The nominations for the 2025 Grammy Awards are here, and the ceremony may well end up a coronation for the reigning Queen Bey. Beyoncé leads the field with 11 nods, bringing her career total nominations to a record-setting 99, breaking a tie with her husband, Jay-Z, who is stuck at 88. Queen Brat Charli XCX isn’t far behind Beyoncé this year, with seven nominations, all stemming from her hit album that spawned an entire season. Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan are also among the leaders, with multiple nods apiece in the Big Four categories. Here is our summary of the wildcard picks, the blatantly obvious shoe-ins, and all things Grammy nominations.

The Beatles Get Back

Believe it or not, for a group that was formed the year after the Grammys were born, the Beatles have never won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The 2025 ceremony may amend that, albeit with a kind of last-gasp, lifetime achievement award for “Now and Then”—a scrapped John Lennon demo that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr resurrected with the help of AI technology. “It was the closest we’ll ever come to having [Lennon] back in the room, so it was very emotional for all of us,” Starr said upon announcing the track.

“Now and Then,” which is also up for Best Rock Performance, is a bridge between Beatles past and present; after the demo was unearthed, in 1994, McCartney, Starr, and George Harrison worked to resuscitate it, but couldn’t improve the murky audio quality with existing technology. Now, 20-plus years after Harrison’s death, Starr and McCartney released “Now and Then” as the final Beatles song—and their final bid for Record of the Year. And history may be on their side, as they won two awards, in 1997, for their last “new” and revived song, “Free as a Bird.”

–Madison Bloom

The New and Long Overdue Members in the First-Timers Club

There will always be people who keep their distance from awards shows, swearing that the accolades and gratification don’t really mean anything. There is a thrill, though, in seeing artists make it to the final round of nominations, whether you want to admit it or not. That’s especially true when it comes to musicians who have been churning out quality records for years. With that, please rise for your new inductees to the Grammys First-Timers Club, many of whom have long deserved the recognition. Their time is now.

After two pivotal bands from the DIY scene and numerous albums, Katie Crutchfield finally gets her long-awaited Grammy nomination, as Waxahatchee’s sixth studio album, Tigers Blood, is up for Best Americana Album. And Sonic Youth never won a Grammy, but Kim Gordon just might. At 71, the cool-headed figure scooped up two nominations: Best Alternative Music Album, for The Collective, and Best Alternative Music Performance, for “Bye Bye.”

Then come the Brits. Thanks to the inescapable Brat, Charli XCX got her first nods as a solo artist this year, and Four Tet earned his first nominations for wholly original work, too—Three, for Best Dance/Electronic Album, and “Loved,” for Best Dance/Electronic Recording—after two previous nods, in 2018 and 2023, for remixes of the xx and Ellie Goulding, respectively.

Let’s also not overlook another type of first-timer. The late Ryuichi Sakamoto won a Grammy in 1989 and scooped up two other nominations, in 1995 and 2017, but all three were for scores he composed for film or television. This year, he finally earned a nod for original work that’s not tied to a piece of visual media: Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album for the dreamlike Opus.

–Nina Corcoran

The Grammys Are Finally Giving Beyoncé Her Yeehaw Cred

When Beyoncé revealed the artwork for Cowboy Carter, back in March, she spoke of the criticism she’s faced while seeking acceptance within country music. Now, nearly a decade after the Recording Academy rejected her Lemonade track “Daddy Lessons” from the country category—and two months after her apparent snub from the 2024 CMAs—Beyoncé has received her first nods within the genre. In fact, nearly half of her nominations at the 2025 Grammy Awards are in the Country & American Roots Music field, with hat tips for Best Country Album (Cowboy Carter), Best Country Song (“Texas Hold ’Em”), Best Country Solo Performance (“16 Carriages”), Best Country Duo/Group Performance (“II Most Wanted,” featuring Miley Cyrus), and Best Americana Performance (“Ya Ya”). It seems the Recording Academy has caught up to the culture (and the country charts), and recognized Beyoncé’s long-deserved seat on the saddle.

As is to be expected, the Country & American Roots Music categories are populated with recurring nominees like Dan + Shay, Jelly Roll, Billy Strings, and Rhiannon Giddens, but there are notable new additions like Shaboozey and Post Malone. Shaboozey is recognized, primarily, for his breakout single “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which also got love in the general categories. Malone, meanwhile, was recognized exclusively in the country categories for his crossover LP F-1 Trillion and its chart-topping hit “I Had Some Help.” (Malone did have some help making the general categories as Taylor Swift’s guest on “Fortnight.”) Another newcomer is Waxahatchee, who earned her first-ever Grammy nomination, in the Best Americana Album slot, for Tigers Blood, while grassroots acts like Adrianne Lenker, Aoife O’Donovan, Gillian Welch, and David Rawlings are among the Best Folk Album contenders.

–Madison Bloom

Plus, Beyoncé Achieves Nomination Domination

Already the most decorated artist in the Recording Academy, 32-time Grammy winner Beyoncé has also racked up the most nominations—both in 2025 and in history. Yes, she now has 99 career nods, with 11 landing just this year. That means Beyoncé has also broken the tie she held with her husband, Jay-Z, who remains stranded at 88 total nominations. Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and its singles have placed in three of the big four categories: Album, Song, and Record of the Year. And she still managed to break new ground with her first-ever Best Pop Duo/Group Performance nod (for the Post Malone–featuring “Levii’s Jeans”) and nominations in multiple country categories, Best Melodic Rap Performance, and more. Will the Grammys honor Queen Bey with another important accolade in 2025 by finally giving her the trophy for Album of the Year?

–Madison Bloom

The Powerpuff Girls of Pop Are Officially Canon

Sugar, spice, and everything nice: These were the ingredients chosen to boost the outsider pop girls Americans desperately craved all year. After years of cultivating devoted fanbases of their own, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, and Chappell Roan broke through to the mainstream as the Powerpuff Girls of pop and climbed their way up the Billboard charts—and, now, the Grammys. After receiving two nominations in the past, Charli XCX finally gets her long-awaited credit as a solo artist with seven nods, the biggest of which are Album of the Year and Best Dance/Electronic Album, for the sweaty club favorite Brat. Carpenter earns her first-ever nominations in six categories thanks to the coy glow-up Short n’ Sweet, including the coveted Big Four: Album, Record, and Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. The same holds true for Roan, another first-time nominee, whose anthemic queer-pop on The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess goes head-to-head in the exact same categories.

If you haven’t realized, this also means the era of the locked-in pop star win is potentially over. The sheer presence of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, or Billie Eilish used to be a death knell for hopefuls bumping elbows in their shared categories. The playing field has evened out and listeners aren’t pledging their allegiance to just one crowned queen anymore. Will that carry over to Grammys voters, too?

–Nina Corcoran

The Two Genders: Rock and Alternative

One day, the Recording Academy will discover there’s a massive, enthralling, and wildly entertaining batch of rock bands under the age of 30 that aren’t just made up of white guys. And maybe it’s just hard to say names like Mannequin Pussy or Mdou Moctar on national TV. Until then, Annie Clark is the sole savior of edgy guitar music, and even then she has to make it abundantly clear with a title like All Born Screaming. Still, her album is in the alternative category, while the Best Rock Album nominees are the sort you and your parents would expect: Pearl Jam (Dark Matter), the Rolling Stones (Hackney Diamonds), Jack White (No Name), Green Day (Saviors), and the Black Crowes (Happiness Bastards) lead the way, while two younger bands, Fontaines D.C. (Romance) and Idles (Tangk), beef up a lengthy category.

St. Vincent will still get her chance to compete in rock categories, as “Broken Man” will go head-to-head against unshakeable staples like the Black Keys and the Beatles for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance, respectively.

What about the rock music that’s supposedly a little bit lighter, more creative, or less, you know, standard? Right, now that’s where women fit in: Kim Gordon’s The Collective, Brittany Howard’s What Now, Clairo’s Charm, and the aforementioned All Born Screaming are all up for Best Alternative Music Album, with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ Wild God in the running as a little treat. At least they’re all in great company.

–Nina Corcoran

They’re Not Like Kendrick

Even when they’re not nominating Taylor Swift, they’re still nominating “Tailor Swif”—A$AP Rocky’s song, that is—and for Best Music Video, of all things. But while the Recording Academy’s favorite pop star is very much here and present on this year’s lengthy nominations list, she actually falls behind two rappers when it comes to total number of nods: Kendrick Lamar and Post Malone. (Malone, nominated primarily in the country categories, may no longer consider himself a rapper, but who can forget how much saucin’ he used to do?) What’s more, Lamar earned most of his nominations on the back of one inescapable, savage song: “Not Like Us.” What does it mean for a spiteful diss track to become a five-times-Grammy-nominated single? For starters, that rap fans want to have fun spectating drama again, as it’s the lone rap song to be nominated for Song or Record of the Year. It also means Lamar just slipped in a bonus jab at Drake, who famously loathes the Grammys.

The Recording Academy must have been paying pretty close attention to the Drake-Kendrick beef because voters recognized Future and Metro Boomin’s We Don’t Trust You (along with “Like That” and “We Still Don’t Trust You”) and even J. Cole’s surprise Might Delete Later mixtape. That’s some pretty patient revenge for all the years Drake snubbed them.

–Nina Corcoran

Album of the Year: A Hand of Safe Bets and One Thrilling Wildcard

Each year, the Recording Academy compiles its Album of the Year roster the way a funky aunt assembles an outfit: sensible shirt, shoes, and slacks, with just a couple kooky accessories to spark a convo. This season, the practical, inevitable nods went to Grammy MVPs Taylor Swift (The Tortured Poets Department), Billie Eilish (Hit Me Hard and Soft), and Beyoncé (Cowboy Carter)—the latter of whom now boasts a whopping 99 nominations across her career. And then there’s Jacob Collier (Djesse Vol. 4), YouTuber–turned–Recording Academy fave with six golden gramophones under his belt. In a bid to be Brat (or perhaps, so Julia), Charli XCX (Brat) is on the ticket, as are Sabrina Carpenter (Short n’ Sweet) and newcomer Chappell Roan (The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess). But the most surprising—and delightful—of all the AOTY nominees is André 3000, nominated for his dazzling jazz flute LP New Blue Sun. It seems unlikely that a 90-minute new-age incantation will best a pack of industry darlings and pop divas, but its ranking among them is nonetheless cause for celebration.

–Madison Bloom