Decker

Nominations for the '51st Annual Grammy Awards' were announced tonight – for the first time during a nationally televised concert special, which aired live on CBS.

Two-time Grammy Award winning hip-hop superstar LL Cool J and recent Grammy Award nominee Taylor Swift co-hosted the telecast, where presenters/performers multiple Grammy Award winners Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Foo Fighters, B.B. King, and John Mayer.

Rugged rapper Lil' Wayne, who also performed during the broadcast, tops this year's nominations in eight categories, including "Album of the Year."

Other top nominees include British rockers Coldplay with seven, and Def Jam Records chart-toppers Jay-Z, Ne-Yo and Kanye West each earning six nods. Rock pioneers Alison Krauss, and Robert Plant, pop music and tabloid sensation John Mayer, rock group Radiohead and neo-soul newcomer Jazmine Sullivan received five each, while Adele, Danger Mouse, Eagles, Lupe Fiasco, George Strait, and T.I. each have four nominations.

Also noteworthy; hip-hop super-producer and Barack Obama booster will.i.am. is up for the Producer of the Year, Non Classical.

"The Grammy Awards process once again has yielded a comprehensive, diverse and eclectic group of excellent nominees across multiple genres," said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy. "This year's nominations are truly reflective of the talented community of artists and creators who represent some of the highest levels of musical excellence. ... We're off to an incredible start on the road to Music's Biggest Night and the 51st Annual GRAMMY Awards in February."

'The 51st Annual Grammy Awards' will be held on Feb. 8, 2009, at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles will be broadcast live on CBS from 8 – 11:30 p.m. (ET/PT).

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Following is a sampling of nominations in 110 categories from the Grammy Awards' 32 Fields:GENERAL FIELD

Nominees for Album Of The Year are:
Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends - Coldplay
Tha Carter III - Lil Wayne
Year Of The Gentleman - Ne-Yo
Raising Sand - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
In Rainbows - Radiohead

Nominees for Record Of The Year are:
"Chasing Pavements" - Adele
"Viva La Vida" - Coldplay
"Bleeding Love" - Leona Lewis
"Paper Planes" - M.I.A
"Please Read The Letter" - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

Best New Artist nominees are:
Adele
Duffy
Jonas Brothers
Lady Antebellum
Jazmine Sullivan

Song Of The Year nominees include:
'American Boy' - William Adams, Keith Harris, Josh Lopez, Caleb Speir, John Stephens, Estelle Swaray & Kanye West, songwriters (Estelle Featuring Kanye West)
'Chasing Pavements' - Adele Adkins & Eg White, songwriters (Adele)
'I'm Yours' - Jason Mraz, songwriter (Jason Mraz)
'Love Song' - Sara Bareilles, songwriter (Sara Bareilles)
'Viva La Vida' - Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion, & Chris Martin, songwriters (Coldplay)

POP FIELD

Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals nominees are:
"Viva La Vida" - Coldplay
"Waiting In The Weeds" - Eagles
"Going On" - Gnarls Barkley
"Won't Go Home Without You" - Maroon 5
"Apologize" - OneRepublic

Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals nods go to:
"Lesson Learned" - Alicia Keys & John Mayer
"4 Minutes" - Madonna, Justin Timberlake & Timbaland
"Rich Woman" - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
"If I Never See Your Face Again" - Rihanna & Maroon 5
"No Air" - Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown

Nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album go to:
Detours - Sheryl Crow
Rockferry - Duffy
Long Road Out Of Eden - Eagles
Spirit - Leona Lewis
Covers - James Taylor

DANCE FIELD

For Best Dance Recording, the nominees are:
"Harder Better Faster Stronger" - Daft Punk
"Ready For The Floor" - Hot Chip
"Just Dance" - Lady Gaga & Colby O'Donis
"Give It 2 Me" -Madonna
"Disturbia" - Rihanna
"Black & Gold" - Sam Sparro

TRADITIONAL POP FIELD

Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album nominees are:
Still Unforgettable - Natalie Cole
The Sinatra Project - Michael Feinstein
Noël - Josh Groban
In The Swing Of Christmas - Barry Manilow
Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall - Rufus Wainwright

ROCK FIELD

Nominations for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals go to:
"Rock 'N Roll Train" - AC/DC
"Violet Hill" - Coldplay
"Long Road Out Of Eden" - Eagles
"Sex On Fire" - Kings Of Leon
"House Of Cards" - Radiohead

Nods for Best Rock Song go to:
"Girls In Their Summer Clothes" - Bruce Springsteen, songwriter (Bruce Springsteen)
"House Of Cards" - Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Philip Selway & Thom Yorke, songwriters (Radiohead)
"I Will Possess Your Heart " - Benjamin Gibbard, Nicholas Harmer, Jason McGerr & Christopher Walla, songwriters (Death Cab For Cutie)
"Sex On Fire" - Caleb Followill, Jared Followill, Matthew Followill & Nathan Followill, songwriters (Kings Of Leon)
"Violet Hill" - Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion, & Chris Martin, songwriters (Coldplay)

Best Rock Album nominees are:
Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends - Coldplay
Rock N Roll Jesus - Kid Rock
Only By The Night - Kings Of Leon
Death Magnetic - Metallica
Consolers Of The Lonely - The Raconteurs

R&B FIELD

Nominees for Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals are:
"Ribbon In The Sky" - Boyz II Men
"Words" - Anthony David Featuring Indie.Arie
"Stay With Me (By The Sea)" - Al Green Featuring John Legend
"I'm His Only Woman" - Jennifer Hudson Featuring Fantasia
"Never Give You Up" - Raphael Saadiq Featuring Stevie Wonder & CJ Hilton

Best Urban/Alternative Performance nods go to:
"Say Goodbye To Love" - Kenna
"Wanna Be" - Maiysha
"Be OK" - Chrisette Michele Featuring will.i.am
"Many Moons" - Janelle Monae
"Lovin You (Music)" - Wayna Featuring Kokayi

For Best R&B Album, the nominees are:
Love & Life - Eric Benét
Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA - Boyz II Men
Lay It Down - Al Green
Jennifer Hudson - Jennifer Hudson
The Way I See It - Raphael Saadiq

RAP FIELD

Best Rap/Sung Collaboration nods go to:
"American Boy" - Estelle Featuring Kanye West
"Low" - Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain
"Green Light" - John Legend & Andre 3000
"Got Money" - Lil Wayne Featuring T-Pain
"Superstar" - Lupe Fiasco Featuring Matthew Santos

Nominees for Best Rap Song are:
"Lollipop" - D. Carter, S. Garrett, D.Harrison, J. Scheffer & R. Zamor, songwriters (Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major)
"Low" - T. Dillard, M. Humphrey & T-Pain, songwriters (Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain)
"Sexual Eruption" - Calvin Broadus, S. Lovejoy & D. Stewart, songwriters (Snoop Dogg)
"Superstar" - Lupe Fiasco & Soundtrakk, songwriter (Lupe Fiasco Featuring Matthew Santos)
"Swagga Like Us" - D. Carter, S. Carter, Clifford Harris, & Kanye West, songwriters (M. Arulpragasam, N. Headon, M. Jones, J. Mellor, T. Pentz, P. Simonon, songwriters)(Jay-Z & T.I. Featuring Kanye West & Lil Wayne)

For Best Rap Album, the nominees are:
American Gangster - Jay-Z
Tha Carter III - Lil Wayne
The Cool - Lupe Fiasco
Nas - Nas
Paper Trail - T.I.

COUNTRY FIELD

Nods for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals go to:
"Shiftwork" - Kenny Chesney & George Strait
"Killing The Blues" - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
"House Of Cash" - George Strait & Patty Loveless
"Life In A Northern Town" - Sugarland, Jake Owen & Little Big Town
"Let The Wind Chase You" - Trisha Yearwood & Keith Urban

For Best Country Song, the nominees are:
"Dig Two Graves" - Ashley Gorley & Bob Regan, songwriters (Randy Travis)
"I Saw God Today" - Rodney Clawson, Monty Criswell & Wade Kirby, songwriters (George Strait)
"In Color" - Jamey Johnson, Lee Thomas Miller & James Otto, songwriters (Jamey Johnson)
"Stay" - Jennifer Nettles, songwriter (Sugarland)
"You're Gonna Miss This" - Ashley Gorley & Lee Thomas Miller, songwriters (Trace Adkins)

Nominations for Best Country Album are:
That Lonesome Song - Jamey Johnson
Sleepless Nights - Patty Loveless
Troubadour - George Strait
Around The Bend - Randy Travis
Heaven, Heartache And The Power Of Love - Trisha Yearwood

JAZZ FIELD

For Best Contemporary Jazz Album, the nominees are:
Randy In Brasil - Randy Brecker
Floating Point - John McLaughlin
Cannon Re-Loaded: All-Star Celebration Of Cannonball Adderley - (Various Artists) Gregg Field & Tom Scott, producers
Miles From India - (Various Artists) Bob Belden, producer
Lifecycle - Yellowjackets Featuring Mike Stern

Nods for Best Jazz Vocal Album go to:
Imagina: Songs Of Brasil - Karrin Allyson
Breakfast On The Morning Tram - Stacey Kent
If Less Is More...Nothing Is Everything - Kate McGarry
Loverly - Cassandra Wilson
Distances - Norma Winstone (Glauco Venier & Klaus Gesing)

This year's Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical nominations go to: Danger Mouse, Nigel Godrich, Johnny Karkazis, Rick Rubin, and will.i.am.

Decker

My #1 Head-scratcher is The Jonas Brothers as "Best New Artists". This isn't about merit musically. I know there has always been confusion of what a New Artist is since they changed the rule in the famous "Whitney Huston amendment" (so-called since Whitney was ruled ineligible in her big debut year because she had appeared singing a duet on a soundtrack the previous year). The new standard is the year when a band "first rose to prominence". Nobody with a pre-teen daughter thinks The Jonas Brothers came to prominence after October '07. Their second album, Jonas Brothers was released in August of 2007 and debuted at #5. I think we all agree that when your album debuts in the top five on the Billboard chart, you've already risen to prominence. There is no logical way, following the rules of nomination that they should be competing in the Best New Artist category this year. I'm sorry, but that really pisses me off and it kept some worthy artist from ever competing for that award. It's not fair.

DonTHX1378

I don't get why Coldplay and The Eagles are up in the rock field when they should be up in the pop field. I never got that about the Grammys. And why wasn't Day that Never Comes up for best rock song over Long Road out of Eden? And why is Coldplay up for best rock album when it's up for album of the year when they could have put AC/DC up for best rock album with Black Ice.

Decker

I'll try to answer those:
Coldplay is Rock. Plain and simple. It's just not Hard Rock.

The Eagles, that's harder. They won a Grammy for "How Long", the first single from this album last year in the country category. I guess overall they are considered to fall in the Rock category. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference -- Sheryl Crow is running this year in the Pop album category though she's won several in the Rock category over the years and this album sounds pretty much like those.

Album of the Year nominees are not only eligible for their own genre album of the year awards, they often win them. Last year's five Album of the Year nominees won awards for Rock Album (Foo Fighters), Pop Album (Amy Winehouse), Rap Album (Kanye West), Country Album (Vince Gill) and Contemporary Jazz Album (Herbie Hancock). Yes, like the fishing game in a children's fair, the Grammys made sure everyone went home a winner!

tommy28

Nods for Best Rock Song go to:
"Girls In Their Summer Clothes" - Bruce Springsteen, songwriter (Bruce Springsteen)




Lol...........

Joeboo835

Rugged rapper Lil' Wayne, who also performed during the broadcast, tops this year's nominations in eight categories, including "Album of the Year."


Doesn't that pretty much tell you everything you need to know about the Grammy's and their relevance?

conscience

I am out of the loop. I have only heard two of the five best song nominees (Love Song and Viva La Vida).

Awesome that Radiohead got in along with Coldplay (although the latter was an obvious choice given how popular they are amongst all types of music lovers) for Album of the Year.

Any nominations for - Duffy

cactusoly

the only catagories that matter.... though the nominations could have been better.


http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/bla...sitemID=110174

Larry C.

Hold on.. I'm into rock music, all sorts of rock music. From rock to hard rock to nu metal, softer stuff. But everytime I come across a lil wayne song or any song that has him I listen. I think he is great and fun to have playing in your ear. And I will be dammed if he hasn't been part of the most popular rap or hip hop songs this year so yeah he is pretty relevant. And like I said I live to rock and roll.

Decker

Yeah. Actually, I'm not into Lil Wayne at all but you can't call the Grammys out of touch for nominating the top-selling album of the year in multiple major categories. If anything, it shows how far they've come.

The Bus

Yes. And at some point, they will take the quality of the work into consideration. Then, the Grammy awards will be relevant.

Larry C.

Bus I think your being a bit harsh. I think he is pretty original. Then again I'm no hip hop expert. But The first thing they gotta stop doing is including all this pop music bullshit. I mean i believe Brintney Spears has a grammy. That means anyone could get one.

Hixx

The grammys haven't been relevant since they gave Jethro Tull the award for best hard rock performance in 1989.

sauce07

I like that the Justice Remix of MGMT's Electric Feel has been nominated and Thumbs up for the 2 Raconteurs nominations.

Decker

This is a really weak statement on a couple of levels. First it implies that they were relevant prior to that, and they weren't. The Grammys were the laughing stock of the major awards; they were guilty of so many bad and out-of-touch choices it was beyond belief.
Your statement also suggests that the Grammys have done nothing to rectify things since that event. This is also wrong. The Blue Ribbon panel was established to make sure that the major nominees are deemed to be worthy artistically, and for the most part it has worked. In addition, they are always revising categories so that the nominees are more fairly represented. For example, after that debacle, the Grammys split the award into two -- Hard Rock and Metal. Since then, Metallica has won seven Grammys (five Metal, one Hard Rock and one Rock Instrumental with Michael Kamen). They've drastically revamped Rap as well with lots of new awards as well to better represent the variety in the category.

I'm not saying the Grammys are perfect, far from it. But at least they've made a concerted effort to become more relevant. Compare that to the Emmys who are stuck on a treadmill handing the same Emmys to Tony Shallub and Jeremy Piven over and over again.

chris_sc77

I hope Coldplay wins all the awards they are nominated for. Thats a pretty damn good album and they are a very good band that does not disappoint.

bigjim25

Same here. The Grammy Awards are a joke. The country nominees are pretty good this year.

Decker

"I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz is getting a lot of airplay lately and is featured in a commercial. I bet you'd recognize it if you heard it.

The Infidel

It's a goddamn popularity contest...plain, pure and simple. It's about what everyone's buying, not what's the best music.

GatorDeb

I just discovered Mraz (do you pronounce it Em-Raz?) a few days ago and fell in love with his voice. Decker have you seen that music commercial where one of the songs used has a voice saying "I'm Yours" in a slightly distorted voice... that's him isn't it?

The Infidel

It's pronounced "mur-RAZ".

nothingfails

I don't think it's a sign that the Grammys are out of touch as much as it's a sign that we're getting older. We're no longer the target audience for MTV and top 40 music. The Coldplay and Sara Barellis songs are popular with 30+ listeners too. Top 40 music (which usually the Grammys reward) is a young persons game

big whoppa

Remember the Grammys are voted by musicians, artists, and other people in the music industry. The public doesn't get a vote though a big-selling album has a lot of weight.

Adele got a few Grammy nods. Chasing Pavements is quite a good song.

spammied

I really like Estelle's collaboration with Kanye "American Boy". That would be my choice. Although Sara Barailles "Love Song" is really good as well. Tough call.
New Artist I'd have to go for the JoBros cause my 'tweens just can't get enough of them..., and to be honest...some of the songs are catchy! LOL

Decker

Would you care to back that statement up with some facts? I'll give you one to refute your claim. The 2008 Album of the Year, the most prestigeous award of the evening, went to River - The Joni Mitchell Sessions by Herbie Hancock. The album, at the time of the award, had sold 30,000 copies. That's right, 30K. I still have no idea how on earth that album was even nominated let alone won, but the one thing I'm certain of is that it wasn't because of it's overwhelming sales numbers.