “That’s What I Like” and “Leave the Door Open.”

But don’t rule out Lamar and SZA, nor Eilish, who has been nominated in this category in six of the past seven years, winning twice. Wildflower is due out in May 2024, but the Grammys justified their obsession with Eilish (nine wins and 34 nods) by claiming she “stood out” in the eligibility period, as if she wasn’t prominent enough to be on her mega-hit album Hit Me Hard and Soft. It doesn’t matter. It’s masterful songwriting, filled with the angst of the subject matter: falling in love with someone who broke the heart of someone else you care about.

He will win hunter/x
He must win Bad bunny

Best New Artist

Olivia Dean
Katsi
Marias
Addison Rae
sad
Leon Thomas
Alex Warren
Lola Young

This is the first year since 2018 that there are no British artists in the record, album or song of the year categories, but there are two in the other “Big Four” category: Olivia Dean and Lola Young, each of whom writes affairs of the heart as well as anyone in pop history. The timing is perfect for Deen, who is now enjoying a huge surge in popularity, enough to beat out Leon Thomas (who will almost certainly win at least one award in the R&B category), and whose album The Art of Loving will likely feature heavily in the 2027 nominations.

Also in the running are “international girl group” Katsi and Addison Rae, who may not be a commercial juggernaut but as pop music favorites, will have fans at the Academy. Sombre may have an outside chance: His masterly ballads of forlorn longing, which he sings from among pop’s sharpest bones, have rightfully generated hundreds of millions of streams, though he’s been surprisingly excluded from the pop categories.

He will win Olivia Dean
He must win Olivia Dean

Best Pop Solo Performance

Justin Bieber – Daisies
Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild
Lady Gaga – Illness
Chapel Rouen – Subway
Lola Young – Messy

Carpenter deservedly won in this category last year for Espresso, and although Manchild isn’t in the same songwriting category, Carpenter has an unparalleled ability to sell a song. Her grip on pop might all but guarantee her a win, though you could say the same for Chappelle Rowan, whose voices in The Subway — half Elizabeth Fraser, half Broadway belle — have more power.

Bieber tends to go home empty-handed from the Grammys, even in the pop arenas — where he won just twice out of his 23 nominations before this year — and Daisy just isn’t special enough in that company. Gaga is in great form on Illness, although it’s not viewed as top-tier Gaga material by most listeners.

The best performance, and biggest hit on the airplay, is “Lola Young with Messy,” which achieves the near-impossible feat of conveying the emotionally confusing cadence of domestic debate while still being a quintessential pop song — but a relative outsider in this company.

He will win Chapel Rowan
He must win Lola Young

Best rock performance

Incline sniffers – you shouldn’t do that
Linkin Park – Vacuum Machine
The revolving door – it’s never enough
Hayley Williams – mirtazapine
Yungblud – Changes (Live from Villa Park, back to the start)

This is the most impressive lineup in this category since 2021, when all of the nominees were women or female-fronted. In terms of pure performance, there’s a clear winner: Yungblud’s take on Ozzy Osbourne’s Changes, performed at Black Sabbath’s recent concert (backed by members of Anthrax and Sleep Token, and with a great Nuno Bettencourt guitar solo). It’s a rock masterpiece: pure and decadent at the same time.

His greatest rivals are Linkin Park, who overcame the death of frontman Chester Bennington to release one of the most successful rock songs in years. The vacuum machine is delightfully precise, peeling back the skin of a spoiled relationship. It’s also a great performance, especially by new vocalist Emily Armstrong, who points the song’s hatred inwardly and outwardly at once.

He will win Linkin Park
He must win Youngblood

Best rap performance

Cardi B – Outside
Clipse – Chains and Whips (featuring Kendrick Lamar and Pharrell Williams)
Deutsche – Anxiety
Kendrick Lamar – TV Off (with Lefty Gunplay)
Tyler, the Creator – Darling, I (featuring Teezo Touchdown)

Lamar has won seven of the past 11 years in this category, and with two mentions here, he could win again – although TV Off may be dwarfed by last year’s award-winning Drake song Not Like Us, excellent as it is. As usual, Cardi B delivers pure entertainment and mastery of the mic on Outside but her sophomore album has been delayed for so long that the momentum has stalled: This doesn’t feel like her year.

Tyler’s trajectory seems stuck in his 80s comfort zone. Doechii lost out in 2025 with the Nissan Altima — arguably the most technically impressive track in the industry for years — but Anxiety has had a bigger hit and a more well-rounded song. However, Clipse is likely to prevail. It’s not just Lamar, the story of the returning prodigal sons is irresistible, and Chains & Whips has it all: a breezy hook, and verses filled with Clipse’s trademark amusing malice, as if they were circling an enemy dangling upside down.

He will win Clips
He must win Clips

Best solo performance in the country

Tyler Childers – Nose to the Grind
Shabuzi – Good news
Chris Stapleton – Bad As I Used To Be
Zack Topp – I never lie
Lenny Wilson – Somewhere Over Laredo

Another one where Grammy voters have clear favorites: Stapleton has won five of the six times he’s been nominated in the major country category, including the past two years, so he’s the clear winner. But although “Bad As I Used to Be” has a catchy tune, Stapleton sings more at home about his flaws and vulnerabilities, never taking on the danger necessary for a lawless country like this. Shaboozey couldn’t beat him last year despite having one of the country’s biggest ever hits in A Bar Song (Tipsy), so the pale applause for his follow-up Good News won’t be enough in the rematch. Childers’ Nose on the Grindstone is excellent—his Snipe Hunter is sure to win Best Contemporary Country Album—but perhaps too moody to win in a category where traditionalism reigns supreme. Lainey Wilson’s stately ballad has a good chance, but Zach Top could snatch this one up: “I Never Lie” is a huge hit, and as well as being old school right down to the pedal steel, his performance, which sarcastically affects not being bothered by his ex-lover’s new man, is pure magic.

He will win Zack top
He must win Zack top