Monday, November 21, 2022
The nomination-story headline for
Michelle Jubelirer's
Capitol is
ABBA. The Swedish pop act—50 years after its formation—nabbed noms for Album of the Year (
Voyage) and Record of the Year (“Don’t Shut Me Down”), not to mention Pop Vocal Album and Pop Duo/Group Performance.
Call it the Dancing Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
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At the other end of the spectrum is
Capitol Music Group’s contender for Best New Artist, the achingly young duo
DOMi & JD Beck. Inked to
Apeshit,
Anderson .Paak’s JV label with
Blue Note, French keyboardist
Domi Louna and Yank drummer
JD Beck offer a virtuosic fusion of jazz, rock and EDM that’s ready-made for
Academy musos.
Meanwhile, the label’s biggest pop rocket in recent memory, the
Sam Smith/
Kim Petras duet “Unholy,” has also earned a Pop Duo/Group nomination. This was a surprise for many insiders only because the song is such a late-breaker relative to this year's
Grammy-eligibility cutoff. But its seismic impact on the marketplace, as well as its gleeful (and timely) skewering of regressive sexual politics, made it impossible to resist.