Grammy Awards 2025: Predicting who wins in the Country categories

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For quite some time, I’ve been making assumptions about Grammy winners, and I often manage to guess around half correctly. While this isn’t bad, it implies that when it comes to a specific category, there’s an equal chance of me being correct or incorrect in my prediction.

Typically, if I fail, it’s because I selected the less favorable option from two strong contenders. Consequently, my backup pick emerged as the winner in such instances. On occasion, however, I struggle to interpret the signs correctly and find myself completely clueless.

Let me kick off this brief piece about predicting the 2025 Country Music Grammy Awards, with a disclaimer – I’m essentially guessing blindly at this point.

Who will win in the Country categories at the 2025 Grammy Awards?

In simple terms, the Recording Academy organizes Country Music within its fifth category named “Country & American Roots Music”. This category has four distinct sections dedicated to Country Music. However, it’s challenging to predict voter reactions due to significant overlap with other genres labeled as “American Roots”, and this is just one of the factors adding complexity. Over the past 15-20 years, there’s been a noticeable blending of traditional genres, where Country Music has incorporated more Pop and Hip Hop/Rap elements.

Once upon a time, it was relatively simple to forecast the success of country music since the music was quite uniform. The establishment on Music Row would rarely acknowledge innovative performers like Ray Charles or Gram Parsons as authentic country musicians. However, this has become more challenging over time as all genres have started blurring into each other.

As a devoted enthusiast of country music, I’ve noticed that the ongoing debate about what truly constitutes as country music has significantly intensified the political undercurrents in awards shows like the Country Music Awards (CMA) and the Grammys. On one hand, you have the traditionalists, who are fiercely guarding the boundaries to keep the external influences at bay. Conversely, there are the modernizers, yearning to broaden the horizons, inviting fresh melodies and topics to enliven the genre’s celebrations.

If it seems like the nation as a whole resonates with this, it’s no coincidence. Country music has historically served as a reflection of societal values. It frequently finds itself at the center of cultural disputes, making it challenging to predict public sentiment. You can’t always tell whether voters are driven more by expressing a cultural stance or simply enjoying the music. This year, this ambiguity holds more truth than ever before.

Let’s take a deep dive and make an attempt to classify the anticipated four Country groups for the year 2025, understanding well that this is one of the most challenging areas to forecast.

Country Solo Performance

Let’s tackle the controversial topic head-on: Beyonce, the record-breaking Grammy recipient, put out an album labeled as ‘country’ in 2024. However, opinions differ on whether it truly qualifies as such. Interestingly, Beyonce herself seems to hold a dual perspective on this matter.

In my opinion, “Cowboy Carter” and numerous of its songs undeniably deserve consideration for country music prizes. However, the Country Music Awards didn’t see it that way. Interestingly, Beyoncé was still nominated once.

In a simpler and more conversational style, the sentence could be rephrased as: “Beyonce’s nominated song ’16 Carriages,’ although legitimate in the Solo Performance category, isn’t my top pick from the album ‘Cowboy Carter.’ It falls under modern country pop, but we’ll discuss why it’s not the best country song on that album later.

In my opinion, Chris Stapleton’s “It Takes a Woman” is a strong contender, but I believe Kacey Musgraves’ “The Architect” would have been an even more fitting choice for recognition by the Academy. However, there seems to be a bias or gatekeeping element that might prevent this from happening. While Musgraves’ country credentials are unquestionable, her song leans more towards roots pop than traditional country music. I suspect it may be categorized incorrectly.

Leaving “I Am Not Okay” by Jelly Roll’s impressive tidal wave and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey, it seems that the latter has a strong chance of winning this year’s Best New Artist award, given its significant cultural impact, including the incorporation of a hip-hop song within its chorus. My intuition tells me that this song could be a major contender for this year’s accolade.

Duo/Group Performance

Have you noticed how challenging it seems to predict winners for this category this year? Frankly, I’m at a loss. It’s not that the nominated songs aren’t good or haven’t received recognition; it’s simply that none of them seem fitting for the prize in my opinion. After all, Orville Peck has released an album with five songs that I believe are more deserving of this specific honor.

As it seems unlikely that my independent campaign for the Peck/Willie Nelson duet “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other” will succeed, I guess I’ll go with one of the five official nominees instead.

Beyonce is back once more. Her duet with the upcoming Grammy winner Miley Cyrus, titled “II Most Wanted,” is one of the least traditionally “country” tracks on the album “Cowboy Carter.” This doesn’t mean it’s inappropriate for the album, as a song like “Spaghetti” would be. It does have some country elements, but I don’t believe it’s a strong contender in this category.

Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help” sounds similar to country music, but only because Morgan Wallen is also nominated. The Brothers Osborne’s “Break Mine” isn’t my favorite from them, and I don’t believe Dan + Shay’s “Bigger Houses” will win, although it’s a good song.

It appears that Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan are the likely winners for “Cowboys Cry Too” at the Grammys, given their status as a popular favorite (Kelsea Ballerini) and an up-and-coming talent (Noah Kahan). While this is a nice, soft ballad and a decent choice for a winner, it feels somewhat understated. The truth is, Orville Peck should have been in contention for this award.

Song

In a third classification, we find another tune by Beyonce from the album “Cowboy Carter”. The dilemma I face when choosing “Texas Hold ‘Em” for this accolade is that it’s the sole nominee among the five contenders that wasn’t nominated in either of the two preceding categories. Initially, I would have preferred placing it under Solo Performance instead of “16 Carriages”, but unfortunately, that didn’t transpire. Will it garner enough votes to secure this award?

In my previous comments about Solo Performance, I mentioned that “The Architect,” “I Am Not Okay,” and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” are all strong choices. I don’t believe “I Had Some Help” will take this one, and I’m eliminating Jelly Roll because the power of his performance is what sets it apart, and I didn’t select it in the performance category. However, I have a hunch that Kacey Musgraves might win this, but it’s quite close between her and Shaboozey and Beyonce. It’s really anyone’s game at this point.

Total gut call – I’m going with “Texas Hold ‘Em.”

Album

At first glance, when the Grammy nominations were announced, I straight away anticipated Beyoncé would take the top honor for Album of the Year in general, yet not for Country Album of the Year. It may sound unusual, but given Cowboy Carter’s diverse musical influences, it’s not as far-fetched as it appears. That’s one aspect that makes it exceptional.

Regarding the overall Album prize, I’m still undecided and will need more time to decide. However, in terms of the Best Country Album, I stand firm – Beyoncé is not the winner. The same applies to Post Malone, as the reasons given previously still hold true.

I’d prefer choosing Lainey Wilson’s fantastic album “Whirlwind” if she had received any additional nominations this year, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. Therefore, Kacey Musgraves remains one of my finalists in this category. I must admit, I’ve been indecisive about this choice.

I’d be completely unshocked if Musgraves were to take home the Country Album of the Year award, but I must admit it’s tough to bet against Chris Stapleton. He’s adored by many, he’s incredibly talented, he has previous wins under his belt, and he manages to appeal to both traditionalists and modernists in country music better than any artist I can think of. Therefore, I’m leaning towards predicating him as the winner for Country Album of the Year.

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2025-02-02 01:01