Welcome to Beyoncé country.
When it comes to the 2025 Grammy Award nominations that were announced Friday, Cowboy Carter rules the nation. She leads the nods with 11, bringing her career total to 99 nominations. That makes her the most-nominated artist in Grammy history.
Cowboy Carter is up for album and country album of the year, and Texas Hold ‘Em is nominated for record, song and country song of the year. She also received nominations in a wide swath of genres, including pop, country, Americana and melodic rap performance categories.
This is her first time receiving nominations in the country and Americana categories. Previously, she and her husband Jay-Z were tied for most career nominations, at 88.
If Beyoncé wins the album of the year, she’ll become the first Black woman to do so in the 21st century. Lauryn Hill last won in 1999 for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, joining Natalie Cole and Whitney Houston as the only Black women to take home the Grammys’ top prize.
Sean Drummond, who wrote and produced Five Fingers For Marseilles, says he is honoured that his African spaghetti western is one a handful of films that inspired the making of Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album.
Several Canadians also emerged as Grammy contenders for their work on Cowboy Carter. Toronto producer Nathan Ferraro landed three nominations, including record of the year, and shared two of his nods with fellow Canadian songwriters Megan Bülow and Elizabeth Lowell Boland in song of the year and best country song.
Post Malone also received his first nominations in the country categories this year, having released his debut country album F-1 Trillion in August. That one is up for country album and I Had Some Help, his collaboration with Morgan Wallen, is nominated for country song and country duo/group performance. They are Wallen’s first Grammy nominations.
1st nods for Charli XCX as solo artist
Malone is just behind Beyoncé, with seven nominations, tied with Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar and Charli XCX, who earned her first nominations as a solo artist.
Lamar’s ubiquitous diss track released during his feud with Toronto’s Drake, Not Like Us, is nominated for record and song of the year, rap song, music video as well as best rap performance. He has two simultaneous entries in the latter category, a career first: the track Like That from Future & Metro Boomin featuring Lamar , Like That is up for best rap performance and best rap song.
This is his third time receiving two simultaneous nominations for best rap song.
Taylor Swift and first-time nominees Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan have six nominations each.
Among the other leading Canadian nominees included on some of the year’s biggest pop records is prolific audio engineer and mixer Serban Ghenea, who scored five nods for a slew of big releases.
Ghenea locked a nomination in record of the year for Swift’s Fortnight, as well as nods in album of the year for Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet and Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department.
Halifax-raised hitmaker Cirkut picked up two nominations for his work with Charli XCX on Brat, including a mention in the album of the year category. The track 360 also earned him a nomination for record of the year.
On The Coast9:14That Tracks: Sabrina Carpenter’s song “Bed Chem”
Last year, women artists dominated the major categories. This year, that continues somewhat, but the main trend seems to be a variance of genre.
In the album of the year category, alongside Cowboy Carter is Andre 3000’s new age, alt-jazz New Blue Sun and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier’s Djesse Vol. 4. Rising pop stars Carpenter and Roan round it out, with Short n’ Sweet and The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess respectively, as well as Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft, and Charli XCX’s rave-ready Brat.
Eilish is the only artist to have her first three albums become nominated for album of the year.
Last year, Swift won album of the year for Midnights, breaking the record for most wins in the category with four. This year, she becomes the first ever woman to receive seven career nominations in the category.
Grammys tried to represent more variety: Academy president
“The breadth and the variety of genres represented in the general field feels new and really exciting,” said the Recording Academy CEO and president Harvey Mason Jr. He credits an active and evolving voting body for its success.
“We’ve been very intentional in how we looked at and tried to re-balance our membership. So not just gender or people of colour, different racial makeup, but also genre equity and trying to make sure that all different types of music in different regions and different locations are being represented in every way possible.”
Only recordings commercially released in the U.S. from Sept. 16, 2023, through Aug. 30, 2024, were eligible for nominations. The final round of Grammy voting, which determines its winners, will take place Dec. 12 through Jan. 3.
In the best new artist category, Carpenter and Roan will go head-to-head, alongside Benson Boone, Doechii, Khruangbin, RAYE, Shaboozey and Teddy Swims.
Other Canadian contenders this year include The Weeknd, whose appearance on Future’s We Still Don’t Trust You found a spot in best melodic rap performance, while Charlotte Day Wilson’s Cyan Blue is up for a trophy in the best engineered album, non-classical category.
For a complete list of the Grammy nominees, click here.
The 2025 Grammy Awards will air Feb. 2 live on CBS and Paramount+ from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
