I love the Ting Tings! I also just discovered Girls Aloud, love them too!

I just love how Radiohead keeps getting a best album of the year and/or alternative album nomination. It's like that tired old academy trying to get some alt rock street cred. And don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Radiohead fan. But their Grammy nominations are just so predictable at this point. And oh, I did not like "Kid A" at all (which should have never been nominated for album of the year, ridiculous!) or "Amnesiac". Too experimental for me. I'll take "The Bends", "O.K. Computer", "Hail to the Thief" and "In Rainbows" over those two fillers any day.

Because of the genre he is in has a life expectancy of about 5 years. Outside of the big dogs (Dre, Snoop, Em, Beasties) how many rappers from five years ago are still relevant?

The problem with this is that individual album tracks, which may never have been released as singles, are also eligible in this category.

An example off the top of my head: I believe Paul Simon won this for the title track to "Graceland," which wasn't released as a single.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Song of the Year is for any new song that comes to prominence during the year of eligibility, either being released as an advance single (like "Beautiful Day" in 2001, while the rest of All That You Can't Leave Behind wasn't eligible until 2002), or upon the song's appearance on the album itself. Record of the Year is only for singles released in the year of eligibility. That's why "Graceland" (the single) won the RotY in 1988, a year after Graceland won AotY. It was officially released as a single later than "You Can Call Me Al". Interestingly enough, "Graceland" was nominated for Song of the Year in 1987, but lost to "That's What Friends Are For".

In order to be eligible for Record of the Year, the song MUST be officially released as a single. That's why "You Oughta Know" was in the running for Song but not Record of the Year. (from Wikipedia : "You Oughta Know" was not eligible for the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1995 because a retail single was not released, but it reached number thirteen on the Hot 100 Airplay chart and the top ten on the Top 40 Mainstream chart. )