Music

THE 2026 GRAMMYS: CHAOS, CONTROL & THE NEW GUARD

The 2026 GRAMMY nominations just hit—and they feel like a line in the sand. The old system’s glitching, the categories are melting, and a new generation of artists is steering the ship. This year’s list isn’t about hierarchy—it’s about energy. Raw, cinematic, genre-fluid energy.

Kendrick Lamar leads the charge with nine nominations, owning Album of the Year with GNX and Song of the Year with “Luther” alongside SZA. Kendrick’s playing chess while everyone else is still figuring out checkers—hip-hop as literature, protest, and prophecy all in one.

Lady Gaga is back in full technicolor with MAYHEM, nominated for Album, Record, and Song of the Year. It’s chaos as choreography—performance art wired straight into pop culture. Gaga’s not riding the wave, she’s the current.

Bad Bunny continues his global takeover with Debí Tirar Más Fotos, breaking barriers as the first Spanish-language album to dominate all three major categories. His world is bigger than language—it’s sound as rebellion, a whole new frequency of fame.

Sabrina Carpenter slides into her grown-pop era with Man’s Best Friend, scoring nominations for Album, Record, and Song of the Year. It’s polished but self-aware—proof that a pop star can play the game and still rewrite the rules.

Billie Eilish remains the quiet disruptor. Her single “Wildflower” is up for Record of the Year, a masterclass in restraint that still manages to hit like a scream in slow motion. Billie’s not chasing trends; she’s setting emotional temperature. Every whisper feels seismic.

Justin Bieber, meanwhile, reemerges with SWAG, his most self-referential and experimental record to date—nominated for Album of the Year. Bieber’s no longer the poster boy of pop perfection; he’s in deconstruction mode. The sound is darker, weirder, and more honest—proof that pop can still grow up without losing its spark.

And then there’s YUNGBLUD—one of MARVIN’s own cover stars—nominated for Best Rock Album (Idols) and Best Rock Performance (“Changes (Live From Villa Park)”). His music is still bleeding heart and chaos, but now it’s mature chaos—a rebellion that knows what it’s fighting for.

In Best New Artist, The Marías, Leon Thomas, and Olivia Dean sit at the intersection of cool and craftsmanship—artists less obsessed with charts, more with world-building. The industry’s finally catching up to what we already knew: the underground is the new mainstream.

Even the GRAMMYs themselves are shifting. The new Best Album Cover category feels like a wink to visual culture, to the idea that music isn’t just heard—it’s worn, styled, lived in.

This year’s nominations tell the story of where culture’s really at: messy, emotional, genreless, and gloriously unpredictable. From Gaga’s pop theatre to Kendrick’s poetic fire, Billie’s minimalism to YUNGBLUD’s noise, Bad Bunny’s multilingual takeover to Bieber’s metamorphosis—2026 is the sound of evolution.

The GRAMMYs finally look like the world we live in. And it sounds wild.