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The nominations for the 2022 Grammy Awards saw many rock and pop legends once again being singled out for the year’s top musical honors. In the coveted Best Rock Album and Best Rock Performance category, Paul McCartney is pitted against AC/DC, Chris Cornell, and Foo Fighters.
Prince‘s Sign O’ The Times (Super Deluxe Edition) is up against Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967) in the Best Historical Album category; with George Harrison‘s All Things Must Pass: 50th Anniversary Edition nominated for Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package.
ABBA‘s “I Still Have Faith In You” snagged a nom for Record Of The Year, with Blues Traveler‘s Traveler’s Blues making the shortlist for Best Traditional Blues Album. Jackson Browne and Los Lobos are among the nominees for Best Americana Album.
Interestingly, in the Best Rock Song category — which goes to the songwriters — Paul McCartney is competing against the daughter of his old Wings guitarist, Laurence Juber. Ilsey Juber is one of the songwriters of Weezer‘s “All My Favorite Songs,” which is up against “Macca’s” McCartney III standout “Find My Way.”
The Recording Academy will present the 2022 Grammy Awards on Monday January 31st, live on CBS and stream live and on demand on Paramount+ from 8 to 11:30 p.m. ET.
Prior to the telecast, The Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony will be held at the Microsoft Theater at 3:30 p.m. ET and will be streamed live on Grammy.com and the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel.
SELECTED ROCK-BASED CATEGORIES – via Grammy.com
Best Rock Album
For albums containing at least 51% playing time of new rock, hard rock or metal recordings.
Power Up – AC/DC
Capitol Cuts – Live From Studio A – Black Pumas
No One Sings Like You Anymore Vol. 1 – Chris Cornell
Medicine At Midnight – Foo Fighters
McCartney III – Paul McCartney
Best Rock Performance
For new vocal or instrumental solo, duo/group or collaborative rock recordings.
“Shot In The Dark” – AC/DC
“Know You Better (Live From Capitol Studio A)” – Black Pumas
“Nothing Compares 2 U” – Chris Cornell
“Ohms” – Deftones
“Making A Fire” – Foo Fighters
Best Rock Song
A Songwriter(s) Award. Includes Rock, Hard Rock and Metal songs. A song is eligible if it was first released or if it first achieved prominence during the Eligibility Year. Singles or Tracks only. (Artist names appear in parentheses.)
“All My Favorite Songs” – Rivers Cuomo, Ashley Gorley, Ben Johnson & Ilsey Juber, songwriters (Weezer)
“The Bandit” – Caleb Followill, Jared Followill, Matthew Followill & Nathan Followill, songwriters (Kings Of Leon)
“Distance” – Wolfgang Van Halen, songwriter (Mammoth WVH)
“Find My Way” – Paul McCartney, songwriter (Paul McCartney)
“Waiting On A War” – Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Rami Jaffee, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett & Pat Smear, songwriters (Foo Fighters)
Best Americana Album
For albums containing at least 51% playing time of new vocal or instrumental Americana recordings.
Downhill From Everywhere – Jackson Browne
Leftover Feelings – John Hiatt with The Jerry Douglas Band
Native Sons – Los Lobos
Outside Child – Allison Russell
Stand For Myself – Yola
Best Traditional Blues Album
For albums containing at least 51% playing time of new vocal or instrumental traditional blues recordings.
100 Years Of Blues – Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite
Traveler’s Blues – Blues Traveler
I Be Trying – Cedric Burnside
Be Ready When I Call You – Guy Davis
Take Me Back – Kim Wilson
AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson had a blast recording Power Up — but maintains he’s merely a vehicle for guitarist Angus Young‘s creative vision: “Well, it’s just great rock lyricism but the thing is, mainly it’s upbeat — and that’s what we need right now. And all the songs are just upbeat and they just get your toes a-tappin’ — y’know? (Laughs) And I had a ball doin’ them. There was some nice, tricky ones to get through and that just makes it exciting when you’re doin’ them, y’see? Y’get challenged. But at the end of the day, you have to sing, or do the lyrics, and sing the song the way that Angus imagines it in his mind when he sits and puts it down, y’see?”
The majority of McCartney III was recorded during the pandemic, which forced the former-Beatle to tie up some music loose ends he had laying around, as well as experiment in the studio. McCartney explained that he initially had hit the studio to record some incidental film music he was working on — but those sessions slowly evolved into the latest one-man-band album: “I was completing songs, just for my own fun, and I wrote some special ones and then I finished ones I had been meaning to finish. And all in all, I suddenly had 11 tracks — all finished, ready to go. So, I thought, well, I don’t know what I’d do with this. It’s an album, maybe. And then I realized, ’cause I’d played everything on the album; this is Number Three in the trilogy.”
Dave Grohl told us a while back that after a quarter century, he finds the Foos’ continuing success mystifying: “I don’t know what it is, but it just keeps on getting better, y’know? And as it all sort of grows and changes, we look at each other every time something happens, like a Grammy nomination or a big show selling out, we look at each other and we’re like, ‘Can you believe that? Isn’t that nuts?’ ‘Cause we don’t feel any different, y’know?”