Grammy 2024: Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, SZA and U2 will star in the ceremony

Whisper it quietly… but could the Grammy Awards get it right this year?

The ceremony, which takes place in Los Angeles on Sunday, is famous for scoring own goals, often rewarding traditional acts rather than cutting-edge contemporary pop.

But this year’s nominees are purely populist choices, with R&B star SZA leading the pack with nine.

There will also be performances from big names from Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish to Joni Mitchell and U2.

Comedian Trevor Noah will host for the fourth year in a row, overseeing a staggering 94 categories, from best contemporary Christian album to best audiobook, where Michelle Obama will go up against Meryl Streep.

Elsewhere, Phoebe Bridgers’ indie-rock supergroup Boygenius and pop star Victoria Monét have seven nominations each.

Chart stars Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Miley Cyrus, Lana Del Rey and Ice Spice also have multiple nominations in a field led by women.

Here are nine things you should know before the event.

First, make a cup of strong coffee.

The Grammys are awards presented by the United States Recording Academy for outstanding achievements in music.

More than 80 will be handed out in what is called the “premiere ceremony” at 20:30 GMT on Sunday (12:30 in Los Angeles).

It’s often worth tuning in. The winners in the more obscure categories are less polished and more excited to win, and the performances are more relaxed and, dare I say, more musical than the Hollywood-scale scenes you’ll see later.

The main show, which begins at 01:00 GMT on Monday, will be broadcast live in the US on CBS and on Paramount Plus. Select speeches and performances are usually uploaded to YouTube the next day.

If Swift wins album of the year for Midnights, she will become the first artist to lift the prestigious trophy four times.

At the moment, she is tied with Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra, who have three wins each.

But the Grammys have typically been less interested in Swift’s pop records than her forays into country and folk.

Their competition for album of the year is strong. Here is the full list of nominees:

Modern superstars Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, SZA and Olivia Rodrigo will undoubtedly deliver magnificent performances of their greatest hits.

But the show is likely to be stolen by two other female artists who have largely been out of the public eye in recent years.

Joni Mitchell is guaranteed a reception fit for a living legend when she makes her Grammy debut at the age of 80.

And Tracy Chapman is widely rumored to be making a rare public appearance to join country star Luke Combs on his 1988 classic Fast Car, which he brought back to the charts last year.

The night’s other performers will include Billy Joel, Travis Scott and Burna Boy.

In the United States, SZA’s second album, SOS, topped the charts for 10 weeks and marked the singer’s rise to the major leagues.

Born in Missouri and raised in New Jersey, the singer, whose real name is Solána Imani Rowe, trained in marine biology before launching her music career.

If his latest album wins a Grammy, it will also mean a win for a 20-year-old Scottish music producer.

Blair Ferguson, who writes under the name BLK Beats, wrote the music for her hit single Snooze in her Glasgow bedroom and it has sold more than two million copies in the US.

“SZA is simply a genius and is able to transform any record with the way she creates a melody,” he told BBC News. “I don’t think any other artist could have made that song.”

The best rock song category is a culture clash for the ages, as Olivia Rodrigo’s punky Ballad Of A Homeschooled Girl goes up against the Rolling Stones’ Angry, a tale of a lovers’ quarrel.

So who will be the face of rock ‘n’ roll in 2024? The Grammys like to reward longevity, but they may get carried away by Rodrigo’s rock resurgence, which has helped spark the first resurgence of guitar music in more than a decade.

It’s a strong field, with Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age also in the running. But the real contender has to be Boygenius.

Formed by independent songwriters Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, last year they made an era-defining guitar album, packed with spectral harmonies and poetic lyrics.

Nominated in all major categories as well as rock subgenres, he could be this year’s big winner.

A new category, best African musical performance, reflects the growing importance of genres such as afrobeats and amapiano, but also “the profound influence of Africa on the history of music,” according to the Grammys.

The inaugural nominees, who would have previously battled it out in the world music category, include Nigerian stars Burna Boy, Asake, Ayra Starr and Davido, along with prominent South African singer Tyla.

“Honestly, specifically the Grammys are a great award,” said Tyla, who scored a global hit with Water in late 2023.

Two other new awards have also been introduced for 2024: best alternative jazz album and best dance pop recording.

Despite her storied career, Miley Cyrus has yet to win a Grammy and has only been nominated twice in the past.

However, this year, SFKAHM (singer formerly known as Hannah Montana) has six nominations for her adult pop album Endless Summer Vacation.

Lead single Flowers, which was the biggest-selling song in the UK last year and topped the Billboard charts in the US for eight weeks, is nominated for record and song of the year, and best pop vocal performance.

But in a strong year for sad girls singing pop songs, she could leave empty-handed again.

The country had a huge resurgence in the United States last year. Streams of the genre increased 20%, and last August the top three positions on the Billboard Hot 100 were occupied by country songs for the first time.

But none of those artists (Morgan Wallen, Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan) are nominated in the Grammys’ biggest all-genre categories.

In fact, no country album has been nominated for album of the year since Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour five years ago (which won the award).

So what is going on? It appears to be a reaction to the political and racial undertones of the genre’s biggest stars.

Voters are wary of Wallen because of an incident that made headlines in 2021 where he was caught on camera using a racial slur.

With Aldean, politics were incorporated into his song, Try That in a Small Town, a story of vigilante justice that some listeners interpreted as having racial undertones.

Aldean denied those allegations, but apologized when it emerged that he had filmed the video outside a Tennessee courthouse that had been the scene of a brutal lynching in 1927.

While stars like Jason Isbell and Zach Bryan made thoughtful songs that defied Nashville’s more regressive tendencies, they were also left out of the big awards.

It seems that the Academy, with its typical caution, has decided to stay away.

Just 21 years after releasing his first song, Tennessee singer Jelly Roll is nominated for best new artist.

The musician, whose real name is Jason DeFord, is not a traditional contender for the category, but his recent move from the underground to the mainstream makes him eligible under Grammy guidelines.

A convicted felon and former drug trafficker, he has served multiple prison sentences and recently testified before the US Congress in support of anti-fentanyl legislation.

His emotional stories of addiction and redemption finally propelled him to the charts last year after a later career pivot from rap to country music.

At 39, he would be the oldest winner of the Best New Artist trophy, surpassing Sheryl Crow, who was 33 on the night of her victory in 1995.

But that’s nothing compared to the Latin Grammys, which gave the best new artist trophy to Ángela Álvarez, 95, in 2022.