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The Making Of Justin Bieber's Purpose: Growing Up, Reconnecting And Loving Yourself

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59th GRAMMY nominees Justin Bieber, Josh Gudwin, Steve James, Randy Merrill, and others tell the inside story of the Album Of The Year-nominated Purpose
Bill Forman
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

It's tempting to play the numbers game with Justin Bieber's Purpose. More than two years in the making. His fifth million-plus selling album. Three Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits, and a spot atop the Billboard 200. Certified triple platinum by the RIAA.

But beyond sheer numbers, the album speaks to Bieber's ability to beat the odds in an industry where the half-life of most teen pop stars can be measured in months rather than years. 

It's worth remembering, after all, that Bieber was just 15 when he scored his first Top 10 record. Now an industry veteran at the age of 22, Bieber is a top GRAMMY contender with four nominations: Album Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for Purpose, and Song Of The Year and Best Pop Solo Performance for his No. 1 hit "Love Yourself."

Following, key participants give the inside story behind Bieber's Purpose.

Randy Merrill (mastering engineer): A project doesn't make it to this level without having good songwriting, production, recording, mixing, and mastering. Purpose feels like a very personal album for Justin. The lyrics seem to come from his heart, expressing honest sentiments. So they don't come across as contrived or manufactured, just real and honest, delivered with his signature voice.

*Skrillex (featured artist/producer): His album is so honest to who he is right now. He's still a pop star making pop music, but at the same time, all the stuff I worked on with him had a sense of honesty about it. I'm not saying he wasn't honest before, but when you listen to his lyrics, you can tell he is becoming an adult.

ü ri now

A photo posted by SKRILLEX (@skrillex) on Jun 25, 2015 at 7:59pm PDT

Josh Gudwin (producer/engineer/mixer): Initially we were just expanding on the style of music Justin was making at the time, but during the last six months of the process things really evolved and took shape. Every day in the studio we talked about the music and Justin strived to improve constantly. When it was go time, the direction set its own course naturally and we embraced that all the way. 

Steve James (co-writer/producer): As an electronic producer, I was really excited to work on more fleshed out and rhythmic productions. But the more we sat with the song "Purpose" — and once Justin sang it — it was obvious that it would be best communicated stripped down, letting the lyrics and message really speak. Ballads usually work best either as acoustic or massive anthemic productions. And for "Purpose," the former was the obvious choice.

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Justin Bieber - Purpose (PURPOSE : The Movement)

Chris "Tek" O'Ryan (engineer/mixer): The vocals for this album were really focused on a strong lead and not a lot of background vocals like previous records. This presents the challenge of making sure that lead vocal is "the one." It has to be perfect in every way — feel, emotion, timing, groove, and pitch — as there's not a lot of backgrounds and tricks to hide any flaws. This was especially true for "Love Yourself," and the result speaks for itself. 

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O'Ryan: I think this is the album where Justin really found his best tonal sweet spot, and I think that came naturally from him writing so much of it. He also was producing his own vocals, so he did what felt natural and I think that really comes across to the audience. 

**Justin Bieber (artist): You never know what people are going to like. I've just got to the point where [I accept] what I feel and [go] with my gut.

Gudwin: A lot of writing took place in the studio. Some days Justin would come in to write by himself, and other times he collaborated with [producer Jason "Poo Bear" Boyd]. When he really liked a fully composed song that came in but felt there were parts lyrically or melodically that could change to suit him better, he would rewrite them on the spot.

Tom Coyne (mastering engineer): One thing that really helped is the fact that the vocals were so well recorded and produced. This made it easier to pull all the songs together into a consistent sound across the album. For a vocally driven album such as this, it's always important for the vocals to be consistent throughout the album in order to tie the whole thing together. 

Gudwin: All the way up to mixing, it wasn't unusual for Justin to recut certain parts. Over the course of the project Justin's voice reached a very stable point tonally, and his delivery was dialed in. He was very conscious of where his voice was sitting within the album and we worked hard to achieve consistency throughout the entire body of work.

James: I'm immensely grateful for this opportunity. In the third week of my first summer in Los Angeles — when I was 17 — we wrote ["Purpose"] together. And as a result of that, I left school and moved across the country and have been working on music every day since. This song opened so many doors for me.

**Bieber: I named the album Purpose. And the reason why I named it Purpose was because for a while there I feel like I lost my purpose and I feel like I found my purpose again. So just … that message to say no matter how far you feel like you are away from yourself or you feel like you don't have your purpose or you don't know what your purpose is, or you feel like you lost your purpose, there's always room to find that purpose again.

*As told to NME

** As told to BBC Radio 1

Bill Forman is a writer and music editor for the Colorado Springs Independent and the former publications director for The Recording Academy.

Tune into the 59th GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS.

Lorde's Album Of The Year-nominated 'Melodrama'
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Lorde, Jack Antonoff & More On Making 'Melodrama' | Album Of The Year

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Get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Lorde's acclaimed second album, and its journey towards an Album Of The Year nomination
Julian Ring
GRAMMYs
Jan 25, 2018 - 2:03 pm

Arriving in New York to record her sophomore album, Lorde faced what seemed like an impossible task: to somehow create a musical statement as honest as her first. The New Zealand native — real name Ella Yelich-O'Connor — was just 16 when she released Pure Heroine, a widely acclaimed pop culture critique and snapshot of suburban youth. But after a dizzying rise to fame and a painful breakup, she knew her next album had to come from closer to the heart.

With the help of producer Jack Antonoff and a team of studio veterans, Lorde channeled heartbreak and loneliness into the deeply personal LP Melodrama. The album earned Lorde her fifth GRAMMY nomination and her first for Album Of The Year.

Here, Lorde and key collaborators recount the making of Melodrama.

*Lorde (artist): It kind of takes a second, I learned, to write your way out of the record you just made. There was a real hit of, like, "I just don't have another one. It could never be good enough."

** It wasn't until I went through heartbreak, and moved out of [my parents'] home into my own house and spent a lot of time totally alone, that I realized I do have very serious, vivid feelings I needed to get out. Working with [producer Jack Antonoff] opened me up to feeling a lot; he was the perfect person to help me do that.

*Jack Antonoff (producer): I was like, "Let's just gather around a piano and see how you're feeling, and see what has happened to you since your last album that's really worth sharing." That was very important. It opened up a big space, which was, "OK, there's a way that you can talk about all of these things that have changed, and it's not going to put you on an island."

***Lorde: The first record was "we" and "us." And this record is "I." The focus does close in. I think that was necessary to get to the level of frankness that’s in there.

*Antonoff: [On Pure Heroine], Ella had these electronic sensibilities. But there are guitars on this album, there are all these analog-based instruments. It's not about minimalism anymore; it's this bigger, broader thing. It's a very different album in terms of the palette of sounds. I think that started by the fact that we wrote the album sitting around a piano.

"It wasn't until I went through heartbreak, and moved out of [my parents'] home into my own house and spent a lot of time totally alone, that I realized I do have very serious, vivid feelings I needed to get out."

Tom Elmhirst (mixing): It's my piano. I bought it from an NYU professor. … It's a really beautiful upright that was made here in New York.

Because they were working literally next door to me — upstairs at [Electric Lady Studios] — the proximity was obviously really close. … [They were in] a really nice live room with plenty of daylight, and it’s got the piano and a few other instruments set up for vocals.

They would set up a Pro Tools setup in there, and [mixer/engineer Laura Sisk], Jack and Ella would be in there doing their thing all day, all night.

****Laura Sisk (mixer/engineer): One of the coolest parts of working on this album was watching the songs come into existence. Jack and Ella are both super creative and very honest songwriters and it was thrilling to watch stories or conversations turn into songs that I absolutely love.

*****Lorde: ["Sober II (Melodrama)" is] the second part of one of the first songs that we wrote where I really started to understand what the album would be, which was "Sober." The two of them kind of came around the same time, this was April [2016] — I remember Jack and I went out to Coachella and we got a studio in Palm Springs.

In the first part, it's very much like the party's in full swing, and maybe sort of tipping over into that area where it might be a little too much, and then ["Sober II (Melodrama)"] is sort of singing from the perspective of the deflated room. There's such a sadness to the lights being on after a party, you know, this whole room has sort of been washed in this dark, and to see the corners of the room again can always be a little bit heartbreaking.

Elmhirst: The title song is really simple. It's not complex, and it wasn't a huge mixing process. But the clarity of the vocals and the simplicity of the track — you need a great artist to do that. I think [Lorde] did it really well.

******Antonoff: "Green Light" became a very important song to the album. It was a big moment.

*Lorde: [“Green Light” is] me shouting at the universe, wanting to let go, wanting to go forward, to get the green light from life.

******Antonoff: There was a night that we really cracked the code on "Green Light." We had these parts. We went and saw someone play at the Barclays Center, and there was all this jangly piano going on. It sounded like someone banging on a piano. We went home and started to put that in, and that's when it started to make sense.

****Sisk: [Jack and I] often work on different aspects of the same song in separate rooms and that ability to tag-team the work lets us move at a very fast pace, which is super important given the amount of projects we collaborate on.

Randy Merrill (mastering engineer): The album was mixed by a few different engineers, all with very different styles, so tying it all together to feel like an album was a bit challenging.

Elmhirst: There was a lot of forwards and backwards on the album. I would finish mixes, and then productions would change. So it was a tricky balance of being flexible while remaining creative.

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***Lorde: We labored over every little sound, every word. To a level that I think people would never even pick up on.

Merrill: On the mastering side, it was all about tapering the sounds of each of the songs to that they felt cohesive as an album, with one song flowing into another with a feeling of consistency.

*Antonoff: It was a hard album to make. If you change a breath on a vocal take, [Lorde will] notice, and she'll like it or she'll hate it. It's a meticulous process with her, and this particular album was an intense journey. I think that's what it had to be.

***Lorde: [Melodrama is] about contrast: really big and grand, and really tiny and intimate. Going from the personal, emotional stuff to the headlines and the web. It goes from the world to my bedroom.

We finished it… and I said to Jack, "You realize, I can go anywhere I want now."

* As told to Rolling Stone
** As told to Vanity Fair
*** As told to NME
**** As told to Vice
***** As told to NPR
****** As told to Billboard

Catching Up On The GRAMMY Awards Just Got Easier. Have A Google Home Device? Just Say "Talk To GRAMMYs"

(Julian Ring is a music journalist and critic. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, NPR Music, The Wall Street Journal, and Consequence of Sound, and he has written for The Recording Academy since 2010. As a curator at Pandora, Ring reviews independent music, programs blues stations and produces creative editorial.  The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Pandora Media, Inc., nor was the article written on Pandora Media, Inc.'s behalf.)

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The Making Of Adele's '25': "Hello," Motherhood And Magic In The Recording Studio

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59th GRAMMY nominees Greg Kurstin, Danger Mouse, Ariel Rechtshaid, Austen Jux-Chandler, and more unravel the story of Adele's Album Of The Year-winning 25
Paul Zollo
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

Asked about the source of the songs on her previous album, 21, Adele repeated the same answer several times: "A rubbish romance." Backstage at the 54th GRAMMY Awards in 2012, after winning six GRAMMYs for that album, including Album Of The Year, she was asked if a sequel was already in the works. "No," she laughed. "I'm too busy being happy!"

Rather than rush into a new album, Adele took time to seed collaborations with a host of remarkable producers and songwriters around the world, and she gradually shaped her emotions and feelings into the songs that comprise 25. She also grappled with the challenge of balancing her career with being a first-time mother after giving birth to her son, Angelo James Konecki, in October 2012.

Upon its release, 25 was praised by Rolling Stone as Adele's "most self-assured LP yet." Buoyed by the hit "Hello," which has emerged as a contemporary standard, it became a blockbuster album like its predecessor, selling more than 10 million copies in the United States.

Following, several key participants on 25 provide behind-the-scenes perspectives — connecting sessions from Prague to London to Los Angeles — on how the latest chapter in Adele's career was written.

Greg Kurstin (co-writer/producer/engineer/mixer): "Hello" started with Adele and I trying different ideas. I started playing some piano chords and Adele sang different ideas until we landed on the verse. From there I followed her melodies and tried to support them as best I could.  She did all the lyrics.

*Adele: ["Hello"] is about hurting someone's feelings, but it's also about trying to stay in touch with myself, which sometimes can be a little bit hard to do. It's about a yearning for the other side of me … about wanting to be at home and wanting to reach out to everyone I've ever hurt, including myself, and apologize for it.

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Kurstin: I tend to go for moody chords and Adele's voice invokes so much emotion. It took us a while to get the chorus right. The verse came together much easier. I'm happy we didn't give up.

**Adele: ["Hello" was] the first [breakthrough for the album]. It happened really quick and it just felt great. [I said,] "There I am."

Ariel Rechtshaid (producer/engineer/mixer): My friend Tobias Jesso wrote "When We Were Young" with Adele and they were having a little trouble with the arrangement. Tobias told them to hit me up. I met her in London and she played me a voice recording of it and also "Why Do You Love Me." [Editor's Note: "Why Do You Love Me" appears as a bonus track on select editions of 25.]

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***Adele: ["When We Were Young" is] a bit of a letter to myself. It's really about regrouping because naturally me and my friends have dispersed. We all love each other still, but we don't have time to be unconditional and 24/7.

 

Rechtshaid: Adele wanted drums on "When We Were Young" and we agreed on a '70s approach. I needed to get inside the song a bit more, and called Tobias to replay the piano as only he could. He and Adele performed it live a few times. I wound up using the first take; it was very inspired. We then experimented with backing vocals for the last chorus. I had her shouting, playing with ranges I hadn't heard her sing in before. She must have thought I was crazy.

My friend Nico Muhly happened to be down the street from the studio, so he came over and played piano, celeste and pump organ. We were just playing with whatever instruments the studio happened to have around.

Nico Muhly (pianist): This whole thing was crazy and fast. I was in London, and got this fast message from Ariel, "Are you anywhere near SoHo?" Miraculously I was, and lo and behold he was there with two Adele tracks saying, "Is there anything you want to add to these?"  

I looked around and there was a piano and a synth and a really nice engineer. And there was Ariel and this vibey room in the middle of London. I listened to the tracks, and then entered a kind of hyper-mode studio-rat space, and recorded 1 million tracks of piano. It was so fun.

Rechtshaid: I tried to imagine her singing ["When We Were Young"] in a stadium, and thought there should be one more element everyone could sing along with. I created an extra four bars at the top of the bridge and had her softly chant the [phrase] "when we were young." After the bridge, she performed this wonderful classic diva vocal belt over the top of these chants. It was last-minute magic.

 

 

 

so much

A photo posted by Ariel Rechtshaid (@arielrechtshaid) on Feb 13, 2016 at 4:54pm PST

Austen Jux-Chandler (engineer/mixer): When it came to recording ["When We Were Young"], it was an almost magical moment. Soon as that track rolled, she switched gear from being a lovely, chatty London mum and into "Adele," and belted out a vocal that already sounded done. To the point where Ariel and I looked at each other and knew we should do more takes, though we already had it. Already she was having a cup of tea and being a normal mum again.

**Adele: I find raising a kid … really difficult, but that's easy compared to getting the balance right between feeling like you're spending enough time with your child but spending enough time on your work. … I feel like the process of writing my record was such a selfish act to do, being a parent … so I felt terrible. No more terrible than any other mom does, or any other parent. The guilt of having a bad studio session and spending like eight hours away — [I] still regret it."

Rechtshaid: I started to experiment … on "… Young." I realized that if I slid her vocals back one eighth note, the chorus had a backbeat. I was nervous because it changed the feel of the song dramatically. Everything gelled when we dialed up the choir patch of the Orchestron. It had just the right amount of haunting sound, and [keyboardist] Roger Manning's performance on it was perfectly dynamic.

Once I put both ["When We Were Young" and "Why Do You Love Me"] together I was nervous about sending them to her to hear without seeing her and gauging her response. Being able to change something bothersome on the spot can really help. So I set up a live stream where we were awkwardly staring at each other while I played it. She cried. It was done.      

Danger Mouse (producer): We worked on "River Lea." We had a lot of little ideas we started and this one became significant because of what she wanted to say in the song. The song changed a lot in the process, but she definitely led the way. 

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Adam Klemens (conductor): I conducted the 38-player string orchestra for the song "Love In The Dark," at Smecky [Music Studios in] Prague, Czech Republic. Samuel Dixon produced. I liked the arrangement and the sound of our orchestra in the song very much. The recording was done in a secret mode. Due to the matter of contract between producers and our contractor, we, the musicians, did not know that we were recording for Adele's album.

***Bruno Mars (co-writer/producer): ["All I Ask"] took a bare 48 hours. We all crowded around the piano until we found something that sparked. … It makes me very jealous because it doesn't happen like that all the time!

***Adele: I've always been a really big fan of Bruno, but when we worked together he was beyond. He can do anything, literally singing the best vocals you've ever heard live in your life while he is playing a drum or a bass or doing some mad percussion riff.

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All I Ask

 

Alasdair McLellan (album cover photographer): She does not look at the camera on the covers of either 19 or 21, so for [25] Adele really wanted eye contact. She wanted it to be very direct, her face filling the frame. I always wanted black and white, because there's an authenticity to it that matches her authenticity.

Danger Mouse: Adele has incredible instincts and great vision.

McLellan: Her songs sound like classics. It's a very rare thing to have an artist who can create a classic song even before they have had time to become classic.

**Adele: The key to [25] is that I haven't gone, "This is what [the album is] about." I've skimmed the surface of what the [songs] mean to me, and what I've written about. … I would like everyone else to decide what these songs mean to them.

 

 

 

*As told to i-D magazine
**As told to CBC Radio's Studio Q
***As told to Vogue

Paul Zollo is the senior editor of American Songwriter and the author of several books, including Songwriters On Songwriting, Conversations With Tom Petty and Hollywood Remembered. He's also a songwriter and Trough Records artist whose songs have been recorded by many artists, including Art Garfunkel, Severin Browne and Darryl Purpose.

Tune into the 59th GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS.

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Beyoncé's Lemonade: Jack White, James Blake And Others Detail The Album's Key Ingredients

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59th GRAMMY nominees Beyoncé, Mike Will Made-It and others tell the inside story of the Album Of The Year-nominated Lemonade
Andreas Hale
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

On the evening of April 23, 2016, Beyoncé turned the entire entertainment industry on its head with the surprise release of Lemonade. With its Best Music Film GRAMMY-nominated companion celebrating African-American culture, and lyrics that had everyone speculating about her relationship with Jay Z and the identity of "Becky with the good hair," Lemonade successfully quenched her fans' thirst.  

The leading 59th GRAMMY nominee's sixth studio album is arguably more nuanced than her previous projects. While Beyoncé has tackled women's empowerment and relationship topics before, Lemonade is more personal, representing a shift for an artist who manages to be omnipresent and mysterious. For the first time, Beyoncé appeared vulnerable, but still Queen Bey — demonstrated with songs celebrating her womanhood and heritage in the midst of racial turmoil.

The album has since become a pop-culture phenomenon — discussed everywhere from daytime talk shows to university classrooms — garnering Beyoncé nine GRAMMY nominations in six Fields, including Rock, R&B and Rap, and upping her career nomination total to 62. Following is the inside story of Lemonade.

1James Blake (featured artist/producer): Beyoncé came to the studio and I was sitting at the piano when I met her. She was just lovely. I came up with something to go with an idea she had. I just embellished her melody. I think the idea was to use some of her lyrics, but I didn't realize that — I misunderstood and did something entirely different from what she wanted. But it didn't matter, because she really liked it. Blue Ivy was there too, which was nice. She was singing along to the song, which was a huge compliment because kids just don't have any pretense whatsoever.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my song came in at the point that it did, and that she harmonizes with me for a brief moment. The first time I heard that, I got chills.

2MNEK (co-writer): I met her publisher, "Big" Jon [Platt, CEO of Warner/Chappell Music]. He was saying, "I love your stuff, I'd love to get you in with Beyoncé." I was like, "Yeah, of course." I met her with him. She played me the chorus of "Hold Up," and she was just like, "Do your thing, do what you got to do."

Her process is, she's a writer, but she has an ear for music. And she'll hear what an artist does, she'll hear what a writer does, and she'll interpret it and make it her own, blend it with her vibe.

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3Jack White (featured artist/producer): She took just sort of a sketch of a lyrical outline and turned it into this most bodacious, vicious, incredible song. I don't even know what you'd classify it as — soul, rock and roll, whatever it is. "Don't Hurt Yourself" is incredibly intense. I'm so amazed at what she did with it.

4MeLo-X (producer): I heard a lot of the music and the subject matter of the music and we spoke about direction and the theme and the ideas behind some of the stuff. I was able to write from a different perspective. And I think that she used a lot of what I did and pieced it together. She's a master of finding raw talent and including them in her projects.

["Sorry"] was kind of like creating a vibe in the studio. We were just working on a lot of stuff and the idea came up pretty simple. It was just some cool keys, drum patterns, and we started putting down vocal ideas and lyric ideas. … We created that vibe together. It plays a key part in the record because I think it's at a vital point in the record. It's all these different emotions and different sounds and different layers.

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Beyoncé - Sorry

5Diana Gordon (producer): I feel like the songs we worked on were specifically for her. I didn't have a dad growing up, so "Daddy Lessons," that was more of a fantasy for me. I felt like I was very strong in helping to raise my brothers and sisters but that really was her story.

When I played it for her, I was like, "This is one of my favorite songs." She was like, "This is my life." I told her, "You know what, take it, do what you want with it." She went and re-produced it, she changed some words, added the bridge. It's hers.

6Ingrid Burley (co-writer): Beyoncé doesn't even know this but I wrote "Love Drought" [when] I was frustrated with the label two years ago and I was very new. Two of the people who were running the label at the time had lied to me and told me that Beyoncé wasn't currently listening to any new music. Then I got to the studio to go to her writing camp — literally four days later — in L.A. and they started playing me new music. And [engineer/mixer] Mike Dean was there from Houston. I'm like, "They just told me that she's not listening to any music." ... I was so pissed.  

I wrote the song in like 30 minutes. As I'm looping this beat, I couldn't get out of my head the fact that they just lied to me and I [wrote the lyrics], "Ten times out of nine, I know you lying" and I was like, "Ingrid, too much." So I [added] "But nine times out of ten, I know you trying." … The only way that I could really get over it was kind of like, "She's gonna sing the song I wrote about her label one day."

7Mike Dean (engineer/mixer): We were in the studio together. Just writing sessions. Lotta producers, lotta singers. We'd just have them all collaborate. "Love Drought" was one of the songs that we made. I was just lucky enough for it to make the album. It didn't change from the day we recorded it. It's been the same for a couple years.

8Just Blaze (producer): [The creative process for "Freedom" featuring Kendrick Lamar] was pretty organic and quick. She had a demo already started, and she called me and said something like, "This record has to be produced by you." … She had the basic arrangement and the sample, and some vocals. I took all of those elements back home and worked on them for a few days, tried a few things out.

When she sets up shop and goes into the studio, it's like a situation room. There are plans posted everywhere, and she's got her visual inspirations all on one wall. When you see "Visuals Produced By Beyoncé," she's not an artist who slaps her name on something because she can. She really is there from beginning to end, going over every detail of the vision that she wants to get across.

9Mike Will Made-It (producer): I had run into her one night. We were just chopping it up, and she was like, "You know what? I really like the idea of 'Formation' that you sent." I was like, "That's dope, man … when I was with Sremm [hip-hop duo Rae Sremmurd], we were just talking about it like, 'That could be a big song for the females. Get in formation about the dudes that you're messing with or get in line. … It could be a good women's empowerment song. … The next thing you know, she takes it and makes it a culture empowerment thing — bigger than just females.

Trying to be great #Formation #EardrummerRecords

A photo posted by Mike Will (@mikewillmadeit) on Feb 8, 2016 at 12:09pm PST

10Beyoncé (artist): I'm an artist and I think the most powerful art is usually misunderstood. But anyone who perceives my message [in "Formation"] as anti-police is completely mistaken. … But let's be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me. I'm proud of what we created and I'm proud to be a part of a conversation that is pushing things forward in a positive way.

I hope I can create art that helps people heal. Art that makes people feel proud of their struggle. Everyone experiences pain, but sometimes you need to be uncomfortable to transform.

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GRAMMYs

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Tune into the 59th GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS.

59th GRAMMY Awards nominees in 2017
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Beatles to Jack White: 59 reasons to watch the 59th GRAMMYs

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From Beyoncé, Rihanna and Adele to Justin Bieber, Chance The Rapper, Drake, and Kanye West, here are 59 storylines to follow
Tim McPhate
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

You've seen the official 59th GRAMMY nominations list, but do you really know the nominees? In case you're not sure, we've dissected the categories to bring you 59 must-know factoids about this year's nominations class. While these facts won't help you predict the winners, they're certain to impress your friends at your GRAMMY viewing party. Read all 59 facts below and be sure to follow your favorite artists on Music's Biggest Night.
 

1. Beyoncé

Beyoncé received nine GRAMMY nominations this year, more than any other artist. She now has 62 career nominations, extending her lead as the most-nominated female artist in GRAMMY history.

2. Lukas Graham

Lukas Graham's "7 Years" is nominated for Record Of The Year. The Danish group is just the second group or duo from continental Europe to receive a nomination in this category. The first was Daft Punk. The French duo won three years ago for "Get Lucky" (featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers).

3. Rihanna

Rihanna received her third Record Of The Year nomination for "Work" (featuring Drake). All three of these nominations are for collaborations. Rihanna was previously nominated for "Umbrella" (featuring Jay Z) and Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie" (on which she was featured).

4. Beyoncé

Beyoncé landed her fifth Record Of The Year nomination with "Formation." (This counts "Say My Name," which she recorded as a member of Destiny's Child.) This puts her in a tie with Barbra Streisand as the woman with the most career nominations in this category.

5. Adele

Adele's 25 is nominated for Album Of The Year. The singer's previous album, 21, won in this category five years ago. This is the first time an artist's follow-up to an Album Of The Year winner has been nominated in this category since Bob Dylan's Love And Theft (the follow-up to Time Out Of Mind) was a 2001 nominee.

6. Justin Bieber, Drake

Canadians Justin Bieber and Drake are among the nominees for Album Of The Year for Purpose and Views, respectively. Bieber, from London, Ontario, and Drake, from Toronto, are each vying to become the first Canadian solo artist in 20 years to win the category. Celine Dion won for Falling Into You for 1996.

7. Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd

Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd, who were nominated for Album Of The Year last year for their albums To Pimp A Butterfly and Beauty Behind The Madness, respectively, are nominated in the same category this year as featured artists on Beyoncé's Lemonade.

8. Sturgill Simpson

Sturgill Simpson's A Sailor's Guide To Earth is nominated for both Album Of The Year and Best Country Album. Simpson produced his album. It's the first entirely self-produced album to receive an Album Of The Year nomination since 2014, when two such albums — Beck's Morning Phase and Pharrell Williams' Girl — were nominated.

9. "Hello"

"Hello," which Adele co-wrote with Greg Kurstin, is nominated for Song Of The Year. A different song with the same title, by Lionel Richie, was nominated in this category 32 years ago. This marks the first time in GRAMMY history that two different songs with the same title have been nominated in this category.

10. "I Took A Pill In Ibiza"

Mike Posner's "I Took A Pill In Ibiza" is nominated for Song Of The Year. Posner wrote the song. It's vying to become the first song written by a single songwriter to win in this category since Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" (2007).

11. Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran is looking to become the first songwriter in GRAMMY history to win Song Of The Year two years in a row. Sheeran won in this category last year for "Thinking Out Loud" (which he co-wrote with Amy Wadge). He's nominated this year for "Love Yourself" (which he co-wrote with Justin Bieber and Benjamin Levin aka Benny Blanco).

12. Kelsea Ballerini, Maren Morris

Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris are both nominated for Best New Artist. This marks the first time in GRAMMY history that two country artists have received nominations in this category in the same year.

13. The Chainsmokers

The Chainsmokers are only the second electronic dance music artist to receive a Best New Artist nomination. Skrillex, a 2011 nominee, was the first.

14. Chance The Rapper

Chance The Rapper is nominated for Best New Artist. The rapper, 23, wasn't even born in 1989 when Tone Loc became the first rap artist to receive a nomination in this category.

15. Anderson .Paak

Anderson .Paak is nominated for both Best New Artist and Best Urban Contemporary Album for Malibu. He is the first artist to be nominated for both of these awards in the same year since Frank Ocean four years ago. (Ocean's Channel Orange won Best Urban Contemporary Album.)

16. Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for the second year in a row. The rock legend is nominated for Fallen Angels. Dylan is the fourth GRAMMY nominee to have won a Nobel Prize. The other three are Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama and Toni Morrison.

17. Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson received his third nomination in the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category. The country legend is nominated for Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin. Nelson was previously nominated for Moonlight Becomes You (1994) and American Classic (2009).

18. Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand could win her first GRAMMY in 30 years. The star is nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway. Her most recent GRAMMY win was for her first Broadway collection, The Broadway Album, which won for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female (1986).

19. Best Pop Vocal Album

For the first time in 11 years, female solo artists take four of the five nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album. Adele, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, and Sia are nominated alongside Justin Bieber.

20. Herb Alpert

Herb Alpert is among the nominees for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for Human Nature. (The title track is the John Bettis/Steve Porcaro song made famous by Michael Jackson.) Alpert received his first GRAMMY nominations (and awards) for 1965 for his work with the Tijuana Brass. 

21. Jack White

Jack White, who is nominated for three GRAMMYs this year, will be honored for his contributions "behind the glass" at the Producers & Engineers Wing's annual GRAMMY Week celebration on Feb. 8, 2017. White is nominated for Album Of The Year as one of the featured artists and producers on Beyoncé's Lemonade; Best Rock Performance for "Don't Hurt Yourself" with Beyoncé (her first nomination in a Rock Field); and Best American Roots Song for "City Lights."

22. Best Rock Performance

Two of this year's nominees for Best Rock Performance were recorded live on television programs. Alabama Shakes' "Joe" was recorded for the PBS series "Austin City Limits." Disturbed's version of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound Of Silence" was recorded on TBS' "Conan."

23. Megadeth

The title track from Megadeth's album, Dystopia, is among the nominees for Best Metal Performance. This is the band's 12th nomination in this category (including nominations in the discontinued Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance category). The band is seeking to win their first GRAMMY.

24. Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop earned his first nomination since 1988: Best Alternative Music Album for Post Pop Depression. In 2016 Pop appeared at the GRAMMY Museum at L.A. Live for a wide-ranging talk with Josh Homme as part of the Museum’s A Conversation With series.

25. Radiohead

Radiohead are vying to become the first four-time winner for Best Alternative Music Album. The band is nominated for A Moon Shaped Pool. Radiohead won in this category for OK Computer (1997), Kid A (2000) and In Rainbows (2008). Radiohead are currently tied with the White Stripes as the only three-time winners in the category.

26. Solange

Solange's "Cranes In The Sky" is nominated for Best R&B Performance, marking her first career nomination. Solange's older sister, Beyoncé, has won nine of her 20 GRAMMYs to date in R&B performance categories.

27. Rihanna

Rihanna is vying to become the first repeat winner in the Best Urban Contemporary Album category (which dates to 2012). Her album Anti is nominated this year. Unapologetic won three years ago.

28. Jay Z, Kanye West

The Throne aka Jay Z and Kanye West are nominated for Best Rap Performance with Drake for "Pop Style." If they win, it would be their eighth collaboration to score a GRAMMY. Their previous wins together are "Swagga Like Us," "Run This Town" (which won two GRAMMYs), "Otis," "N****s In Paris" (which won two GRAMMYs), and "Church In The Wild."

29. Drake

Drake's "Hotline Bling" is nominated for Best Rap/Sung Performance. The category was formerly known as Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. The change was made to expand the category beyond collaborations between rappers and vocalists to include recordings by a solo artist who blurs the lines between rapping and singing. Drake is the first beneficiary of that change.

30. De La Soul

De La Soul's Best Rap Album-nominated And The Anonymous Nobody, which they crowdfunded via Kickstarter, is looking to become the first crowdfunded album to win the category. De La Soul were first nominated for a 1989 GRAMMY for Best Rap Performance.

31. Kanye West

Kanye West's The Life Of Pablo is nominated for Best Rap Album. West is a four-time winner in this category. Only Eminem has received more awards (six) in the category.

32. Best Country Duo/Group Performance

Three pop or rock artists are nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Performance. Elle King is nominated as a featured artist on Dierks Bentley's "Different For Girls." P!nk is nominated as Kenny Chesney's duet partner on "Setting The World On Fire." Pentatonix are nominated for their rendition of Dolly Parton's "Jolene," which features Parton.

33. Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton is nominated with Pentatonix for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for "Jolene." A master of collaborations, this is Parton's 18th GRAMMY nomination for recordings in conjunction with other artists. Collaborators over the years have included Norah Jones, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, and Kenny Rogers.

34. Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn is among the nominees for Best Country Album for Full Circle. She won in this category 12 years ago with Van Lear Rose. If she wins again, she'll become the first female solo artist to win in this category twice. Lynn, 84, received her first GRAMMY nomination 50 years ago for "Don't Come Home A Drinkin'."

35. Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna

Hillary Lindsey and Lori McKenna, who collaborated (along with Liz Rose) on "Girl Crush," last year's winner for Best Country Song, are competing against each other in the category this year. Lindsey is nominated for co-writing the Keith Urban hit "Blue Ain't Your Color." McKenna is nominated for writing the Tim McGraw hit "Humble And Kind." If either woman wins this year, she would become the first songwriter to win back-to-back awards in this category since Robert John "Mutt" Lange and Shania Twain won for "You're Still The One" (1998) and "Come On Over" (1999).

36. Shirley Caesar

With her two nominations for Best Gospel Performance/Song and Best Gospel Album, Shirley Caesar is looking to add to her 11 career GRAMMYs, which is the highest total for a female gospel artist. Caesar is among the 2017 recipients of The Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award.

37. Kirk Franklin

Kirk Franklin could become the first artist to win twice in the Best Gospel Album category (which dates to 2011). Franklin won the 2011 award for Hello Fear. He is nominated this year for Losing My Religion.

38. Hillary Scott

Hillary Scott, who has won seven GRAMMYs as a member of Lady Antebellum, is nominated for two awards for a family project (Hillary Scott & The Scott Family). Love Remains is nominated for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album. "Thy Will," a track from the album, is nominated for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song.

39. Joey+Rory

Joey+Rory's Hymns is among the nominees for Best Roots Gospel Album. The duo received their first career nomination last year for Best Country Duo/Group Performance. Joey Martin Feek, the female half of this married couple, died on March 4, 2016.

40. Vince Gill

Vince Gill's "Kid Sister" is nominated for Best American Roots Song. Gill has won two of his 20 GRAMMY Awards to date for songwriting. "I Still Believe In You" (1992) and "Go Rest High On That Mountain" (1995) were both voted Best Country Song.

41. William Bell

Stax Records veteran William Bell, whose R&B hits date to 1966, is nominated for two GRAMMYs. This Is Where I Live is nominated for Best Americana Album. "The Three Of Me," a track from the album, is nominated for Best Traditional R&B Performance. Bell wouldn't be the first R&B veteran to win for Best Americana Album. Mavis Staples took the 2010 award for You Are Not Alone.

42. Judy Collins

Judy Collins is nominated for Best Folk Album for Silver Skies Blue, a collaboration with Ari Hest. Collins received her first GRAMMY nomination 53 years ago for her album, Judy Collins #3. It was nominated for Best Folk Recording.

43. Ziggy Marley

Ziggy Marley is vying to win his seventh GRAMMY in the Best Reggae Album category for his album Ziggy Marley. Marley won his first three awards in the category for albums on which he fronted Ziggy Marley And The Melody Makers.

44. Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka Shankar is among the nominees for Best World Music Album for Land Of Gold. Shankar's late father, Ravi Shankar, won twice in this category, for Full Circle: Carnegie Hall 2000 (2001) and The Living Room Sessions (2012). This is Anoushka Shankar's sixth nomination in this category (counting one in the discontinued Best Contemporary World Music Album category).

45. Patti Smith

Punk-rock poet Patti Smith is nominated for Best Spoken Word Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Storytelling) for the second year in a row. She is nominated this year for M Train. She was nominated last year for Blood On Snow. This would be Smith's first GRAMMY win.

46. Best Comedy Album

Three of the five nominees for Best Comedy Album — Margaret Cho's American Myth, Tig Notaro's Boyish Girl Interrupted and Amy Schumer's Live At The Apollo — are by female performers. This is the first time that female performers have accounted for three of the nominees in the history of this category (which goes back to 1958, the first year of the GRAMMY Awards).

47. Kinky Boots

The Original West End Cast Album from Kinky Boots is nominated for Best Musical Theater Album. The Broadway cast album from the show won in this category three years ago. Kinky Boots is vying to become the fourth show to win twice in this category (with two different recordings of the score). The first three were Gypsy, West Side Story and Les Misérables.

48. Steve Martin, Edie Brickell

The Original Broadway Cast album to Bright Star is among the finalists for Best Musical Theater Album. Steve Martin and Edie Brickell collaborated on the score. The two musicians won a GRAMMY three years ago for Best American Roots Song for "Love Has Come For You."

49. Amy

The soundtrack to Amy, a film about the late Amy Winehouse, is nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media. The film itself won a GRAMMY last year for Best Music Film. A win this year would mark the first time a film and its companion soundtrack each won in their category.

50. Straight Outta Compton

The soundtrack to the hit film Straight Outta Compton is a nominee for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media. The nomination comes in the same year that N.W.A's landmark 1988 album of the same name is inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.

51. "Vinyl"

Vinyl: The Essentials Season 1, featuring music from the HBO series, is nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media. It's vying to become the second TV soundtrack to win in this category, following Boardwalk Empire, Volume 1, which won five years ago. Boardwalk Empire was also a HBO series.

52. John Williams

John Williams, one of the top winners in GRAMMY history, received his 66th career GRAMMY nomination for Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Williams has now received nominations for six of the seven Star Wars films he has scored. (The lone film in the franchise he did not receive a nod for was 2002's Star Wars: Episode II — Attack Of The Clones.)

53. "Stranger Things"

Both Stranger Things Volume 1 and Stranger Things Volume 2 — composed by Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein — are nominated for Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media. This is the first time in the category's history two albums from the same TV series have been nominated.

54. Ryuichi Sakamoto, The Revenant

The Revenant, composed by Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto, is nominated for Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media. Sakamoto won in this category 28 years ago for The Last Emperor, which he composed with Cong Su and David Byrne.

55. Suicide Squad

Two songs from the film Suicide Squad are nominated for Best Song Written For Visual Media. They are "Heathens" (Tyler Joseph, songwriter) and "Purple Lamborghini" (Shamann Cooke, Skrillex & Rick Ross, songwriters). Last year, two songs from Fifty Shades Of Grey were nominated in this category.

56. Max Martin

Max Martin is nominated for Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical. The Swedish hit-maker won in this category two years ago. If he wins again this year, he'll become the first producer to win twice in the space of three years since Rick Rubin, who won the 2006 and 2008 awards.

57. Judith Sherman

Judith Sherman could win Producer Of The Year, Classical for the third year in a row. To date, only one producer has won this award three years running. Robert Woods won for 1987, 1988 and 1989.

58. The Beatles

The Beatles: Eight Days A Week The Touring Years is vying for Best Music Film. It would be the third Beatles-related film to win in this category (or its predecessor category, Best Music Video, Long Form). The Beatles Anthology won the 1996 award. The Beatles Love—All Together Now won the 2009 award.

59. Special Merit Awards

Current nominees Herb Alpert, Blind Boys Of Alabama, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Loretta Lynn, Ennio Morricone, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Barbra Streisand have been previously honored by The Recording Academy with Special Merit Awards. (Lifetime Achievement Award: Blind Boys Of Alabama, Bowie, Dylan, Kristofferson, Lynn, Nelson, Parton, and Streisand.; Trustees Award: Alpert and Morricone).

The 59th GRAMMY Awards will take place Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, live from Staples Center in Los Angeles and broadcast on the CBS Television Network from 8–11:30 pm ET/5–8:30 pm PT. Follow Recording Academy/GRAMMYs on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and use #GRAMMYs to join the conversation.