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    2024 Grammy Nominations: Full List

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    Artists, albums and songs competing for trophies at the 66th annual ceremony are being announced on Friday. The show will take place on Feb. 4 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.SZA is the top nominee for the 66th annual Grammy Awards with nine nods, all for her album “SOS,” which topped the Billboard 200 for 10 weeks.She leads a group of contenders that also includes Victoria Monét (with seven), as well as Jon Batiste, boygenius, Brandy Clark, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift (all with six apiece). Songs from the movie “Barbie” received 11 nods in seven categories. The producer Jack Antonoff and the engineer Serban Ghenea are also top nominees.The ceremony, which will take place on Feb. 4, 2024 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, will recognize recordings released from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 15, 2023.Here is a complete list of the nominations, which were announced on Friday by the Recording Academy.Record of the Year“Worship,” Jon Batiste“Not Strong Enough,” boygenius“Flowers,” Miley Cyrus“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie,” Billie Eilish“On My Mama,” Victoria Monét“Vampire,” Olivia Rodrigo“Anti-Hero,” Taylor Swift“Kill Bill,” SZAAlbum of the Year“World Music Radio,” Jon Batiste“The Record,” boygenius“Endless Summer Vacation,” Miley Cyrus“Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” Lana Del Rey“The Age of Pleasure,” Janelle Monáe“Guts,” Olivia Rodrigo“Midnights,” Taylor Swift“SOS,” SZASong of the Year“A&W,” Jack Antonoff, Lana Del Rey and Sam Dew, songwriters (Lana Del Rey)“Anti-Hero,” Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift, songwriters (Taylor Swift)“Butterfly,” Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson, songwriters (Jon Batiste)“Dance the Night” (From “Barbie: The Album”) Caroline Ailin, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Dua Lipa)“Flowers,” Miley Cyrus, Gregory Aldae Hein and Michael Pollack, songwriters (Miley Cyrus)“Kill Bill,” Rob Bisel, Carter Lang and Solána Rowe, songwriters (SZA)“Vampire,” Daniel Nigro and Olivia Rodrigo, songwriters (Olivia Rodrigo)“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie,” Billie Eilish O’Connell and Finneas O’Connell, songwriters (Billie Eilish)Best New ArtistGracie AbramsFred again..Ice SpiceJelly RollCoco JonesNoah KahanVictoria MonétThe War and TreatyProducer of the Year, Non-ClassicalJack AntonoffDernst “D’Mile” Emile IIHit-BoyMetro BoominDaniel NigroSongwriter of the Year, Non-ClassicalEdgar BarreraJessie Jo DillonShane McAnallyTheron ThomasJustin TranterBest Pop Solo Performance“Flowers,” Miley Cyrus“Paint the Town Red,” Doja Cat“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie,” Billie Eilish“Vampire,” Olivia Rodrigo“Anti-Hero,” Taylor SwiftBest Pop Duo/Group Performance“Thousand Miles,” Miley Cyrus featuring Brandi Carlile“Candy Necklace,” Lana Del Rey featuring Jon Batiste“Never Felt So Alone,” Labrinth featuring Billie Eilish“Karma,” Taylor Swift featuring Ice Spice“Ghost in the Machine,” SZA featuring Phoebe BridgersBest Pop Vocal Album“Chemistry,” Kelly Clarkson“Endless Summer Vacation,” Miley Cyrus“Guts,” Olivia Rodrigo“-” (Subtract), Ed Sheeran“Midnights,” Taylor SwiftBest Dance/Electronic Recording“Blackbox Life Recorder 21F,” Aphex Twin“Loading,” James Blake“Higher Than Ever Before,” Disclosure“Strong,” Romy & Fred again..“Rumble,” Skrillex, Fred again.. and FlowdanBest Pop Dance Recording“Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray“Miracle,” Calvin Harris featuring Ellie Goulding“Padam Padam,” Kylie Minogue“One in a Million,” Bebe Rexha & David Guetta“Rush,” Troye SivanBest Dance/Electronic Music Album“Playing Robots Into Heaven,” James Blake“For That Beautiful Feeling,” the Chemical Brothers“Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9 2022),” Fred again..“Kx5,” Kx5“Quest for Fire,” SkrillexBest Rock Performance“Sculptures of Anything Goes,” Arctic Monkeys”More Than a Love Song,” Black Pumas“Not Strong Enough,” boygenius“Rescued,” Foo Fighters“Lux Æterna,” MetallicaBest Metal Performance“Bad Man,” Disturbed“Phantom of the Opera,” Ghost“72 Seasons,” Metallica”Hive Mind,” Slipknot“Jaded,” SpiritboxBest Rock Song“Angry,” Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Andrew Watt, songwriters (the Rolling Stones)“Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl,” Daniel Nigro and Olivia Rodrigo, songwriters (Olivia Rodrigo)“Emotion Sickness,” Dean Fertita, Joshua Homme, Michael Shuman, Jon Theodore and Troy Van Leeuwen, songwriters (Queens of the Stone Age)“Not Strong Enough,” Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, songwriters (boygenius)“Rescued,” Dave Grohl, Rami Jaffee, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear, songwriters (Foo Fighters)Best Rock Album“But Here We Are,” Foo Fighters“Starcatcher,” Greta Van Fleet“72 Seasons,” Metallica“This Is Why,” Paramore“In Times New Roman…,” Queens of the Stone AgeBest Alternative Music Performance“Belinda Says,” Alvvays“Body Paint,” Arctic Monkeys“Cool About It,” boygenius“A&W,” Lana Del Rey“This Is Why,” ParamoreBest Alternative Music Album“The Car,” Arctic Monkeys“The Record,” boygenius“Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” Lana Del Rey“Cracker Island,” Gorillaz“I Inside the Old Year Dying,” PJ HarveyBest R&B Performance“Summer Too Hot,” Chris Brown“Back to Love,” Robert Glasper featuring SiR and Alex Isley“ICU,” Coco Jones“How Does It Make You Feel,” Victoria Monét“Kill Bill,” SZABest Traditional R&B Performance“Simple,” Babyface featuring Coco Jones“Lucky,” Kenyon Dixon“Hollywood,” Victoria Monét featuring Earth, Wind & Fire and Hazel Monét“Good Morning,” PJ Morton featuring Susan Carol“Love Language,” SZABest R&B Song“Angel,” Halle Bailey, Theron Feemster and Coleridge Tillman, songwriters (Halle)“Back to Love,” Darryl Andrew Farris, Robert Glasper and Alexandra Isley, songwriters (Robert Glasper Featuring SiR and Alex Isley)“ICU,” Darhyl Camper Jr., Courtney Jones, Raymond Komba and Roy Keisha Rockette, songwriters (Coco Jones)”On My Mama,” Dernst Emile II, Jeff Gitelman, Victoria Monét, Kyla Moscovich, Jamil Pierre and Charles Williams, songwriters (Victoria Monét)“Snooze,” Kenny B. Edmonds, Blair Ferguson, Khris Riddick-Tynes, Solána Rowe and Leon Thomas, songwriters (SZA)Best Progressive R&B Album“Since I Have a Lover,” 6lack“The Love Album: Off the Grid,” Diddy“Nova,” Terrace Martin and James Fauntleroy“The Age of Pleasure,” Janelle Monáe“SOS,” SZABest R&B Album“Girls Night Out,” Babyface“What I Didn’t Tell You (Deluxe),” Coco Jones“Special Occasion,” Emily King”Jaguar II,” Victoria Monét“Clear 2: Soft Life EP,” Summer WalkerBest Rap Performance“The Hillbillies,” Baby Keem featuring Kendrick Lamar“Love Letter,” Black Thought“Rich Flex,” Drake & 21 Savage“Scientists & Engineers,” Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane“Players,” Coi LerayBest Melodic Rap Performance“Sittin’ on Top of the World,” Burna Boy featuring 21 Savage“Attention,” Doja Cat“Spin Bout U,” Drake & 21 Savage“All My Life,” Lil Durk featuring J. Cole“Low,” SZABest Rap Song“Attention,” Rogét Chahayed, Amala Zandile Dlamini and Ari Starace, songwriters (Doja Cat)“Barbie World” from “Barbie: The Album,” Isis Naija Gaston, Ephrem Louis Lopez Jr. and Onika Maraj, songwriters (Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice featuring Aqua)“Just Wanna Rock,” Mohamad Camara, Symere Woods and Javier Mercado, songwriters (Lil Uzi Vert)“Rich Flex,” Brytavious Chambers, Isaac “Zac” De Boni, Aubrey Graham, J. Gwin, Anderson Hernandez, Michael “Finatik” Mule and Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, songwriters (Drake & 21 Savage)“Scientists & Engineers,” Andre Benjamin, Paul Beauregard, James Blake, Michael Render, Tim Moore and Dion Wilson, songwriters (Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane)Best Rap Album“Her Loss,” Drake & 21 Savage“Michael,” Killer Mike“Heroes & Villains,” Metro Boomin“King’s Disease III,” Nas“Utopia,” Travis ScottBest Spoken Word Poetry Album“A-You’re Not Wrong B-They’re Not Either: The Fukc-It Pill Revisited,” Queen Sheba“For Your Consideration’24 – The Album,” Prentice Powell and Shawn William“Grocery Shopping With My Mother,” Kevin Powell“The Light Inside,” J. Ivy“When the Poems Do What They Do,” Aja MonetBest Jazz Performance“Movement 18’ (Heroes),” Jon Batiste“Basquiat,” Lakecia Benjamin“Vulnerable (Live),” Adam Blackstone featuring the Baylor Project and Russell Ferranté“But Not for Me,” Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding“Tight,” Samara JoyBest Jazz Vocal Album“For Ella 2,” Patti Austin featuring Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band“Alive at the Village Vanguard,” Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding“Lean In,” Gretchen Parlato and Lionel Loueke“Mélusine,” Cécile McLorin Salvant“How Love Begins,” Nicole ZuraitisBest Jazz Instrumental Album“The Source,” Kenny Barron”Phoenix,” Lakecia Benjamin“Legacy: The Instrumental Jawn,” Adam Blackstone“The Winds of Change,” Billy Childs“Dream Box,” Pat MethenyBest Large Jazz Ensemble Album“The Chick Corea Symphony Tribute – Ritmo,” ADDA Simfònica, Josep Vicent, Emilio Solla“Dynamic Maximum Tension,” Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society“Basie Swings the Blues,” The Count Basie Orchestra directed by Scotty Barnhart“Olympians,” Vince Mendoza and Metropole Orkest“The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions,” Mingus Big BandBest Latin Jazz Album“Quietude,” Eliane Elias“My Heart Speaks,” Ivan Lins with the Tblisi Symphony Orchestra“Vox Humana,” Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band“Cometa,” Luciana Souza and Trio Corrente“El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2,” Miguel Zenón and Luis PerdomoBest Alternative Jazz Album“Love in Exile,” Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily“Quality Over Opinion,” Louis Cole“SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree,” Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, SuperBlue“Live at the Piano,” Cory Henry“The Omnichord Real Book,” Meshell NdegeocelloBest Traditional Pop Vocal Album“To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim,” Liz Callaway“Pieces of Treasure,” Rickie Lee Jones“Bewitched,” Laufey“Holidays Around the World,” Pentatonix“Only the Strong Survive,” Bruce Springsteen“Sondheim Unplugged (The NYC Sessions), Vol. 3,” (Various Artists)Best Contemporary Instrumental Album“As We Speak,” Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, featuring Rakesh Chaurasia“On Becoming,” House of Waters“Jazz Hands,” Bob James“The Layers,” Julian Lage“All One,” Ben WendelBest Musical Theater Album“Kimberly Akimbo,” John Clancy, David Stone and Jeanine Tesori, producers; Jeanine Tesori, composer; David Lindsay-Abaire, lyricist (Original Broadway Cast)“Parade,” Micaela Diamond, Alex Joseph Grayson, Jake Pedersen and Ben Platt, principal vocalists; Jason Robert Brown & Jeffrey Lesser, producers; Jason Robert Brown, composer and lyricist (2023 Broadway Cast)“Shucked,” Brandy Clark, Jason Howland, Shane McAnally and Billy Jay Stein, producers; Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, composers/lyricists (Original Broadway Cast)“Some Like It Hot,” Christian Borle, J. Harrison Ghee, Adrianna Hicks and NaTasha Yvette Williams, principal vocalists; Mary-Mitchell Campbell, Bryan Carter, Scott M. Riesett, Charlie Rosen and Marc Shaiman, producers; Scott Wittman, lyricist; Marc Shaiman, composer and lyricist (Original Broadway Cast)“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban, principal vocalists; Thomas Kail and Alex Lacamoire, producers (Stephen Sondheim, composer and lyricist) (2023 Broadway Cast)Best Country Solo Performance“In Your Love,” Tyler Childers“Buried,” Brandy Clark“Fast Car,” Luke Combs“The Last Thing on My Mind,” Dolly Parton“White Horse,” Chris StapletonBest Country Duo/Group Performance“High Note,” Dierks Bentley featuring Billy Strings“Nobody’s Nobody,” Brothers Osborne“I Remember Everything,” Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves“Kissing Your Picture (Is So Cold),” Vince Gill and Paul Franklin“Save Me,” Jelly Roll with Lainey Wilson“We Don’t Fight Anymore,” Carly Pearce featuring Chris StapletonBest Country Song“Buried,” Brandy Clark and Jessie Jo Dillon, songwriters (Brandy Clark)“I Remember Everything,” Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves, songwriters (Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves)“In Your Love,” Tyler Childers and Geno Seale, songwriters (Tyler Childers)“Last Night.” John Byron, Ashley Gorley, Jacob Kasher Hindlin and Ryan Vojtesak, songwriters (Morgan Wallen)“White Horse,” Chris Stapleton and Dan Wilson, songwriters (Chris Stapleton)Best Country Album“Rolling Up the Welcome Mat,” Kelsea Ballerini“Brothers Osborne,” Brothers Osborne“Zach Bryan,” Zach Bryan“Rustin’ in the Rain,” Tyler Childers“Bell Bottom Country,” Lainey WilsonBest American Roots Performance“Butterfly,” Jon Batiste“Heaven Help Us All,” Blind Boys of Alabama“Inventing the Wheel,” Madison Cunningham“You Louisiana Man,” Rhiannon Giddens“Eve Was Black,” Allison RussellBest Americana Performance“Friendship,” Blind Boys of Alabama“Help Me Make It Through the Night,” Tyler Childers“Dear Insecurity,” Brandy Clark featuring Brandi Carlile“King of Oklahoma,” Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit“The Returner,” Allison RussellBest American Roots Song“Blank Page,” Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter, songwriters (The War and Treaty)“California Sober,” Aaron Allen, William Apostol and Jon Weisberger, songwriters (Billy Strings featuring Willie Nelson)“Cast Iron Skillet,” Jason Isbell, songwriter (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit)“Dear Insecurity,” Brandy Clark and Michael Pollack, songwriters (Brandy Clark featuring Brandi Carlile)“The Returner,” Drew Lindsay, JT Nero and Allison Russell, songwriters (Allison Russell)Best Americana Album“Brandy Clark,” Brandy Clark“The Chicago Sessions,” Rodney Crowell“You’re the One,” Rhiannon Giddens“Weathervanes,” Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit“The Returner,” Allison RussellBest Bluegrass Album“Radio John: Songs of John Hartford,” Sam Bush“Lovin’ of the Game,” Michael Cleveland“Mighty Poplar,” Mighty Poplar“Bluegrass,” Willie Nelson“Me/And/Dad,” Billy Strings“City of Gold,” Molly Tuttle & Golden HighwayBest Traditional Blues Album“Ridin’,” Eric Bibb“The Soul Side of Sipp,” Mr. Sipp“Life Don’t Miss Nobody,” Tracy Nelson“Teardrops for Magic Slim Live at Rosa’s Lounge,” John Primer“All My Love for You,” Bobby RushBest Contemporary Blues Album“Death Wish Blues,” Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton“Healing Time,” Ruthie Foster“Live in London,” Christone “Kingfish” Ingram“Blood Harmony,” Larkin Poe“LaVette!,” Bettye LaVetteBest Folk Album“Traveling Wildfire,” Dom Flemons”I Only See the Moon,” the Milk Carton Kids“Joni Mitchell at Newport (Live),” Joni Mitchell”Celebrants,” Nickel Creek“Jubilee,” Old Crow Medicine Show“Seven Psalms,” Paul Simon“Folkocracy,” Rufus WainwrightBest Regional Roots Music Album“New Beginnings,” Buckwheat Zydeco Jr. and the Legendary Ils Sont Partis Band“Live at the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival,” Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers“Live: Orpheum Theater Nola,” Lost Bayou Ramblers and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra“Made in New Orleans,” New Breed Brass Band“Too Much to Hold,” New Orleans Nightcrawlers“Live at the Maple Leaf,” the Rumble featuring Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr.Best Gospel Performance/Song“God Is Good,” Stanley Brown featuring Hezekiah Walker, Kierra Sheard and Karen Clark Sheard; Stanley Brown, Karen V Clark Sheard, Kaylah Jiavanni Harvey, Rodney Jerkins, Elyse Victoria Johnson, J Drew Sheard II, Kierra Valencia Sheard and Hezekiah Walker, songwriters“Feel Alright (Blessed),” Erica Campbell; Erica Campbell, Warryn Campbell, William Weatherspoon, Juan Winans and Marvin L. Winans, songwriters“Lord Do It for Me (Live),” Zacardi Cortez; Marcus Calyen, Zacardi Cortez and Kerry Douglas, songwriters“God Is,” Melvin Crispell III“All Things,” Kirk Franklin; Kirk Franklin, songwriterBest Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song“Believe,” Blessing Offor; Hank Bentley and Blessing Offor, songwriters“Firm Foundation (He Won’t) (Live),” Cody Carnes“Thank God I Do,” Lauren Daigle; Lauren Daigle and Jason Ingram, songwriters“Love Me Like I Am,” For King & Country featuring Jordin Sparks“Your Power,” Lecrae and Tasha Cobbs Leonard“God Problems,” Maverick City Music, Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine; Daniel Bashta, Chris Davenport, Ryan Ellis and Naomi Raine, songwritersBest Gospel Album“I Love You,” Erica Campbell“Hymns (Live),” Tasha Cobbs Leonard“The Maverick Way,” Maverick City Music“My Truth,” Jonathan McReynolds“All Things New: Live in Orlando,” Tye TribbettBest Contemporary Christian Music Album“My Tribe,” Blessing Offor“Emanuel,” Da’ T.R.U.T.H.“Lauren Daigle,” Lauren Daigle“Church Clothes 4,” Lecrae“I Believe,” Phil WickhamBest Roots Gospel Album“Tribute to the King,” the Blackwood Brothers Quartet“Echoes of the South,” Blind Boys of Alabama“Songs That Pulled Me Through the Tough Times,” Becky Isaacs Bowman“Meet Me at the Cross,” Brian Free & Assurance“Shine: The Darker the Night the Brighter the Light,” Gaither Vocal BandBest Latin Pop Album“La Cuarta Hoja,” Pablo Alborán“Beautiful Humans, Vol. 1,” AleMor“A Ciegas,” Paula Arenas“La Neta,” Pedro Capó“Don Juan,” Maluma“X Mí (Vol. 1),” Gaby MorenoBest Música Urbana Album“Saturno,” Rauw Alejandro”Mañana Será Bonito,” Karol G“Data,” TainyBest Latin Rock or Alternative Album“Martínez,” Cabra“Leche De Tigre,” Diamante Eléctrico“Vida Cotidiana,” Juanes“De Todas Las Flores,” Natalia Lafourcade“EADDA9223,” Fito PaezBest Música Mexicana Album (Including Tejano)“Bordado a Mano,” Ana Bárbara“La Sánchez,” Lila Downs“Motherflower,” Flor de Toloache“Amor Como en Las Películas De Antes,” Lupita Infante“Génesis,” Peso PlumaBest Tropical Latin Album“Siembra: 45° Aniversario (En Vivo en el Coliseo de Puerto Rico, 14 de Mayo 2022),” Rubén Blades con Roberto Delgado and Orquesta“Voy a Ti,” Luis Figueroa“Niche Sinfónico,” Grupo Niche y Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia“Vida,” Omara Portuondo“Mimy & Tony,” Tony Succar, Mimy Succar“Escalona Nunca se Había Grabado Así,” Carlos VivesBest Global Music Performance“Shadow Forces,” Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily“Alone,” Burna Boy“Feel,” Davido“Milagro y Disastre,” Silvana Estrada“Abundance in Millets,” Falu and Gaurav Shah (featuring PM Narendra Modi)“Pashto,” Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain featuring Rakesh Chaurasia“Todo Colores,” Ibrahim Maalouf featuring Cimafunk and Tank and the BangasBest African Music Performance“Amapiano,” Asake and Olamide“City Boys,” Burna Boy“Unavailable,” Davido featuring Musa Keys“Rush,” Ayra Starr“Water,” TylaBest Global Music Album“Epifanías,” Susana Baca“History,” Bokanté“I Told Them…,” Burna Boy“Timeless,” Davido“This Moment,” ShaktiBest Reggae Album“Born for Greatness,” Buju Banton“Simma,” Beenie Man“Cali Roots Riddim 2023,” Collie Buddz“No Destroyer,” Burning Spear“Colors of Royal,” Julian Marley & AntaeusBest New Age, Ambient or Chant Album“Aquamarine,” Kirsten Agresta-Copely“Moments of Beauty,” Omar Akram“Some Kind of Peace (Piano Reworks),” Ólafur Arnalds“Ocean Dreaming Ocean,” David Darling and Hans Christian“So She Howls,” Carla Patullo featuring Tonality and the Scorchio QuartetBest Children’s Music Album“Ahhhhh!,” Andrew & Polly“Ancestars,” Pierce Freelon and Nnenna Freelon“Hip Hope for Kids!,” DJ Willy Wow!“Taste the Sky,” Uncle Jumbo“We Grow Together Preschool Songs,” 123 AndrésBest Comedy Album“I Wish You Would,” Trevor Noah“I’m an Entertainer,” Wanda Sykes“Selective Outrage,” Chris Rock”Someone You Love,” Sarah Silverman“What’s in a Name?,” Dave ChappelleBest Audiobook, Narration and Storytelling Recording“Big Tree,” Meryl Streep“Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder,” William Shatner“The Creative Act: A Way of Being,” Rick Rubin“It’s Ok to Be Angry About Capitalism,” Senator Bernie Sanders“The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times,” Michelle ObamaBest Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media“Aurora,” (Daisy Jones & the Six)“Barbie: The Album” (Various Artists)“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – Music From and Inspired By” (Various Artists)“Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3: Awesome Mix, Vol. 3” (Various Artists)“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” Weird Al YankovicBest Score Soundtrack for Visual Media (Includes Film and Television)“Barbie,” Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, composers“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Ludwig Göransson, composer“The Fabelmans,” John Williams, composer“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” John Williams, composer“Oppenheimer,” Ludwig Göransson, composerBest Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II,” Sarah Schachner, composer“God of War Ragnarök,” Bear McCreary, composer“Hogwarts Legacy,” Peter Murray, J Scott Rakozy and Chuck E. Myers “Sea,” composers“Star Wars Jedi: Survivor,” Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab, composers“Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical,” Jess Serro, Tripod and Austin Wintory, composersBest Song Written for Visual Media“Barbie World” from “Barbie: The Album,” Naija Gaston, Ephrem Louis Lopez Jr. and Onika Maraj, songwriters (Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice featuring Aqua)“Dance the Night” from “Barbie: The Album,” Caroline Ailin, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Dua Lipa)“I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie: The Album,” Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Ryan Gosling)“Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — Music From and Inspired By,” Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Göransson, Robyn Fenty and Temilade Openiyi, songwriters (Rihanna)“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie: The Album,” Billie Eilish O’Connell and Finneas O’Connell, songwriters (Billie Eilish)Best Music Video“I’m Only Sleeping” (The Beatles), Em Cooper, video director; Jonathan Clyde, Sophie Hilton, Sue Loughlin and Laura Thomas, video producers“In Your Love” (Tyler Childers), Bryan Schlam, video director; Kacie Barton, Silas House, Nicholas Robespierre, Ian Thornton and Whitney Wolanin, video producers“What Was I Made For?” (Billie Eilish), Billie Eilish, video director; Michelle An, Chelsea Dodson and David Moore, video producers“Count Me Out” (Kendrick Lamar), Dave Free and Kendrick Lamar, video directors; Jason Baum and Jamie Rabineau, video producers“Rush” (Troye Sivan), Gordon Von Steiner, video director; Kelly McGee, video producerBest Music Film“Moonage Daydream” (David Bowie), Brett Morgen, video director; Brett Morgen, video producer“How I’m Feeling Now” (Lewis Capaldi), Joe Pearlman, video director; Sam Bridger, Isabel Davis and Alice Rhodes, video producers“Live From Paris, the Big Steppers Tour” (Kendrick Lamar), Mike Carson, Dave Free and Mark Ritchie, video directors; Cornell Brown, Debra Davis, Jared Heinke and Jamie Rabineau, video producers“I Am Everything” (Little Richard), Lisa Cortés, video director; Caryn Capotosto, Lisa Cortés, Robert Friedman and Liz Yale Marsh, video producers“Dear Mama” (Tupac Shakur), Allen Hughes, video director; Joshua Garcia, Loren Gomez, James Jenkins and Stef Smith, video producersBest Recording Package“The Art of Forgetting,” Caroline Rose, art director (Caroline Rose)“Cadenza 21’,” Hsing-Hui Cheng, art director (Ensemble Cadenza 21’)“Electrophonic Chronic,” Perry Shall, art director (The Arcs)“Gravity Falls,” Iam8bit, art director (Brad Breeck)“Migration,” Yu Wei, art director (Leaf Yeh)“Stumpwork,” Luke Brooks and James Theseus Buck, art directors (Dry Cleaning)Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package“The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel,” Jeff Mangum, Daniel Murphy and Mark Ohe, art directors (Neutral Milk Hotel)“For the Birds: The Birdsong Project,” Jeri Heiden and John Heiden, art directors (Various Artists)”Gieo,” Duy Dao, art director (Ngot)“Inside: Deluxe Box Set,” Bo Burnham and Daniel Calderwood, art directors (Bo Burnham)“Words & Music, May 1965 – Deluxe Edition,” Masaki Koike, art director (Lou Reed)Best Album Notes“Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy (Live),” Ashley Kahn, album notes writer (John Coltrane & Eric Dolphy)“I Can Almost See Houston: The Complete Howdy Glenn,” Scott B. Bomar, album notes writer (Howdy Glenn)“Mogadishu’s Finest: The Al Uruba Sessions,” Vik Sohonie, album notes writer (Iftin Band)“Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings From the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958–1971,” Jeff Place and John Troutman, album notes writers (Various Artists)“Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos,” Robert Gordon and Deanie Parker, album notes writers (Various Artists)Best Historical Album“Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series, Vol. 17,” Steve Berkowitz and Jeff Rosen, compilation producers; Steve Addabbo, Greg Calbi, Steve Fallone, Chris Shaw and Mark Wilder, mastering engineers (Bob Dylan)“The Moaninest Moan of Them All: The Jazz Saxophone of Loren McMurray, 1920-1922,” Colin Hancock, Meagan Hennessey and Richard Martin, compilation producers; Richard Martin, mastering engineer; Richard Martin, restoration engineer (Various Artists)“Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings From the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958–1971,” Jeff Place and John Troutman, compilation producers; Randy LeRoy and Charlie Pilzer, mastering engineers; Mike Petillo and Charlie Pilzer, restoration engineers (Various Artists)“Words & Music, May 1965 – Deluxe Edition,” Laurie Anderson, Don Fleming, Jason Stern, Matt Sulllivan and Hal Willner, compilation producers; John Baldwin, mastering engineer; John Baldwin, restoration engineer (Lou Reed)“Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos,” Robert Gordon, Deanie Parker, Cheryl Pawelski, Michele Smith and Mason Williams, compilation producers; Michael Graves, mastering engineer; Michael Graves, restoration engineer (Various Artists)Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical“Desire, I Want to Turn Into You,” Macks Faulkron, Daniel Harle, Caroline Polachek and Geoff Swan, engineers; Mike Bozzi and Chris Gehringer, mastering engineers (Caroline Polachek)“History,” Nic Hard, engineer; Dave McNair, mastering engineer (Bokanté)“Jaguar II,” John Kercy, Kyle Mann, Victoria Monét, Patrizio “Teezio” Pigliapoco, Neal H Pogue and Todd Robinson, engineers; Colin Leonard, mastering engineer (Victoria Monét)“Multitudes,” Michael Harris, Robbie Lackritz, Joseph Lorge and Blake Mills, engineers (Feist)“The Record,” Owen Lantz, Will Maclellan, Catherine Marks, Mike Mogis, Bobby Mota, Kaushlesh “Garry” Purohit and Sarah Tudzin, engineers; Pat Sullivan, mastering engineer (boygenius)Best Engineered Album, Classical“The Blue Hour,” Patrick Dillett, Mitchell Graham, Jesse Lewis, Kyle Pyke, Andrew Scheps and John Weston, engineers; Helge Sten, mastering engineer (Shara Nova and A Far Cry)”Contemporary American Composers,” David Frost & Charlie Post, engineers; Silas Brown, mastering engineer (Riccardo Muti and Chicago Symphony Orchestra)“Fandango,” Alexander Lipay and Dmitriy Lipay, engineers; Alexander Lipay and Dmitriy Lipay, mastering engineers (Gustavo Dudamel, Anne Akiko Meyers, Gustavo Castillo and Los Angeles Philharmonic)”Sanlikol: A Gentleman of Istanbul – Symphony for Strings, Percussion, Piano, Oud, Ney & Tenor,” Christopher Moretti & John Weston, engineers; Shauna Barravecchio & Jesse Lewis, mastering engineers (Mehmet Ali Sanlikol, George Lernis & A Far Cry)“Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Schulhoff: Five Pieces,” Mark Donahue, engineer; Mark Donahue, mastering engineer (Manfred Honeck and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra)Producer of the Year, ClassicalDavid FrostMorten LindbergDmitriy LipayElaine MartoneBrian PidgeonBest Remixed Recording“Alien Love Call,” Badbadnotgood, remixers (Turnstile and Badbadnotgood featuring Blood Orange)“New Gold (Dom Dolla Remix),” Dom Dolla, remixer (Gorillaz featuring Tame Impala and Bootie Brown)“Reviver (Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Remix),” Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, remixer (Lane 8)“Wagging Tongue (Wet Leg Remix),” Wet Leg, remixers (Depeche Mode)“Workin’ Hard (Terry Hunter Remix),” Terry Hunter, remixer (Mariah Carey)Best Immersive Audio Album“Act 3 (Immersive Edition),” Ryan Ulyate, immersive mix engineer; Michael Romanowski, immersive mastering engineer; Ryan Ulyate, immersive producer (Ryan Ulyate)“Blue Clear Sky,” Chuck Ainlay, immersive mix engineer; Michael Romanowski, immersive mastering engineer; Chuck Ainlay, immersive producer (George Strait)“The Diary of Alicia Keys,” George Massenburg and Eric Schilling, immersive mix engineers; Michael Romanowski, immersive mastering engineer; Alicia Keys and Ann Mincieli, immersive producers (Alicia Keys)“God of War Ragnarök (Original Soundtrack),” Eric Schilling, immersive mix engineer; Michael Romanowski, immersive mastering engineer; Kellogg Boynton, Peter Scaturro and Herbert Waltl, immersive producers (Bear McCreary)“Silence Between Songs,” Aaron Short, immersive mastering engineer (Madison Beer)Best Instrumental Composition“Amerikkan Skin,” Lakecia Benjamin, composer (Lakecia Benjamin featuring Angela Davis)“Can You Hear the Music,” Ludwig Göransson, composer (Ludwig Göransson)“Cutey and the Dragon,” Gordon Goodwin and Raymond Scott, composers (Quartet San Francisco featuring Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band)“Helena’s Theme,” John Williams, composer (John Williams)“Motion,” Edgar Meyer, composer (Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain featuring Rakesh Chaurasia)Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella“Angels We Have Heard on High,” Nkosilathi Emmanuel Sibanda, arranger (Just 6)“Can You Hear the Music,” Ludwig Göransson, arranger (Ludwig Göransson)“Folsom Prison Blues,” John Carter Cash, Tommy Emmanuel, Markus Illko, Janet Robin and Roberto Luis Rodriguez, arrangers (The String Revolution featuring Tommy Emmanuel)“I Remember,” Mingus Hilario Duran, arranger (Hilario Duran and His Latin Jazz Big Band featuring Paquito D’Rivera)“Paint It Black,” Esin Aydingoz, Chris Bacon and Alana Da Fonseca, arrangers (Wednesday Addams)Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals“April in Paris,” Gordon Goodwin, arranger (Patti Austin featuring Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band)“Com Que Voz (Live),” John Beasley and Maria Mendes, arrangers (Maria Mendes featuring John Beasley and Metropole Orkest)“Fenestra,” Godwin Louis, arranger (Cécile McLorin Salvant)“In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” Erin Bentlage, Jacob Collier, Sara Gazarek, Johnaye, Kendrick and Amanda Taylor, arrangers (säje Featuring Jacob Collier)“Lush Life,” Kendric McCallister, arranger (Samara Joy)Best Orchestral Performance“Adès: Dante,” Gustavo Dudamel, conductor (Los Angeles Philharmonic)“Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra; Four Pieces,” Karina Canellakis, conductor (Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra)“Price: Symphony No. 4; Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony,” Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor (The Philadelphia Orchestra)“Scriabin: Symphony No. 2; The Poem of Ecstasy,” JoAnn Falletta, conductor (Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra)“Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring,” Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor (San Francisco Symphony)Best Opera Recording“Blanchard: Champion,” Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Ryan Speedo Green, Latonia Moore and Eric Owens; David Frost, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)“Corigliano: The Lord of Cries,” Gil Rose, conductor; Anthony Roth Costanzo, Kathryn Henry, Jarrett Ott and David Portillo; Gil Rose, producer (Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera Chorus)“Little: Black Lodge,” Timur; Andrew McKenna Lee and David T. Little, producers (the Dime Museum; Isaura String Quartet)Best Choral Performance“Carols After a Plague,” Donald Nally, conductor (The Crossing)“The House of Belonging,” Craig Hella Johnson, conductor (Miró Quartet; Conspirare)“Ligeti: Lux Aeterna,” Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor (San Francisco Symphony Chorus)“Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil,” Steven Fox, conductor (The Clarion Choir)“Saariaho: Reconnaissance,” Nils Schweckendiek, conductor (Uusinta Ensemble; Helsinki Chamber Choir)Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance“American Stories,” Anthony McGill and Pacifica Quartet“Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 6, ‘Pastorale’ And Op. 1, No. 3,” Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos“Between Breaths,” Third Coast Percussion“Rough Magic,” Roomful of Teeth“Uncovered, Vol. 3: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, William Grant Still & George Walker,” Catalyst QuartetBest Classical Instrumental Solo“Adams, John Luther: Darkness and Scattered Light,” Robert Black“Akiho: Cylinders,” Andy Akiho“The American Project,” Yuja Wang; Teddy Abrams, conductor (Louisville Orchestra)“Difficult Grace,” Seth Parker Woods“Of Love,” Curtis StewartBest Classical Solo Vocal Album“Because,” Reginald Mobley, soloist; Baptiste Trotignon, pianist“Broken Branches,” Karim Sulayman, soloist; Sean Shibe, accompanist“40@40,” Laura Strickling, soloist; Daniel Schlosberg, pianist“Rising,” Lawrence Brownlee, soloist; Kevin J. Miller, pianist“Walking in the Dark,” Julia Bullock, soloist; Christian Reif, conductor (Philharmonia Orchestra)Best Classical Compendium“Fandango,” Anne Akiko Meyers; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; Dmitriy Lipay, producer“Julius Eastman, Vol. 3: If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?,” Christopher Rountree, conductor; Lewis Pesacov, producer“Mazzoli: Dark With Excessive Bright,” Peter Herresthal; Tim Weiss, conductor; Hans Kipfer, producer“Passion for Bach and Coltrane,” Alex Brown, Harlem Quartet, Imani Winds, Edward Perez, Neal Smith and A.B. Spellman; Silas Brown and Mark Dover, producers“Sardinia,” Chick Corea; Chick Corea and Bernie Kirsh, producers“Sculptures,” Andy Akiho; Andy Akiho and Sean Dixon, producers“Zodiac Suite,” Aaron Diehl Trio & the Knights; Eric Jacobsen, conductor; Aaron Diehl and Eric Jacobsen, producersBest Contemporary Classical Composition“Adès: Dante,” Thomas Adès, composer (Gustavo Dudamel and Los Angeles Philharmonic)“Akiho: In That Space, at That Time,” Andy Akiho, composer (Andy Akiho, Ankush Kumar Bahl and Omaha Symphony)“Brittelle: Psychedelics,” William Brittelle, composer (Roomful of Teeth)“Mazzoli: Dark With Excessive Bright,” Missy Mazzoli, composer (Peter Herresthal, James Gaffigan and Bergen Philharmonic)“Montgomery: Rounds,” Jessie Montgomery, composer (Awadagin Pratt, A Far Cry and Roomful of Teeth) More

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      Review: In ‘Shucked,’ a Glut of Gleeful Puns and ‘Cornography’

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      A countrified musical about corn, and filled with it, too, transplants itself to Broadway, with songs by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally.Puns, the pundit John Oliver has said, are not merely the lowest form of humor but “the lowest form of human behavior.” The academy agrees. In the 1600s, no less a literary luminary than John Dryden denounced lowbrow verbal amusements that “torture one poor word ten thousand ways.”You may know how that one poor word feels after seeing “Shucked,” the anomalous Broadway musical about corn that opened on Tuesday at the Nederlander Theater. For more than two hours, it pelts you with piffle so egregious — not just puns but also dad jokes, double entendres and booby-trapped one-liners — that, forced into submission, you eventually give in.Many of the puns, which I will not try to top, are of course about corn, from the title on down. The story is after all set in the fictional Cob County, where the locals, long isolated from the rest of the world by a wall of “cornrows,” live in the perfect “hominy” of entrenched dopiness. Or at least they do until the corn, like some of those puns, starts dying.That’s when our plucky heroine — obviously called Maizy (Caroline Innerbichler) — dares to seek help in the great beyond. Jeopardizing her imminent wedding to the studly but xenophobic Beau (Andrew Durand) and ignoring the advice of her cousin, Lulu (Alex Newell), she heads to Tampa. In that decadent metropolis, she seeks agricultural assistance from Gordy, a con man posing as a podiatrist she misconstrues as a “corn doctor.” Being grifty, Gordy (John Behlmann) returns to Cob County with Maizy not so much to cure the crop as to reap the wealth he thinks lies beneath it: a vast outcropping of precious gemstone.Like Gordy, the audience may have difficulty extracting the gems from the corn. For one thing, there is so much corn to process. It’s not just the relentless puns. The musical’s book, by Robert Horn, embracing what one of the genial songs (by the country music team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally) calls “cornography,” trades on all kinds of trite wisdom and low humor.Ashley D. Kelley and Grey Henson play a couple of winky storytellers who steer the audience past potholes in the story, our critic writes.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesLow but hard not to laugh at. Beau’s brother, Peanut (Kevin Cahoon), a fraction of a half-wit, fires off bullet lists of random jokes for no apparent reason. Many adhere to the formula X + Y = Pun Z. (“Like the personal trainer said to the lazy client: This is not working out.”) Others sound as if the cerebral comedian Steven Wright had been lobotomized by the rubes of “Hee Haw.” “I think if you can pick up your dog with one hand,” Peanut twangs, “you own a cat.”“Hee Haw” is relevant here. “Shucked” was originally developed as a stage version of that television variety hour, first broadcast in 1969. Set in Kornfield Kounty, it featured country music and down-home comedy at a time when rural America was becoming ripe for spoofing by urban elites such as Eva Gabor. And though the rights holders eventually backed out of the venture, and all but three of the songs were discarded, the interbred DNA of Broadway and the boonies lives on.It makes for a strange hybrid. Somehow framed as a fable of both communal cohesion and openness to strangers, “Shucked” has very little actual plot, and what there is, much of it borrowed from “The Music Man,” is rickety. (The effect is echoed by Scott Pask’s lopsided barn of a set.) Minor love complications, as Lulu falls for Gordy even though Gordy is romancing Maizy, are only as knotty as noodles. And using a pair of winky storytellers (Grey Henson and Ashley D. Kelley) to speed past potholes does not exactly make for cutting-edge dramaturgy.Andrew Durand and Caroline Innerbichler as the betrothed Beau and Maizy.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesEvidently the authors — and the director, Jack O’Brien — meant to glue the show together with groaners, a gutsy if not entirely successful move. As the jokes wear down your resistance, they also wear you out. Nor do they provide the narrative structure that typically gives characters in musicals reasons to sing. Maizy and Beau have some nicely turned, strongly hooked numbers, and Innerbichler and Durand perform them well, but we aren’t invested in them enough to care. With their needs so flat, the extra dimension of song seems like overkill.Oddly, it’s only the secondary characters who are complicated enough for music — well, really just one of them. Newell turns Lulu, a whiskey distiller and freelance hell-raiser, into a full-blown comic creation, which is to say a serious person who puts comedy to a purpose. If her dialogue is wittier than the others’, that’s partly because it engages the story, however thin, but mostly because of the intentionality of Newell’s delivery. Flirting with but also threatening Gordy, Lulu says, “The last thing I wanna do is hurt you.” She pauses and locks eyes with him. “So we’ll get to that.”Lulu also gets the show’s best song, a barnburner of a feminist anthem called “Independently Owned.” (“No disrespect to Miss Tammy Wynette,” she sings, “I can’t stand by my man, he’ll have to stand by me.”) Newell — having absorbed the whole vocal thesaurus of diva riffs, shouts, gurgles and growls — stops the show. But after the ovation, I found myself wondering what such a huge talent could do with a more commensurate role, like Effie in “Dreamgirls.”John Behlmann as Gordy and Alex Newell as Lulu, whose barnburner of a feminist anthem has been getting standing ovations.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesOr for that matter what “Shucked” might have done if it had set its sights a bit higher. O’Brien’s staging is deliberately old-fashioned, filled with simple effects and modest outlays meant to match the content but that somehow undershoot the mark. Tilly Grimes’s costumes, though apt enough, look as if they were thrifted. Sarah O’Gleby’s choreography reaches its zenith right at the start, and not even with humans: A mini-kickline of plastic corncob Rockettes slays.Still, with all its fake unsophistication, “Shucked” is what we’ve got, and in a Broadway musical season highlighted by an antisemitic lynching, a murderous barber and a dying 16-year-old, some amusing counterprogramming is probably healthy. You may even find its final moment moving, as the paradox of separation and inclusion is resolved in a lovely flash.Just don’t expect intellectual nourishment; forgive me, I’m breaking my promise, but it’s mostly empty calories you’ll find in this sweet, down-market cornucopia.ShuckedAt the Nederlander Theater, Manhattan; shuckedmusical.com. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. More

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      ‘Shucked’: A Broadway Musical That Doubles Down on the Corn

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      Shane McAnally’s boffo songwriting career got off to a slow start, but by 2013 he and his frequent writing partner Brandy Clark were finally having success. The Band Perry’s “Better Dig Two” and Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart,” both co-written by McAnally and Clark, reached No. 1 and No. 2 on the Billboard country chart.The songs were hits, sure, but they were also unique, especially in the vivid imagery of their lyrics, which found new ways to describe jealousy and heartache. People in Nashville took notice, including the singer Jake Owen, who offered his opinion of “Better Dig Two” and “Mama’s Broken Heart.”“He said to me, ‘Those sound like songs from musicals,’” McAnally recalled recently, sitting in a second-floor room of the Nederlander Theater in Manhattan. He viewed the comment as a backhanded compliment, and remembered thinking, “I wouldn’t even know how to write songs for a musical.”Fast forward 10 years, and McAnally and Clark are days away from the April 4 opening of their new Broadway musical at the Nederlander. The show, “Shucked,” is about a plucky small-town woman who leaves home in search of someone who can figure out why all the corn in the county keeps dying. She meets a big-city con man who’s pretending to be a podiatrist — “Corn doctor,” the sign outside his office says — who then concocts a plan to swindle the desperate farmers.The musicians Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, center row, with the director Jack O’Brien, top row, and the book writer Robert Horn. “They have the same sense of humor that I do,” Horn said of McAnally and Clark.Adam Powell for The New York TimesMcAnally and Clark, who composed the show’s music and wrote the lyrics, are two of Nashville’s most successful musicians. He’s co-written or produced 39 songs that reached No. 1 on the Billboard country chart, and she has 11 Grammy nominations. The New York Times music critic Jon Caramanica called them “two of the most in-demand and disruptive songwriters” in Nashville and “convention-tweakers in a town in thrall to its conventions.”They began writing songs about a decade ago for a different iteration of the musical, which the book writer Robert Horn had been working on since 2011. Horn, who won a Tony Award in 2019 for writing the stage adaptation of “Tootsie,” unabashedly filled “Shucked” with corn puns — the leading lady is named Maizy, she hails from Cob County, and that’s just the start of it. The show is both about corn, and corny in an audacious way.‘A show about outliers’Maybe every Broadway show takes a Mr. Magoo path to opening night, but the back story to “Shucked” features more flat tires and head-on collisions than most.It began with a brand extension. Executives at the Opry Entertainment Group, which owns the rights to “Hee Haw,” thought that the TV show’s mix of music and cornpone comedy might adapt well to the stage. The person first tasked with creating the adaptation was Horn, who’d written and produced lots of television shows, as well as the book (with Dan Elish) for the Broadway musical “13.”After making progress with the story, Horn traveled to Nashville in 2013 to meet the city’s top songwriters, including McAnally and Clark. He’d prepared a lengthy outline, but they didn’t even read it. “We want to do this,” he recalled them saying.Clark, who moved to Nashville in 1997, was just starting a sterling career as a highly acclaimed solo artist. Growing up in Washington State, she was in a community production of “The Music Man,” another show about a slick con man trying to bilk small towners. (“We have some Harold Hill going on,” she acknowledged with a laugh.)“Writing a musical was always on my bucket list,” she explained. “But I thought you had to have a music pedigree to be a Broadway composer.”And McAnally had recently become a musical theater convert after seeing his first Broadway show, “The Book of Mormon.” “It blew my mind,” he said. “I said to my husband, ‘I want to do that. But I don’t know what it is or how you do it.’”When Horn met McAnally and Clark, “it was love at first sight,” Horn said in a phone interview. “They have the same sense of humor that I do. The fact that they were proud, gay, out country artists was appealing to me, because I knew I wanted this to be a show about outliers.”Mary Johnston Rutherford, the show’s wardrobe supervisor, working on Alex Newell’s costume during a fitting. Newell’s song “Independently Owned” has been getting standing ovations during preview performances.Adam Powell for The New York TimesHorn, who gets credit (or blame) for the randy puns and dad jokes in “Shucked,” comes to his comedy honestly. His mother was Ed Sullivan’s secretary, and his grandfather, a Bell Telephone engineer who in his off hours was a vaudeville dancer, introduced him to borscht belt comedy.When Horn was a baby, his father skipped town. His mother struggled with depression, and at the age of 9, he was sent to an orphanage, where he found that making jokes sometimes kept him from being beaten up.The first version of the show was called “Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical,” and in 2015, it ventured to Dallas. A local critic called it “cartoonish,” and Variety predicted the musical-comedy would succeed only “far from the Great White Way.” “Moonshine” was foundering, “so we had to let it go,” Horn said.Rebuilding a showWhile making “Moonshine,” Horn had grown so close to the two songwriters that after his sister died, Clark called him and said, “I’m your sister now.” None of them were ready to give up on the idea of the show, so Horn got the band back together.The Opry Entertainment Group had bowed out, so they threw away the title and all but three songs. And there was a new addition to the team: the director Jack O’Brien, who fell in love with country music in the 1980s thanks to his then boyfriend. Catching the show on the rebound, O’Brien, the only person to win Tonys for directing “Henry IV” and “Hairspray,” knew “Shucked” needed some weight. “It’s so campy it would float away,” he said.He urged the songwriters to throw out their opening number, which they loved. He proposed a new song that celebrates corn, one in which the word corn sounded “like a foghorn,” Clark recalled, and the songwriters were delighted when they realized the giddy, tone-setting result was better.When it came time to see what audiences thought, the show’s producers booked the National Theater in Washington, D.C., with a plan to open there in late 2020. But then the pandemic arrived. “It was an ill wind, in the classic sense, that brought us some good,” O’Brien said.While the creative team continued to hone the show, some of the actors, with Broadway mostly shut down, had nothing to do.“This show is what pulled me through the pandemic,” said the Broadway veteran Andrew Durand, who plays Beau, the dim and stubborn male lead, and coincidentally, spent the first 10 years of his life in Cobb County, Ga. “This is what I had to look forward to, any time I got down.”For the second attempt at an out-of-town run, the producers picked the Pioneer Theater Company in Salt Lake City, Utah, though Horn feared red-state residents would flinch at his jokes. One local reviewer said the show delivered laughs “at a staggering clip,” though another critic warned that the jokes were “a little smutty.” The Salt Lake City audiences “had some difficulty with it,” O’Brien admitted. “They pursed their lips, but I’ve never heard an audience laugh longer.”Behind the scenes at the Nederlander Theater.Adam Powell for The New York TimesThe show, in previews now, is scheduled to open April 4.Adam Powell for The New York Times“Shucked” would not be as good, he added, if not for the delay. “We have sat, as colleagues and friends, with nothing to do for three years while we turned these tender leaves over and over in our hands, thinking, ‘Maybe we can do better than that.’ We found values that it’s worthwhile to put out there.”‘Key to Humanity’The good songs and jokes in “Shucked” are so plentiful that secondary characters all have a spotlight or two. During rehearsals last month, no one got more laughs than Storyteller 2 (Grey Henson, a Tony nominee for “Mean Girls”) and Beau’s brother Peanut (Kevin Cahoon, the cast’s lone holdover from “Moonshine”), whose punch lines are nearly Dada-esque.And the showstopping number “Independently Owned” isn’t sung by one of the two lead characters, but by Maizy’s cousin Lulu (Alex Newell of “Once on This Island” and TV’s “Glee”), who shows off a remarkable range while nailing multiple tricky modulations in the song. “Alex got a standing ovation last night,” McAnally said the day after the first preview performance.It’s no spoiler to say that in Cob County, the women are smarter than the men. (“True to life, really,” Durand quipped.) Maizy (played by Caroline Innerbichler, who is making her Broadway debut) is gullible but determined and openhearted, while the worldlier Lulu is skeptical about the big-city grifter Gordy (John Behlmann of “Tootsie”) whose arrival unsettles the equilibrium in Cob County.The story line in “Shucked” is partly a corollary to the real-life relationship between Horn’s Yankee family and his husband’s Southern kinfolk. Since they learned to love one another, he says, maybe others can too.In February, after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia proposed a “national divorce” between red and blue states, O’Brien told the cast: “There has never been a more important moment for this show.”During a later interview, he got specific about the musical’s worthwhile values. “Laughter is God’s miracle,” he said. “You sit in the dark with people you don’t know, and don’t want to know, and you all voluntarily expel the air out of your lungs at the exact same time. If that isn’t the key to humanity, I don’t know what is.“We don’t have a lot to laugh about right now. Sometimes I cannot look at the news anymore. It breaks my heart. So if there is surcease from sorrow, and my name is attached to it, thank God.”Broadway musicals rise or fall mostly on the strength of jokes, songs, performances and stagecraft. Apart from one good joke at the expense of Christopher Columbus, the show’s politics are not overt.“People may see it as a funny little fable, but I hope it’s more than that,” Horn said. “I’m watching laws go into effect for the gay and trans community, my brethren, and watching anti-Semitism grow in this country.”A big part of the show’s message is tolerance and love on both sides of a divide, though it’s not a #bothsides play. He hopes audiences recognize that the show has “a message of unity,” he said. “Unless you can open your heart to people who are different than you, you will never grow.”Behind the rat-a-tat pace of the jokes, “Shucked” is the work of outliers who worry that the victories for tolerance they’ve seen in their lifetimes are being reversed.The trick to songwriting in Nashville, Clark said once, was “to find your group of misfit toys.” Even through their success, she and McAnally felt as if they were censoring themselves by removing jokes and political themes to blend in on country radio.In New York, the two best friends joined an enclave where misfit toys are the rule, not the exception.“Our songwriter friends say, ‘You’re going to be Broadway rich!’ Well, I’m already Broadway rich,” McAnally said with a laugh. The payoff wasn’t the pay, but the freedom to write songs without restrictions. “Why would we go back to Nashville?” he asked. More

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      Remaking Country’s Gender Politics, One Barroom Weeper at a Time

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      Listen to This ArticleAudio Recording by AudmTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.Monday morning at the office: Shane McAnally was writing a country song with Josh Osborne, a regular collaborator. McAnally, compact and tight-strung in jeans and T-shirt, sat on a chair with his sneakered feet up and a laptop balanced on his thighs, an acoustic guitar and an enormous carryout cup of iced tea within reach. Osborne, mellower, in a purple hoodie, sat on a couch cradling another guitar, on which he picked out a loping groove in the key of A.They started with a line they heard spoken at a songwriters’ gathering, “I drank alone a long time,” when someone raised a glass in appreciation of getting together with fellow musicians after pandemic-induced isolation. McAnally recalls that he and Osborne exchanged a wordless look: That’s a song! Now they were writing it. When one of them had an idea, he would half-moan nonsense syllables as placeholders for the parts he hadn’t worked out yet: “Yeah that whiskey sure used to burn, now it’s sweet on your lips mmmmhmmmm anana turn …” The other would murmur along in harmony, a fraction of a beat behind, testing resonance and mouthfeel.The lines of the first verse had a cantilevered quality typical of McAnally’s songs, surprising the ear a little and adding a sense of urgency by going past the expected rhythmic endpoint and wrapping around into the next in a lilting run-on: “I don’t mind if they turn on the lights/And last call don’t faze me at all/My glass was half-empty before you were with me.” The developing song featured McAnally’s favorite chord change — “a 3 minor just breaks my heart,” he says — but his distinctive lyrical flow was the surest mark of his authorship. Plenty of popular songwriting sounds as if the words have been written to fit the groove, but McAnally’s songs sound as if the groove grows organically from the poetic rhythm inhering in the words. “I can almost instantly tell when I hear something Shane has written,” Kacey Musgraves told me by email, “even when it’s sung by another artist.” Once McAnally and Osborne got going, the song came in a rush. After they finished, they recorded a rough take to serve as a guide for a demo they could pitch to singers. McAnally would normally sing the rough take, but he had been having problems with his voice, so Osborne sang it. They talked about whether the song might be right for Blake Shelton. (“I Drank Alone” is currently on hold for Carly Pearce, meaning she has the right of first refusal to record it.) Afterward, McAnally told me that Sam Hunt, another regular collaborator, talks about “the window being open for a few minutes — it’s like God walks through the room and you better be holding a guitar when it happens.” Such inspiration makes frequent visits to this cozily appointed room in the Nashville headquarters of SMACKSongs, McAnally’s music publishing and management company. Framed posters of country artists who have recorded McAnally’s songs cover one wall. Another is tiered with “10 Songs I Wish I’d Written” awards from the Nashville Songwriters Association International, honoring songs like “Merry Go ’Round” (a hit for Musgraves), “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” (Keith Urban) and “Body Like a Back Road” (Sam Hunt — 34 straight weeks at No. 1, a record at the time). The windows look out on Music Row, the stretch of 16th Avenue South lined with the offices of record labels, radio networks, recording studios, public-relations firms and music-licensing and publishing outfits like ASCAP and BMI. It’s the Wall Street and Madison Avenue of country music, as well as a hub for gospel, pop, Christian music and other genres. Possibly it’s the place on earth with the greatest concentration of expertise for creating and distributing popular songs.McAnally, who has been wildly successful at reaching a lot of listeners and winning critical acclaim by making songs for other people to sing, would seem to be the quintessential Nashville insider. He has co-written or produced 39 songs that reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay or Hot Country Songs charts; Country Aircheck, which tracks radio airplay, puts his total at 43; and, depending on how you count Canadian, European and other charts, the number passes 50 — plus, of course, many more hits that topped out short of No. 1. He revived and is co-president of the historic label Monument Records, a joint venture with Sony. He has produced albums by Musgraves, Hunt, Pearce, Walker Hayes, Midland and Old Dominion, among others. He has won three Grammys, 19 N.S.A.I. “I Wish I’d Written” awards and an armful of honors from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association. He has more C.M.A. song-of-the-year nominations than any other songwriter in history.But while McAnally may be a high-end craftsman operating deep within Nashville’s music-industrial complex, he also sees himself as an insurgent who has put himself in position to work subtle, far-reaching changes on an industry that has historically been hostile to what he represents. For most of the past 15 years, McAnally has been known as one of the very few out gay men in a position of creative influence in mainstream country music. Attentive listeners can discern in his body of work a gradual effort to rewrite the genre’s DNA to encourage mutation in its famously hidebound assumptions about sex and gender. It’s not that the industry doesn’t know about the full range of human sexual behavior; rather, part of its brand has been to act as if it doesn’t want to know about large sections of that range. Most country music fans may simply assume that the many romantic songs McAnally has written refer to loved ones of the opposite sex, especially when sung by singers they assume to be straight. But, as he likes to point out, those songs work just as well for same-sex attraction. The whiskey-sweet lips in “I Drank Alone” could belong to a man or a woman, and he would rather not force the listener to choose. When I asked him how conscious he was of trying to transform country’s gender politics, he said: “Oh, it’s conscious, but it’s also just who I am. I think part of it is being gay. I don’t like speaking in the masculine or the feminine. I feel like it corners things, compartmentalizes.” As far back as McAnally can remember, he has thought in songs. He hears fragments and nuggets of song in the speech and lives of family, friends, colleagues, strangers and characters in the Southern memoirs and biographies he likes to read. His mother’s turns of phrase, for instance, have helped inspire the choruses in hits like “Merry Go ’Round” (“Mama’s hooked on Mary Kay/Brother’s hooked on maryjane/And Daddy’s hooked on Mary two doors down”) and Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart” (“Go and fix your makeup, girl, it’s just a breakup/Run and hide your crazy and start actin’ like a lady”). When McAnally was a little boy in Mineral Wells, Texas, he would pace around the perimeter of the parking lot at his grandmother’s clothing store, making up lyrics in his head about people he knew, superimposing the words onto the melodies of songs he had heard at home, in church or during rides in his father’s Jeep, when the playlist skewed to the classic country of Merle Haggard and George Strait.That primal songwriting scene in the parking lot serves as a reminder that new songs come, at least in part, from old songs. Standard country music templates like the heartbreak tale or the evocation of small-town life stood ready to hand when someone said something that suggested the germ of a song. Think of a song as an ancient technology for imposing form and meaning on experience, a device for filtering the chaotic noise of inner life and the world around us so it can be translated into meaningful signal. Or think of a song as a container into which you can pour a distilled feeling that others can then imbibe by playing or singing or listening to it.The signature feeling in McAnally’s songs — even “I Drank Alone,” a story of love found — is a yearning, restless quality he described to me as “that sense of unrequited ‘almost’: it’s almost right, you’re almost there, but you can’t quite. …” Musgraves told me, “Shane and I always love finding the melancholy aspect inside of the greater feelings of happiness and love.” Or, as his friend and frequent songwriting collaborator Brandy Clark puts it, “He’s just a little bit addicted to heartbreak.” The unrequited almost running through McAnally’s songs makes an ideal fit with the cathartic blend of sadness and joy that comes factory-installed in country music, a hurt-obsessed genre rich in dark songs about love and jaunty songs about sorrow. McAnally cites a past toxic romance as a continuing inspiration, but when we talked about his own experience, he kept coming back to his father, “a certain ultimate concept of a Texas man.” He went on: “He and his two brothers, they played football, there were stories about how wild they were. He was a badass, and they were small-town kings.” McAnally’s parents, high school sweethearts, had a volatile relationship. “It lasted 12 years, and they got divorced and remarried in the middle of it — very George Jones,” a reference to the towering marital melodrama between Jones and Tammy Wynette, owners of two of the greatest heartache-drenched voices of all time. Classic country music themes like hard work, prison (he recalls that his father served a four-year term that ended the marriage for good) and abandonment also figure in McAnally’s family story; a gingerly respectful cordiality now prevails between son and father. “I wanted to be like him,” he told me. “That was the great out-of-reach thing I aspired to, and, being gay, thinking of it as being a sissy, that kept me in the closet for a long time.” In our conversations McAnally pointed to Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again” and the Eddy Arnold-Ray Charles ballad of hopeless longing “You Don’t Know Me” as touchstone songs for him. Both are nominally about romance, but the feelings they express extend well beyond. “Continuing to reach out for someone who’s just not quite available,” McAnally said. “That’s my dad.”McAnally wasn’t out yet when he sang and wrote his way from Mineral Wells to Nashville in the 1990s and took his shot at an onstage singing career. When stardom eluded him, he moved to Los Angeles for a few years, where he heard more than his share of last calls and wrote a lot of songs, some of which were picked up by well-known singers. In 2007, he returned to Nashville as a battle-tested songwriter, and he also came out as a gay man in an industry that had always insisted on the closet. Now, at 48, he’s two years sober and raising 10-year-old twins with his husband, Michael McAnally Baum, who is the president of SMACKSongs.If these days McAnally is no longer regarded as a lone exception, you might credit his prominent example — Nashville’s mayor presided at his nuptials with Baum in 2017 — for helping embolden other gay men and women associated with country to come out, a growing list that includes T.J. Osborne of the Brothers Osborne, Lily Rose, Orville Peck, Lil Nas X, Brandi Carlile and Brandy Clark. But McAnally says: “I don’t think we’ve actually come that far in terms of major commercial figures. Baby steps are huge, but they’re baby steps.” He notes that most of the names on the out list are identified with Americana, pop or behind-the-scenes songwriting.“I’m stuck in the habit of ‘what Nashville thinks,’” he says, by which he means that he measures progress in terms of onstage stars in the industry’s commercial mainstream. “T.J. is such an important part of the long-term story, because he’s trying to show his queerness and his allyship to any sort of queer person, but he’s half of a duo, and they’re not in competition with the Jason Aldeans and Luke Bryans of the world because they’re left of center. And Lily Rose seems totally authentic, and she’s getting close to a big hit, but she hasn’t had one yet. I do see that people are fighting for it, though, and that matters.”At times he has felt that he had something extra to prove. “When gay songwriters come up to me and they’re like, ‘You inspire me,’ I say, ‘You just have to be better and outwork them,’” McAnally says. “I was like, ‘I can out-bro you, I can out-country you,’ which comes from this fear of being stereotyped. Like, ‘Well, he’s gay, so he probably can’t write songs that Luke Bryan or George Strait would want to sing.’”Thinking constantly about what others want to sing and what the industry would allow them to sing has taken a toll on McAnally, a feelingful guy prone to intense self-examination. He believes that it’s at the root of his voice problems. After a lifetime of being able to sing whatever he felt like singing, in the last couple of years he has lost the ability to sing in full voice or even hold a note. He can knock around musical ideas in a songwriting session, but any attempt to stretch his voice, even to make himself heard in conversation in a loud room, can cause it to seize up.Shane McAnally sees himself as an insurgent in Nashville — one of the few out gay men with creative influence.Kristine Potter for The New York TimesThe diagnosis is muscular tension dysphonia, a vocal cousin of the yips, the twisties and other such sudden inexplicable crises that can render a seasoned athlete unable to perform. “What happened to Simone Biles is what made me decide to get help,” he told me. “They tell me there’s nothing wrong with my body that they can find, so it’s mental, spiritual, but it feels physical.” Dysphonia troubles many singers — his vocal therapist told him that she counted nine other artists with whom she had worked when she saw him on a C.M.A. awards telecast — and its onset can be mysterious, often causing profound doubts to set in. It’s hard not to feel that your body’s trying to tell you something by refusing to do what has always come naturally.As McAnally tells the story of his career, the music he made in his youth as a would-be Nashville star was less than authentic because he was closeted, then he came out and wrote more authentic songs for himself to sing that, it turned out, others wanted to sing. But hitting the jackpot as a songwriter ushered in another phase of unrequited almost. “My material voice has diminished as my metaphorical voice has diminished,” he says, tracing the roots of the affliction to the moment he realized he could win praise and riches by writing songs for others to sing. “You become a box-checker,” he says. “Especially if you’ve had a lot of hits, you can’t help but imitate what’s worked before. If you’re always saying, ‘Would Luke Bryan say this?’ you have compromised yourself.” Yes, his success has taken him deep into the machinery of Nashville’s establishment, but the words he uses to describe his situation there — boxed-in, claustrophobic, smothered — are the same ones he uses to describe the panic that comes over him when he feels that his voice is going to fail and make him look foolish.McAnally has been spending more time away from Nashville of late — in New York, traveling in Africa with his family, pricing houses with his husband in California — and that seems to revive his voice. These days he finds that sometimes, under certain conditions, he can sing. “There will be an hour when my voice feels all right,” he told me, “and I can do it where it’s quiet, nobody in the studio but me and the engineer, the right reverb and vocal sound in my headphone, and I feel very safe and very much in control of my singing.” He has been using such moments to record songs for a self-funded solo album he plans to put out this year. They’re quiet, introspective songs written from his own hard-won, middle-aged perspective, a point of view of little interest to country-music stars. “ ‘Too young for the old, too old for the young,’” he said, quoting from a song on the album. “They don’t want to say that.”Saying that, singing that, speaking as himself, may be a remedy. He expresses confidence that his voice will recover. “I’m closer to it every day,” he said. “My physical voice has some spiritual link to finding my own voice. And I know that when I finally get to say it the way I want to say it, my voice will be there.”If Nashville is the problem as well as the promised land, where does McAnally go from there? Warner Bros. is currently developing a TV series he created that is based on his life, and maybe there’s a book or two in his future. But right now there’s his current big non-Nashville — or get-out-of-Nashville — songwriting project, the one that has been taking him to New York: “Shucked,” a musical he co-wrote with Brandy Clark that will open on Broadway on April 4 (previews begin March 8). “The musical is this great source of inspiration,” he said, “because it’s something else entirely different.” Writing show tunes allows him to use a greater variety of chords and different emotional colors than he does in country songs, he told me, and also requires him to do some things he isn’t used to doing, like writing songs that tell only part of a story.“Shucked” is a fable about Maizy, a girl from a rustic hamlet cut off from the world by fields of corn, and a crisis that obliges her to journey to the big city to save her fellow provincials. The songs mostly have a traditional Broadway feel, including one in which Maizy glories in the cosmopolitan wonders of Tampa, though a couple of rousing numbers for supporting characters display the expertise of veteran country hitmakers. The book — by Robert Horn, who wrote the Broadway musicals “Tootsie” and “13” — is full of broad, frequently ribald yuks that try to tiptoe between lovingly evoking small-town sensibilities and exploiting crude stereotypes.That’s where “Shucked” displays its origins in “Hee Haw,” the TV variety show that ran for 23 seasons fueled by a blend of cornpone humor and high-test country music. More than a decade ago, the keepers of the “Hee Haw” franchise approached McAnally about adapting the show for the stage, a connection that has mostly disappeared into the musical’s developmental back story, but it persists in the way “Shucked” goofs on country ways, a deceptively delicate layering of irony and shtick. McAnally says that he was also inspired by “The Book of Mormon” to write songs with the simple objective of having fun, rather than the endless descent into heartbreak that he pursues at his day job.At that day job, meanwhile, McAnally is still writing and producing songs for other singers. “I have more songs in the pipeline than ever, and six songs I wrote or produced in the Top 50,” he told me in early February. “I work more efficiently when I’m away from Nashville.” His ongoing revision of country’s gender politics also continues to advance, one heartbroken or party-hearty line at a time. Sometimes it’s McAnally who writes the line that says something that hasn’t been said before on country radio, and sometimes he’s the collaborator giving someone else permission to write or sing such a line. Progress might show up as a little surprise that tests taboo with a light touch, like the singalong chorus of Musgraves’s “Follow Your Arrow”: “So make lots of noise/Kiss lots of boys/Or kiss lots of girls if that’s something you’re into/And if the straight and narrow gets a little too straight/Roll up a joint, or don’t/And follow your arrow wherever it points.”Country radio, which still exercises outsize influence on what becomes a hit, wouldn’t play the song. And yet, “Follow Your Arrow” is one of the lowest-charting songs ever to win C.M.A.’s song of the year, which McAnally takes as a sign that the industry recognized the change it made in what mainstream country music could say. McAnally is known for songs, like “Follow Your Arrow” or Ashley McBryde’s hard-bitten “One Night Standards,” that open up new dimensions of agency for female narrators and for songs that open up new dimensions of vulnerability for male ones. Kenny Chesney told me by email that he was eager to record the angsty “Somewhere With You,” which became a No. 1 hit for him, because it was “unlike anything out there, anything I’d heard in terms of the intensity of the emotion or the way the song moved.”When popular genres change, they do so almost imperceptibly at first, then all at once. Like writing a haiku about cherry blossoms or a Western about a laconic hero with good aim, writing a barroom weeper or a cheatin’ song means walking the line between doing it right and making it new. A commercially successful country song must nail obligatory elements of the form so that music-industry insiders and fans hear it as something they’re already inclined to like, but it also must rearrange familiar elements to refresh the formula. If enough bits of genetic information are rewritten in that process, though any individual change may be tiny, after a while you might suddenly notice that the songs on country radio are about inviting your gender-unspecified object of affection to climb into your hybrid pickup so you can drive down a dirt road to the unfracked watering hole, where bathers of all identities and preferences are welcome.Carlo Rotella is a professor of English at Boston College and the author of “The World Is Always Coming to an End: Pulling Together and Apart in a Chicago Neighborhood.” Kristine Potter is an artist and an educator. She was a 2018 Guggenheim fellow in photography. She is an assistant professor at Middle Tennessee State University. Her monograph “Dark Waters” will be published by Aperture this spring. More