Beyoncé isn’t guaranteed a Grammys country sweep
Who would have thought Beyoncé would become the Grammys’ favorite country artist? After having had already been nominated in pop, R&B, rap, rock, and EDM categories, Queen Bey is this year’s only artist nominated across all four country genre categories: Best Country Solo Performance (“16 Carriages”), Best Country Duo/Group Performance (“II Most Wanted” with Miley Cyrus), Best Country Song (“Texas Hold ‘Em”), and Best Country Album (Cowboy Carter). How likely is she to win? As of this writing she ranks either first or second in all four categories according to the Gold Derby predictions, but she faces tough challenges across the board.
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Best Country Album
For Best Country Album, she has an especially strong advantage: Cowboy Carter is the only nominee that’s also up for Album of the Year, which may be a significant reason why she’s predicted to win this race by 79.1 percent of users. Would country purists object to an interloper in their genre and pick a more familiar-to-country artist? It seems not. In the nominations round, Recording Academy members are limited in the number of categories they’re allowed to vote in, which incentivizes members to only vote in their areas of expertise. And those country voters picked Beyoncé in all four categories.
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So if she loses, it likely won’t be because of her genre crossover. She’s up against industry darling Chris Stapleton, who has won Best Country Album three times among his 10 total victories. This year he’s nominated for Higher, but he was unexpectedly snubbed for Best Country Song, an award he won just last year, so he may not be as formidabl as usual. A little over 10 percent of users are predicting him in the upset.
Then there’s Kacey Musgraves, nominated for Deeper Well. She previously won Best Country Album and Album of the Year in 2019 for Golden Hour, and she’s also nominated this year for solo performance and song for “The Architect,” plus Best Americana Performance for “Don’t Do Me Good” with Madi Diaz. But her nominations are limited to this genre field, so she doesn’t have nearly Beyoncé’s overall support. Only 6.6 percent of users say she’ll win.
Lainey Wilson has even less overall support: Best Country Album for Whirlwind is her only nomination, and only 1 percent of users think she’ll prevail. But watch out. She only had two nominations last year when she upset to win this very category for Bell Bottom Country. Keep an eye on her.
Rounding out the category is Post Malone with F-1 Trillion. Like Beyoncé, he’s an interloper competing with his very first country album after succeeding in the worlds of pop, rap, and rock. And he was welcomed into the fold with three nominations in this field, including Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Country Song for “I Had Some Help” with Morgan Wallen. What’s more, he earned an additional nomination with Beyoncé — Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Levii’s Jeans” — and three more with Taylor Swift — Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Music Video for “Fortnight.” He has amassed 18 nominations across his career so far, and F-1 Trillion features a who’s-who of country heavyweights from Tim McGraw to Dolly Parton. Only 2 percent of users are betting on him, but don’t count him out either.
Best Country Solo Performance
Here is where things get tricky for Beyoncé. Instead of submitting her biggest Cowboy Carter hit, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” to all categories (it’s nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Country Song), she opted for “16 Carriages” here. The two songs were released concurrently as dual lead singles from the album, and “Carriages” is the more emotional vocal showcase for the singer, but it’s a risky choice as listeners seemed to prefer “Texas” when the songs dropped. “Texas” shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, while “Carriages” topped out at No. 38.
So this is voters’ opportunity to spread the wealth. If they do, they’re likely to pick the country hit that made history: Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” The song eclipsed the rest of this field by spending 19 weeks on top of the Hot 100, tying the record set by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus‘ “Old Town Road.” “Bar Song” is also nominated for Song of the Year, so we know it has broad support from the Academy. More than Beyoncé has? She didn’t submit “Carriages” anywhere else, so there’s no way to know how it would have fared if she’d entered it in the general field. But Gold Derby users think it’s going to be close. Shaboozey is the likely winner according to 56.9 percent of our pundits, while Bey is backed by 31.4 percent. So if “Carriages” wins here, it may be an early sign that Beyoncé is unstoppable everywhere else.
Of the remaining nominees, Stapleton’s “It Takes a Woman” might be the likeliest to pull the upset. It’s actually pretty unusual for Stapleton to be an underdog in a country category. As mentioned above, the Academy loves him, giving him this award four times in the last nine years. He has only lost once when nominated: 2019, when the award went to Musgraves for “Butterflies.” That was the year she won Album of the Year; that’s how much momentum it took to defeat Stapleton.
This year Musgraves, up for “The Architect,” doesn’t have the same rapturous reviews or the Album of the Year nomination to back her up like she had back then, so she might struggle to challenge the frontrunners. Rounding out the category is Jelly Roll‘s “I Am Not Okay.” It has a strong message about mental health, but Jelly Roll is still new to the Grammys, nominated last year for Best New Artist, and he hasn’t won in any category yet. He may have to wait a little longer.
Five percent of users pick Stapleton, a little over four percent pick Musgraves, and about two percent pick Jelly Roll. Put them together and there’s an 11.4 percent chance that someone besides Beyoncé or Shaboozey will win. Those two are by far your best bets.
Best Country Duo/Group Performance
Our odds say this is another race that will come down to two nominees: Malone and Wallen for “I Had Some Help” vs. Beyoncé and Cyrus for “II Most Wanted.” Malone and Wallen’s song spent several weeks at No. 1, making it the biggest hit in this category. However, the cheeky song, which spreads the blame around for a toxic relationship, lacks Beyoncé’s prestige and could be held back by the presence of Wallen, who has been persona non grata at the Grammys for most of his career. Wallen may be the reigning CMAs Entertainer of the Year, but the Recording Academy had never even nominated the controversial singer before now.
When it comes to total users, Beyoncé and Cyrus have the advantage with 54.2 percent predicting them to win. However, all of Gold Derby’s editors and most of our top 24 users favor Malone and Wallen, putting them narrowly in the lead despite having support from only 40.7 percent of all users. In short, this may be the most difficult category to predict in the country field, and one that may make or break your ultimate predictions score.
As for the other three, the nomination may be their reward. Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan rank third in our odds with “Cowboys Cry Too”; neither has won a Grammy yet in their career, and neither is nominated in any other category. The final two nominees are typically much stronger contenders as both have won this award before, and both are perennial nominees. Brothers Osborne are in the running for “Break Mine,” their 10th nomination in the category; they won once before for “Younger Me” in 2022. Dan + Shay compete with “Bigger Houses,” their fifth nom in this race; they’ve prevailed on three of their previous four noms, so maybe they’re a bigger threat than our users are giving them credit for. Put those three nominees together, and they have less than a five-percent chance of winning.
Best Country Song
Yes, this is also a two-way race according to our predictions, and it resembles one already discussed above. As in Best Country Solo Performance, the odds-on favorites are Beyoncé and Shaboozey. This time Beyoncé is nominated for “Texas Hold ‘Em,” while Shaboozey again competes with “A Bar Song.” Neither has especially emotional subject matter or weighty messaging like past champs “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” (2015), “Humble and Kind” (2017), and “Til You Can’t” (2023), but they’re both nominated for Song of the Year, which might be enough of an advantage to put them out of reach for the other three nominees.
But which of the two has the edge? Most of Gold Derby’s editors believe “Texas Hold ‘Em” will prevail. Most of our top 24 users back “A Bar Song.” As for the rest of our users, a strong majority of them (64.1 percent) agree with our editors that “Texas Hold ‘Em” will take it, compared to 25.3 percent for “Bar Song.”
If voters want to go in a more emotional direction, though, there are a couple of options with potential to upset. Musgraves is a two-time past winner —for “Merry Go ‘Round” (2014) and “Space Cowboy” (2019) — and this time she marvels about the wonders of creation on “The Architect.” It was co-written by Josh Osborne and Shane McAnally, the latter of whom is the most nominated songwriter in the history of this category with nine career bids, so this is a formidable dream team that can’t be ruled out. They’re predicted by 4.7 percent of users.
Jelly Roll’s hopeful “I Am Not Okay,” about resilience through times of struggle, may also tempt voters. He wrote about the song on Instagram, “For everyone going through something — it’s okay to not be okay, but it’s all gonna be alright!” And he’s also accompanied by a celebrated songwriter, Ashley Gorley, who’s actually nominated twice in this category this year, bringing his total to seven. Gorley’s other nomination is for cowriting “I Had Some Help,” but competing against two Song of the Year nominees and two more introspective compositions might spell trouble for Malone and Wallen’s rollicking hit. “Help” is going to need some help with only 3.5 percent of users betting on it. “I Am Not Okay” trails with support from 2.4 percent of users.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article mistook Lainey Wilson’s number of 2024 Grammy nominations.
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