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    Grammys Snubs and Surprises: Charli XCX, André 3000, the Beatles and More

    A look at the nominations’ unexpected and intriguing story lines, including the role of an absent Drake, the validation of André 3000’s flute music and overlooked gems.The names headlining this year’s Grammy Award nominations make a lot of sense: Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift are perennial favorites with imperial reach. Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan have stormed the mainstream. Shaboozey and Charli XCX made themselves inescapable.While there was once a time when it was easy to argue that the Grammys were out of touch, barely attempting to be an accurate representation of popular music in a given year, the major acts of 2024 are all accounted for. Shedding some of its fusty baggage under the Recording Academy chief executive Harvey Mason Jr. and a slate of new industry voters, the awards show has brought itself more or less in line with the Billboard charts, radio and streaming services, centering the celebrities of the moment.Still, it’s the Grammy Awards — not everyone can be happy. So after poring over the 94 categories that make up the 67th annual class of nominees, The New York Times’s pop music team — the reporter Joe Coscarelli, the chief pop music critic Jon Pareles, the pop music critics Jon Caramanica and Lindsay Zoladz and the Culture editor Elena Bergeron — were left with a few lingering questions: Is Beyoncé’s cross-genre domination really warranted? What are the Beatles doing here? And have the Grammys gotten too safe?We broke down the richest — and most baffling — story lines, snubs and surprises.Sabrina Carpenter’s success on the charts was mirrored in her Grammy nods: six of them.Emma Mcintyre/Getty Images for CoachellaA Mirror to the MainstreamJOE COSCARELLI I must admit, I’m almost sad at how predictable the Big Four categories — album, record and song of the year, plus best new artist — are these days, and this year in particular. Back in my day — not that long ago! — Beck was beating Beyoncé to close the night. And sure, you still have your occasional upsets by Jon Batiste (album of the year, 2022) or Bonnie Raitt (song of the year, 2023). But the odds of a truly destabilizing major win in February feel quite long now, likely by design.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Beyoncé and Young Women Pop Sensations Lead 2025 Grammy Nominations

    Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter will compete in the biggest categories, along with Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar.Beyoncé and Taylor Swift will face off in all top categories at the 67th annual Grammy Awards, leading a pack of nominees that also features buzzy young female stars who have dominated the pop charts over the past year.With 11 nods, Beyoncé has more citations than any other artist this year, for “Cowboy Carter,” her gumbo of country, R&B and acoustic pop that spurred conversations about the Black roots of many American genres, including country.The other top nominees, with seven apiece, are Billie Eilish, a onetime teenage disrupter who is now a Grammy and Oscar darling; Kendrick Lamar, the rapper laureate, whose nominations stem from a no-holds-barred battle of words with Drake; Post Malone, a pop shape-shifter gone country (and who appeared on both Beyoncé and Swift’s latest albums); and Charli XCX, the British singer-songwriter and meme master whose digital-nostalgic iconography was borrowed by the Kamala Harris campaign.Swift has six nominations, as do Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan — two of this year’s fresh pop sensations, each receiving their first Grammy nods.The awards ceremony is set for Feb. 2 in Los Angeles.The biggest contest this year, at least in terms of celebrity wattage, is Beyoncé vs. Swift. Both are juggernauts in the culture and at the Grammys. With 32 career trophies, Beyoncé, 43, has already won more awards than any other artist, and is now also the most-nominated person, with 99. Yet she has never taken album of the year, despite four previous nods.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Shaboozey Toasts to His 6 Grammy Nominations

    The country singer’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has been omnipresent; now it’s up for song of the year in February.It was one of the songs of the summer that persisted into the fall: ubiquitous in restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops and, appropriately, bars.Now, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” the foot-stomping smash that held No. 1 for 16 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, will compete for one of the Grammys’ biggest awards: song of the year.But well before Friday’s nominations, the record helped change Shaboozey’s career. The genre-bending country singer and rapper born Collins Obinna Chibueze caught the attention of a member of Beyoncé’s team when he performed the song at a label showcase before it had been released.Not long after, he was tapped for features on Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter.” Then came the well-timed release of his third album, “Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going.”When his six Grammy nods rolled in — the first of his career — Shaboozey, 29, was on a tour bus in Kentucky as part of his arena tour with Jelly Roll, where each night he says he gets a rush when audiences sing, clap and stomp along to “A Bar Song.”“It’s the same feeling I get every single night I perform that song, from the first time I played it til now,” he said in an interview on Friday following his nominations, which include nods for best new artist and for his feature on “Spaghettii,” from Beyoncé’s LP.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    8 Correct Answers to ‘What Was the Song of the Summer?’

    Revisit contenders from Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar and Billie Eilish.Sabrina Carpenter has the top contender for song of the summer.Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated PressDear listeners,I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but the end of the summer is approaching. Every year around this time, music fans’ favorite unwinnable debate reaches an apex: What was the song of the summer?At the risk of breaking even more bad news, I’ll say that for the most part, the Song of the Summer is a fictitious and even pointless construction, generally immeasurable and usually difficult to agree on unanimously. Sure, every so often a single tune becomes so ubiquitous during those sweltering, school’s out months that it rightfully earns the title. Think of Lil Nas X’s chart-dominant “Old Town Road” in 2019; the viral glee of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” in 2012; or, if you can remember that far back, the Bayside Boys remix of Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” in 1996 (Ay!).But more often than not, the Song of the Summer is up for debate. And given that I believe a true S.o.t.S. must be monocultural and undeniable, most contenders do not truly reach that status.Around Memorial Day, it did seem like we had a prime candidate: the rising pop star Sabrina Carpenter’s fun, flirty “Espresso.” It had all the makings of a summer smash, including a well-timed release date, a beach-themed music video and several goofy, endlessly quotable lyrics that just begged to be printed on novelty boardwalk T-shirts. Case closed, right?But as the summer continued, “Espresso” faced some formidable challengers. The Drake-vs.-Kendrick Lamar beef produced a bona fide anthem in “Not Like Us,” by most measures the biggest hit of Lamar’s career. The rise of the Midwest princess Chappell Roan became one of the year’s most captivating narratives, and her wrenching synth-pop single “Good Luck, Babe!” climbed the Hot 100 accordingly. Even Carpenter herself gave “Espresso” a run for its money with its irresistible follow-up single, “Please Please Please,” which achieved a feat that her previous hit did not: It went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.So, which was the Song of the Summer? Today’s playlist contains 8 different and entirely acceptable answers to the question. If I had to pick just one, I’d still go with “Espresso,” but I’d argue this summer contained too many unexpected plot twists for there to be a unanimous winner. Maybe it’s just one of those years where you need a collection of different tunes to tell the full story of the season. So let this playlist be a time capsule that you can return to in subsequent years when you want to conjure up the sound of summer ’24 — or in a couple of months, when the autumn chill makes you long for these endless sunny days.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The 15 Songs That Hit No. 1 This Year (So Far)

    Hear tracks by Shaboozey, Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar and more.Shaboozey reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 this week for the first time with “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”Daniel PrakopcykDear listeners,It’s Caryn the editor here again, seizing control of the playlist one more time (don’t worry, you’ll have Lindsay back next week).On Monday, Shaboozey reached the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 with “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” making him the second Black artist to hit No. 1 on both the all-genre singles chart and Hot Country Songs. Somehow both milestones came this year: Beyoncé did it first with “Texas Hold ’Em.”The news got me scrolling through what’s topped the Hot 100 so far in 2024 — over the last 27 weeks, 15 songs have done it. And we’re going to listen to all of them in The Amplifier today.It’s always interesting to see how the official chart stacks up against cultural vibes. It may feel like the summer of “Espresso,” but Sabrina Carpenter’s Certified Bop hasn’t hit No. 1 in the United States (yet). It doesn’t just seem like Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” is dominating 2024: It is, with 11 straight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. But only one of its songs — its opener, “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone — has spent any time atop the Hot 100. Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” has had two songs summit the singles chart; Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” had the one. Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan haven’t hit No. 1 yet this year, but I wouldn’t count them out.The longest run belongs to “I Had Some Help,” by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen (six weeks, five of them consecutive). Two songs from the Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake beef hit No. 1; perhaps unsurprisingly considering the outcome, they were both Lamar’s.So let’s take a trip through the recent past together — and for fun (or counterprogramming), see how the biggest songs of the year (so far) compare to our critics’ best songs of the year (so far).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Taylor Swift Bests K-Pop Band to Stay No. 1 for Seventh Week

    Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ held off Ateez’s ‘Golden Hour: Part.1.’ The singer-songwriter Shaboozey opened at No. 5.Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” is the No. 1 album once again, leading the Billboard 200 chart for a seventh straight time.Since it came out in April with historic numbers — breaking records for streaming and vinyl sales, and posting the biggest opening week of Swift’s career — “Tortured Poets” has been unstoppable, even as its performance has gradually cooled. In recent weeks it has held off challenges from Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa, and this week it blocks the latest from the K-pop boy band Ateez.In its latest week out, “Tortured Poets” had the equivalent of 148,000 sales in the United States, including 157 million streams and 27,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate. Since its release, the album has had the equivalent of about 4.3 million sales and just shy of 2.5 billion streams in the United States alone.Of the 14 albums that Swift has sent to No. 1 in her career — going back to “Fearless,” her second LP, back in 2008 — “Tortured Poets” has now had the longest consecutive stretch at the top, exceeding “Folklore,” which in 2020 spent its first six weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s flagship LP chart. (Several of Swift’s albums, including “Folklore,” have had more turns at No. 1 overall, but not in a row.)Also this week, Ateez’s “Golden Hour: Part.1,” a six-track “mini-album,” opens in second place with 131,000 equivalent sales, largely from its popularity on CD and vinyl. “Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going” by Shaboozey, a singer-songwriter who was featured on Beyoncé’s latest album, “Cowboy Carter,” opens at No. 5 with the equivalent of 50,000.Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” falls to No. 3 after spending its first two weeks in second place, and Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 4 in its 67th week on the chart. More

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    Con ‘Houdini’, Eminem pierde la magia y otras 10 canciones nuevas

    Nuestros críticos de música pop tienen una lista con los temas más destacados de las últimas semanas: Clairo, Nathy Peluso, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds y más para escuchar.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Todos los viernes, los críticos de música pop de The New York Times comentan las nuevas canciones más destacadas de la semana. Escucha la playlist en Spotify aquí (o encuentra nuestro perfil: nytimes) y en Apple Music aquí, y suscríbete a The Amplifier, una guía quincenal de canciones nuevas y antiguas.Eminem, ‘Houdini’Eminem intenta recuperar glorias pasadas en su agotadora nueva canción “Houdini”, el primer sencillo de su próximo 12º álbum, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce). Sobre un ritmo estridente y carnavalesco que interpola una muestra de “Abracadabra” de la Steve Miller Band, el craso alter ego del MC Slim Shady analiza el momento cultural actual y encadena algunos chistes en su rapeo de forma rebuscada, desesperado por ofender a cada paso. El truco más viejo de la historia. LINDSAY ZOLADZTwenty One Pilots, ‘Navigating’Clancy, el nuevo álbum de la banda Twenty One Pilots, es la cuarta entrega de una serie de álbumes conceptuales. Pero “Navigating” no necesita necesariamente una historia de fondo. Es una crisis psicológica, como canta Tyler Joseph, que se siente aturdido y disociado, incapaz de hablar pero desesperado por conectar: “Perdón por el retraso, estoy navegando por mi cabeza” es la mayor explicación que consigue dar. El tema es una fusión animada, galopante y vibrante de punk-pop y electrónica, que se abre con un “Hey-oh” que suena al coro de una tribuna en un estadio y trata de atravesar el punto crítico con puro ímpetu. JON PARELESWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Eminem Loses the Magic, and 10 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Clairo, Nathy Peluso, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Eminem, ‘Houdini’Eminem attempts to recapture past glories on his exhausting new song “Houdini,” the first single from his upcoming 12th album, “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).” Atop a garish, carnivalesque beat that interpolates a sample of the Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra,” the M.C.’s crass alter ego Slim Shady surveys the current cultural moment and strings together some stiltedly rapped jokes, desperate to offend at every turn. Oldest trick in the book. LINDSAY ZOLADZTwenty One Pilots, ‘Navigating’“Clancy,” the new album by the two-man band Twenty One Pilots, is the fourth installment in a series of concept albums. But “Navigating” doesn’t necessarily need a back story. It’s a psychological crisis, as Tyler Joseph sings about feeling dazed and disassociated, unable to speak but desperate for connection: “Pardon my delay — I’m navigating my head” is his closest explanation. The track is a buzzing, galloping, pumping merger of punk-pop and electro, opening with an arena-sized “Hey-oh” chant and trying to get through the crisis on sheer momentum. JON PARELESGirl Scout, ‘I Just Needed You to Know’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More