Grammy nominations 2026: Kendrick Lamar leads with nine nods
What's the story
The highly anticipated nominations for the 68th Annual Grammy Awards were announced on Friday night (US time), with Kendrick Lamar leading the pack. Lamar has the most nominations with nine, followed by Lady Gaga with seven. Other notable nominees include Bad Bunny, Justin Bieber, Tyler, The Creator, and Sabrina Carpenter. Bad Bunny, who got six nominations, became the first Spanish-language artist to score nominations in Best Album, Best Record, and Best Song in a single year.
Top categories
Album of the Year and Song of the Year
The Album of the Year category features Bad Bunny's Debi Tirar Mas Fotos, Clipse's Let God Sort Em Out, Bieber's Swag, Carpenter's Man's Best Friend, and Lamar's GNX. Gaga's Mayhem, Leon Thomas's Mutt, and Tyler, The Creator's Chromakopia are also nominated. Bad Bunny's DTMF, Billie Eilish's Wildflower, Doechii's Anxiety, Lamar & SZA's Luther, Gaga's Abracadabra, Rose & Bruno Mars's APT., Carpenter's Manchild, and Huntr/x's Golden are among the nominees in the Song of the Year category.
Emerging talent
Best New Artist and Producer of the Year
The Best New Artist category recognizes emerging talents like Addison Rae, Alex Warren, Katseye, Leon Thomas, Lola Young, The Marias, Olivia Dean, and Sombr. In the Producer of the Year category (Non-Classical), nominees include Blake Mills, Cirkut, Dan Auerbach, Dijon, and Sounwave. The Songwriter of the Year (Non-Classical) category features Amy Allen, Edgar Barrera, Jessie Jo Dillon, Laura Veltz, and Tobias Jesso Jr.
Genre highlights
Best Pop Solo Performance and Best Dance/Electronic Recording
The Best Pop Solo Performance category features Chappell Roan's The Subway, Bieber's Daisies, Gaga's Disease, Young's Messy, and Carpenter's Manchild. In the Best Dance/Electronic Recording category, Disclosure & Anderson .Paak's No Cap, Fred Again.., Skepta & PlaqueBoyMax's Victory Lap, Kaytranada's Space Invader, Skrillex's Voltage, and Tame Impala's End of Summer are nominated.
Indian nominees
Anoushka Shankar shines again!
Coming to Indian nominees, Grammy-regular Anoushka Shankar is nominated for Best Global Music Album (Chapter III: We Return to Light), featuring Alam Khan and Sarathy Korwar. Their Daybreak has also been nominated for Best Global Music Performance. The fusion group Shakti, led by Shankar Mahadevan and guitarist John McLaughlin, also picked up nominations. Mind Explosion (50th Anniversary Tour Live) is nominated for Best Global Music Album, while Shrini's Dream (Live) is nominated for Best Global Music Performance.
Genre battles
Best Rock Performance and Best Metal Performance
The Best Rock Performance category features Amyl and the Sniffers's U Should Not Be Doing That, Hayley Williams's Mirtazapine, Linkin Park's The Emptiness Machine, Turnstile's Never Enough, and Yungblud's Changes (Live From Villa Park / Back to the Beginning). In the Best Metal Performance category, Dream Theater's Night Terror, Ghost's Lachryma, Sleep Token's Emergence, Spiritbox's Soft Spine, and Turnstile's Birds scored nods. The winners will be revealed on February 1 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.