Feeling Groupie

The Grammys were on February 1st, and I think it's safe to say there were a lot of surprise winners (as evident by how poorly I did with my predictions). While I haven't released an episode reacting to the winners yet due to being on my honeymoon (this will come after I return), I wanted to write a blog post related to them (I was looking for something to do while on a train as my wife was sleeping). Beyond considering what awards I either predicted accurately or didn't, there are several questions and observations I have resulting from the winners. In this post, I am going to discuss 10 that rose from the results. Is Bad Bunny the biggest artist in the world? Before I get into this question, the natural response from U.S. citizens in particular is that Taylor Swift or Beyonce has a stronger case here. While reasonable, Bad Bunny is bigger than both in most (if not all) countries where Spanish is the primary language, which isn't surprising. After Bad Bunny won Album of...

Over the past week, I have been releasing my Grammy predictions on my podcast, Groupie and Harmony.  I also included a summary of all my predictions.  For more in depth analysis for each award and for another nominee that I find interesting, please check out the respective episode. General Record of the Year (ROTY) “APT.”, Rose & Bruno Mars “Abracadabra”, Lady Gaga “Manchild”, Sabrina Carpenter “Luther”, Kendrick Lamar & SZA “DTMF”, Bad Bunny “The Subway”, Chappell Roan “Wildflower”, Billie Eilish “Anxiety”, Doechii Album of the Year (AOTY) Mayhem , Lady Gaga Man’s Best Friend , Sabrina Carpenter Debi Tirar Mas Fotos , Bad Bunny GNX , Kendrick Lamar Chromakopia , Tyler, the Creator Mutt , Leon Thomas Swag , Justin Bieber Let God Sort Em Out , Clipse Song of the Year (SOTY) “Abracadabra”, Lady Gaga “Manchild”, Sabrina Carpenter “Golden” (from KPop Demon Hunters), Huntrix “Luther”, Kendrick Lamar & SZA “Wildflower”, Billie Eili...

My last podcast episode discussed the top 10 albums of 2025, and this is a corresponding post.  I included the top 100 albums of the year, the best in several genres or conditions, and the worst of the year. All images are from Wikipedia unless otherwise noted, and the rights of the picture belong to the owner, artist, and/or distributor of the cover.   The album cover selected is bolded when listed in each individual list.     Top-100 Albums   Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You , Ethel Cain Horror , Bartees Strange Sable, Fable , Bon Iver Eusexua , FKA Twigs Lonely People with Power , Deafheaven Copper Changes Color , CAAMP Wild and Clear and Blue , I’m With Her Let God Sort Em Out , Clipse Foxes in the Snow , Jason Isbell I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me , Lorna Shore Sankofa , Redveil Luminal , Corpus Delicti New Threats From the Soul , Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band Timeless World Forever , Graham Hunt Westward , Dylan Gossett S...

With the Grammy nominees being announced November 7th, one thing that I think goes understated is the fact that there is no transparency from the Recording Academy regarding the submissions.  The reason why this matters to me is because there are several situations where individuals or works are eligible for awards but aren't submitted for and people wonder why they weren't nominated (in particular, there are always some artists who don't submit any work, and it isn't particularly transparent; some examples who I thought could have gotten nominated this year include Taylor Swift, Ethel Cain, and Morgan Wallen).  As such, I did something that nobody asked for again, which is creating a spreadsheet with all of the Grammy submissions that I know (this year, I know 2,976 submissions with decent confidence). As a disclaimer, there are 4 instances where I know a song was submitted for an award, but I'm not sure which song.  These instances include a Joachim Horsley submis...

This year, I decided to create a Riot Fest prediction lineup for fun.  I made it based on a combination of acts who are likely and some other acts who make sense.  I tried to choose acts that would make sense with the budget, though the first few names on Friday and Saturday might be pushing it a bit to have all of them.  I’m not sure how many are going to be on each day, so I went with 30 on Friday and Sunday and 33 on Saturday (there are normally a few more acts on Saturday).  In the last few years, they have had bigger headliners on Friday and Sunday while there is a smaller headliner (or co-headliners) on Saturday.  I feel confident about the Friday and Sunday headliners, though less so about the Saturday one.   Friday Blink-182 Vampire Weekend Weird Al Yankovich Pulp Alkaline Trio Rilo Kiley 4 Non Blondes Franz Ferdinand Fountains of Wayne Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine Hot Water Music Afroman The Sound of Animals Fighting Propagand...

Now that the Grammy’s have passed, I never discussed who I would vote for if I had a vote (as you probably guessed by now, I do not have a vote).  While there is a limit in the number of awards a voter can vote for, I am ignoring this for this post and making choices for several awards.   General Record of the Year I was fine with any of them winning except for “Now and Then”, though I also wouldn’t have been the biggest fan of “Texas Hold ‘Em” winning.   I largely went back and forth between “Birds of a Feather”, “Not Like Us”, and “360”, while going with the former due to the performance and production.   That said, I thought “360” was the best produced of the nominees. Choice:   “Birds of a Feather”, Billie Eilish   Album of the Year The one album in this award that I didn’t review was Chappell Roan’s (I didn’t think it would explode like it did when it was released in 2023).   I considered this year to be a weak year in this award; ...