Blog Posts by Paul Grein

Many music luminaries died last year, from disco queen Donna Summer to Andy Williams, who hosted the first seven Grammy live telecasts. Many of them will be featured in the annual In Memoriam segment on Sunday night’s Grammy telecast. But Levon Helm is being singled out for special recognition. Elton John, Mavis Staples, Mumford & Sons, Zac Brown and Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes will join together in a special salute to Helm, a founding member of The Band. Helm died on April 19 at age 71.

Helm won three Grammys. Dirt Farmer was voted Best Traditional Folk Album of 2007. Electric Dirt and Ramble At The Ryman were voted Best Americana Album of 2009 and 2011, respectively.

Kanye West and Jay-Z, whose shelves are already jammed with Grammys, could win three more awards this year: Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. A clean sweep of these three awards would boost West’s Grammy count to 21; Jay-Z’s to 17.

Watch The Throne, the pair’s chart-topping 2011 collaboration, was nominated for Best Rap Album last year, but lost to West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Even so, one of its tracks, “Otis,” won last year for Best Rap Performance. This year, its most successful track, “N****s In Paris,” is likely to win two awards. A third track from the album, “No Church In The Wild,” has a good chance to also win.

Justin Bieber this week becomes the first artist in chart history to land five #1 albums or EPs while still in his teens. The 18-year old achieves the feat as Believe Acoustic enters The Billboard 200 at #1. The album follows My World 2.0, the EP Never Say Never: The Remixes, Under The Mistletoe and Believe.

Miley Cyrus landed four #1 albums while still in her teens (counting Hannah Montana albums). She scored with Hannah Montana, Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus, Breakout and the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack, all by age 16. In third place is Britney Spears, who landed three #1 albums while still in her teens. She scored with …Baby One More Time, Oops!...I Did It Again and Britney, all by age 19.

Beyonce is vying for her 17th Grammy, which would put her just one behind Aretha Franklin for the most by an African American woman in Grammy history. B is nominated for Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Love On Top,” the fourth single from her 2011 album 4. (It would be Beyonce’s first win since her six-Grammy sweep three years ago.)

Miguel, a Song of the Year finalist for “Adorn,” is likely to win two Grammys in the R&B field.

Best R&B Album

The nominees: Robert Glasper Experiment’s Black Radio, Anthony Hamilton’s Back To Love, R. Kelly’s Write Me Back, Tamia’s Beautiful Surprise, Tyrese’s Open Invitation

Women are likely to dominate the awards in the country field. Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift all have a good chance of going home with Grammys this year.

Best Country Album

The nominees: Zac Brown Band’s Uncaged, Hunter Hayes’ Hunter Hayes, Jamey Johnson’s Living For A Song: A Tribute To Hank Cochran, Miranda Lambert’s Four The Record, The Time Jumpers’ The Time Jumpers

Like all major award shows, the Grammys have made a few gaffes over the years. There was the time a 40-year old standard was voted Song of the Year. And the time a compilation of old hits won as Album of the Year.

The Best New Artist category has proved trickiest to get right. There was the singer who won Best New Artist for her sixth album. And the one who had won two Grammys two years earlier for her work with a chart-topping trio. And the one who had landed a top 10 hit the year before the year he won as Best New Artist. And, infamously, the one where the act didn’t sing a note on its album.

To its credit, the Recording Academy has amended its rules numerous times to prevent repeat occurrences. But some things you can’t prevent—like sympathy and emotion clouding judgment. Or voters just plain missing the boat.

Here are 15 outcomes that were unsettling for one reason or another. I decided to stick to the “marquee” categories—Album, Record and Song of the Year and Best New Artist. And I tried to focus on cases where Grammy voters missed an opportunity, not just cases where I might happen to like one record or artist more than another. These are listed in reverse chronological order.

Bruno Mars will team with Sting and Rihanna in a joint performance on the Grammy Awards telecast on Sunday. Mars’ “Locked Out Of Heaven” echoes the classic sound of Sting’s old band, The Police. (The #1 smash was released after the close of the eligibility year for this year’s awards, but Mars may perform it on the show nonetheless, presumably with an assist from Sting.)

Rihanna, who had been previously announced as a performer on the show, is nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance for her top five hit “Where Have You Been.”

Losing the Grammy for Best New Artist isn’t the end of the world. Look no further than Mumford & Sons, who lost the new artist race two years ago to Esperanza Spalding. This year, they’re the front-runners to win for Album of the Year for their chart-topping sophomore album, Babel.

The British folk/rock band has plenty of company.

Here’s a complete list of the 23 artists who were nominated for Best New Artist, didn’t win, but have taken home Grammys for Album, Record or Song of the Year and/or have won honorary, career-capping awards from the Recording Academy. They’re listed in reverse chronological order.