Editor's Note: The 2022 GRAMMYs Awards show, officially known as the 64th GRAMMY Awards, <a href="https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/2022-grammys-awards-64th-new-air-show-date-location-las-vegas-april-3-announcement "https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/2022-grammys-awards-64th-new-air-show-date-location-las-vegas-april-3-announcement"">has been rescheduled to Sunday, April 3, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The below article was updated on Tuesday, Jan. 18, to reflect the new show date and location.

The GRAMMY for Album Of The Year is one of the most prestigious and coveted awards a musician can receive. At the 2022 GRAMMYs Awards show, officially known as the 64th GRAMMY Awards, there will be some heady competition for the title.

For the 2022 GRAMMYs, Jon Batiste's WE ARE, Tony Bennett's and Lady Gaga's Love for Sale, Justin Bieber's Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe), Doja Cat's Planet Her (Deluxe), Billie Eilish's Happier Than Ever, H.E.R.'s Back of My Mind, Lil Nas X's Montero, Olivia Rodrigo's Sour, Taylor Swift's Evermore and Kanye West's Donda have been nominated for Album Of The Year.

Who will take home the golden gramophone in this most vaunted of categories? Will it be Bennett, who just gave the world his farewell gift? Lil Nas X, who metamorphosed from novelty act to a full-fledged, out-and-proud pop star? Perhaps Olivia Rodrigo, who synthesized pop-punk, emo and indie pop like few before her? Or any of the other luminaries on the list?

Ahead of the 2022 GRAMMYs ceremony on April 3, here's a rundown of the Album Of The Year nominees.

Nominations for the 2022 GRAMMYs Awards show are officially here! See the full list of nominations.\

Jon Batiste — WE ARE

The Stay Human bandleader works in a multitude of formats, from film soundtracks to American Symphony, an upcoming large-scale work at Carnegie Hall.

"I'm involved in so many different types of things that so much of my life is balancing the amount of things I have going on and maintaining artistic integrity and keeping my values intact," he told GRAMMY.com in 2021. "It's hard to even encapsulate in one presentation of a thought."

But as a plain old album artist, he's as inventive and luminous as ever — as attests his genre-straddling 2021 album WE ARE — which features other rootsy, GRAMMY-honored greats like PJ Morton, Trombone Shorty and the Hot 8 Brass Band.

Tracks like "FREEDOM," "TELL THE TRUTH" and the title track show that this unique American talent may be kaleidoscopic in his pursuits, but he's able to hone his multifarious talents to a fine point.

Read More: Jon Batiste Talks New Album We Are, His Brain-Breaking Itinerary & Achieving "Freedom" From Genre

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Love for Sale

After more than seven decades in the game, Bennett is hanging up his mic: the vocal jazz titan (and Frank Sinatra's BFF) recently retired at 95 due to his worsening Alzheimer's.

Before he did, though, the 18-time GRAMMY winner signed off with this classy program of well-worn Cole Porterstandards with Lady Gaga — herself a 12-time GRAMMY winner. 

"There's a lot about him that I miss because he's not the old Tony anymore," Bennett's wife, Susan Benedetto, recently expressed in light of his diagnosis. "But when he sings, he's the old Tony."

Indeed, Love for Sale is the work of an American icon not fading away, but going out on top — and Gaga's inspired counterpoint is a fundamental reason it works so well.

Take A Look Back: For The Record: The Liberating Joy Of Lady Gaga's Born This Way At 10

Justin Bieber — Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe)

The cherubic teenybopper turned mature artist made a quantum leap with his 2020 album Changes. And if its follow-up is any indicator, that momentum shows no signs of slowing.

Justice, which arrived in the spring of 2021, is where the two-time GRAMMY winner and 14-time nominee got rangier than ever and trumpeted his personal values loudest. No longer was he projecting a bad-boy image or a redemption arc, but simply being an artist.

On tracks like "As I Am," "Hold On" and "Peaches," Bieber came to the table with a clear message to the world — both personal and apropos to the wild world where he grew up in public.

Take A Look Back: The GRAMMY Oral History: Justin Bieber's Purpose

Doja Cat — Planet Her (Deluxe)

As pop trajectories go, Doja Cat has had one of the oddest in recent memory — the TikTok wunderkind undulating in a cow costume has now perforated the highest echelon of the music industry. But the mind-blowing success of Planet Her shows her zenith is still ahead of her.

With a little help from collaborators Young Thug, Ariana Grande, the Weeknd, J.I.D. and SZA, she cooks up an assemblage of pop pleasures, like "Payday," "Need to Know" and "Kiss Me More." With "Mooo!" in the rearview and a massive debut album under her belt, the world is Doja Cat's oyster.

Read More: From Meme Queen To Popstar: Revisiting Doja Cat's Inevitable Breakout

Billie Eilish — Happier Than Ever

It was anyone's guess where Eilish (and her talented brother FINNEAS) could have gone after When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, but the seven-time GRAMMY winner went deeper than any of us could have imagined.

With a dyed-blonde Billie on the cover and gems like "My Future,” "Your Power" and the title track in the grooves, Happier Than Ever is a masterclass in candor, restraint and elegance.

Happier Than Ever arguably crescendos with the interlude "Not My Responsibility," where Eilish has a few words for online vultures who judge her appearance — a musical mirror to the IDGAF approach she’s taken in this new era, kicking off with her viral Vogue cover story in May.

"Do my shoulders provoke you? Does my chest?/ Am I my stomach? My hips?" she asks in the track, in just above a whisper. "The body I was born with / Is it not what you wanted?"

Read More: Billie Eilish's Road To Happier Than Ever: How The Superstar Continues To Break Pop's Status Quo

H.E.R. — Back of My Mind

As the traditional template of a Prince-style triple threat goes, H.E.R. has the whole package. Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson is an equally talented singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Now, the four-time GRAMMY winner is out with her bold and revealing debut album (but third Album of the Year contender overall), Back of My Mind.

"I often say things that I think we're afraid to say," Wilson told MTV News in 2021. "I sing the things that are sometimes hard to articulate, the things that sit in the back of our minds that we don't pay much attention to." 

She's a smashing success at this spiritual work — personal-yet-universal tunes like "We Made It," "Bloody Waters" and "Hold On" express the hard emotions we're collectively feeling.

Take A Look Back: H.E.R. Wins Song Of The Year For "I Can't Breathe" | 2021 GRAMMY Awards Show

Lil Nas X — Montero

Some thought Lil Nas X had peaked with his Trent Reznor- and Atticus Ross-assisted "Old Town Road" and its various remixes — that his legacy would forever be hung on a single tune, "Mambo No. 5" or "Incense and Peppermints" style.

Of course, that's not what happened: The proudly gay and Black rapper, singer and songwriter let his critics eat crow with his debut album, Montero.

Colorful and heartfelt highlights like "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)," "Industry Baby" and "Thats What I Want" demonstrate that Lil Nas X has a multiplicity of roads ahead of him — all which lead straight into the heart of pop's future.

Take A Look Back: Lil Nas X, BTS & Billy Ray Cyrus Enter The "Old Town Road" Multiverse At The 2020 GRAMMYs

Olivia Rodrigo — Sour

"Driver's License" would be enough for any artist to hang their hat on, but it was only the beginning for Rodrigo. As it turns out, all the various subgenres of the iPod generation — indie pop, pop-punk, emo — are grist for the mill.

Her debut album, Sour, is a freewheeling, emotionally rending trip through all those styles and more, the work of an artist who arrived fully-formed just shy of her 18th birthday.

Rodrigo's myriad of influences aside — Paramore and Billie Eilish are just two of the artists swimming around her consciousness — there's no mistaking her for anyone else. And that has a lot to do with her music's depth of emotional information.

"I hope people know that deep down, all that I do is write songs and talk about how I feel, and that's the most important thing to me," Rodrigo told Teen Vogue in 2021. "Everything else, I think, is not so important."

Taylor Swift — Evermore

We're so deep into the Taylor's Version era — and punch-drunk from the 10-minute version of "All Too Well" — that it's worth reminding ourselves just how paradigm-shifting Folklore and Evermore were back in 2020. 

First, Swift ripped up the rulebook with Folklore, establishing her cottagecore aesthetic and deepening her storytelling acumen. Then she leaned into both even more — with a little help from go-to collaborators Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff.

"To put it plainly, we just couldn't stop writing songs," Swift said in a social media post. "To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music."

Jewels like "Willow," "No Body, No Crime" (feat. Haim) and "Coney Island" (feat. the National)" show that Evermore doesn't suffer from sequelitis one iota — it's an equal and parallel force to its revelatory predecessor.

Read More: Taylor Swift's Road To Folklore: How The Superstar Evolved From 'Diaristic' Country Tunes To Her Most Progressive Music Yet

Kanye West — Donda

We only get one of these artists per generation — it was John Lennon, then Kurt Cobain, and now Kanye West.

Now that the compounding controversies, tabloid drama, on-and-off Drake beef and parade of album delaysare behind us, Donda reveals itself for what it is. Ye's latest is a messy, sprawling, experimental ode to grief and God from a Govinda-like searcher.

Follow the trajectory of these songs and you get a more-or-less clean arc from pure bluster ("I'm pulled over and I got priors!" from "Jail") to a plea for divine redemption ("Come and purify me, come and sanctify me/ You the air that I breathe, the ultra-ultralight beam," from "Come to Life.")

Take it all as a whole with the staggering, shocking performance-art events, and one message shines brightly through the smoke and mirrors: we can't do this on our own.

2022 GRAMMYs Awards Show: Complete Nominations List​

Kassa Overall holds his phone aloft, and rolls his eyes back in his head.

He's playing the intro to his track "Going Up," featuring Lil B, Shabazz Palaces and Francis and the Lights, which had dropped that day. A cello drone gives way to a strange woodblock part; a chopped-up drum solo jaws at everything — then it's as if Ableton freezes. Flanked by synths and sequencers, Overall seizes in his chair, as if he's being sucked into a black hole.

"You know the part where Neo gets kicked out of the Matrix?" the GRAMMY-nominated rapper, drummer and producer tells GRAMMY.com via Zoom. "It's like that, but when you get spit out, you actually get spit out in the bush in Africa."

That 20-second intro took Overall a long time to get right, but it's one of his favorite moments on his new album, ANIMALS — which arrived May 26 on Overall's new home, Warp Records.

The conversation has turned to the concept of absurdity —  a helpful lens through which to view Overall's art. It sure beats the one that hamstrung him in the past, when he did interview after interview after interview about the intersection of jazz and rap — with mental health thrown in for good measure.

"I've talked about this for two albums now," he told GRAMMY.com in 2021 with a hint of exhaustion. "I ran that cycle in my head. I'm not so much trying to prove the point anymore that these things can go together. I just want to make the dopest s—."

The joy of ANIMALS is not in that genre fusion, but Overall's swelling boldness and vividness as an artist — as well as its novel fusion of seemingly disparate collaborators. Try to find another record where you'll find jazz-adjacent pianists Vijay Iyer and Kris Davis next to singular rappers like Danny Brown and Lil B.

"The reason the jazz world feels a little bit dry and s— is because there's not really the space for absurdity," Overall says. "Somebody like Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie — a third of them was Lil B and Danny Brown energy. That's why it was fire."

On ANIMALS, Overall rose to the energetic occasion. The album is consumed with subjects like his uneasy relationship with ambition, and his relationship with his growing audience. On tracks like lead single "Ready to Ball," the Nick Hakim and Theo Croker-featuring "Make My Way Back Home," and the Vijay Iyer-assisted "The Score Was Made," Overall has bigger fish to fry — than where rap does or doesn't connect with jazz.

Read on for an interview with Overall about his latest career moves, bucking tired narratives and using collaborators as instruments — much like a certain embattled rap innovator.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

I'd like to start by talking about your pandemic-era SHADES trilogy of mixtapes. How was the experience making those mixtapes significant to your creative journey?

I was just thinking about the SHADES series yesterday, actually. I was thinking about the process of making that versus making a solo record, and I realized they're actually a lot more connected than people might think. 

When I make my own music, the process of it is still sample chopping — whether I'm chopping up original music, or chopping up some Nirvana, you know what I mean? Oftentimes, my original music includes collaging from other sources.

The SHADES thing was like me going, Let me actually deal with the sample practice. I missed the idea of taking some s— and flipping it. So, that was really a lot of fun.

I think SHADES 3, the third in the trilogy, was kind of a new direction for me, because I started actually using drum machines. The series started with more of me on the laptop, locked down in COVID, chopping up this and chopping of that. For this one, I had an actual studio behind me.

The lockdown is over, so I'm not so much in the headphones. So, if you listen to SHADES 3, it's more house tracks and s— like that. For me, it was just a good experiment. Although I made beats and used sample sequences, I never really got into step sequences, and those kinds of drum machines.

I'm a novice at that; I'm brand new at that. So, that's been a lot of fun.

The last time I interviewed you, you seemed to be trying to wrestle out of the reductive narrative around your music. You're dealing with more important subjects on ANIMALS. Where are you at in your career, through the lenses of public messaging and your signing to Warp?

Thank you for pointing that out first, because that'll allow me to not have to repeat things I'm tired of repeating.

Just to recap what you're saying, historically, jazz and rap often equals corny. I've never wanted to be corny, and I don't think I've ever been corny. It just happens to be the things that I say — where I come from. It's not so much like, I'm gonna do this.

And then the mental health s— is more like, I've just gotten comfortable talking about my life. Just like with any writer — you could be a writer for years, but it could become years until you become comfortable talking about your perspective and your ideas. If I'm just talking about the things that affect me a lot, that has to be a part of it. You can't not talk about it, but it was more like, I want to get past that.

I think that putting the album out on Warp is a bit of messaging in itself, because I've been making this music that I don't consider to be that weird. My music is not weird compared to Aphex Twin or Squarepusher, you know what I mean? 

It's a fresh take on electronics and organics, you know what I mean? It's unique, but it's not that weird. I came up through the industry I came up in. So, I'm trying to get booked in jazz clubs and play jazz festivals, and they're looking at me like, "Not under my banner!"

If you listen to the state of jazz, or different playlists on the various streaming platforms, they sound a lot different than when I first started putting music out. People were like, "Whoa, what is this? Is this your pop product? This is your pop album, right? How's your pop s— going?"

That's what my homies used to say — my jazz friends. "He plays good — like, he's a killing drummer, but he's also got this pop s— he do."

Your work doesn't resemble any pop music I've ever heard.

Nah, nah, But there's a drum machine of sorts. There's a clap that's not organic. There's vocals. [Laughs.] It's pop!

The first time I noticed was when I did a guest mix for BBC, which came through Tom Ravenscroft. He got hip to the album through Bandcamp; he had no idea who I am or what I am.

That's how I started even doing the SHADES stuff — when I got the opportunity to do guest mixes, I would do remixes to kind of double down. It's like a double word score of like, Yo, he's doing some extra-different s—.

So, they were like, "Producer Kassa Overall does a guest mix." And I noticed that it's the way you present something; people are listening to it differently. If I present an album as a jazz drummer, then it's some pop s— where I'm trying to sing or something. 

But then when it's presented as a producer thing, people are automatically like, "Oh, word. This is, like, electronic music. It's cool. We know where to put this."

My biggest influences are unique artists — unique people who made things that are kind of their own genre, whether it be Thom Yorke, Radiohead, Björk. Even Kanye; at a point, it was rebranding the whole idea. Like, "I'm a producer — no, I'm a rapper!" "You have a gangster image!" "No, I'm wearing skinny jeans and a pink polo!"

Then, even someone like John Coltrane, somebody like Bob Marley — obviously, these are the biggest artists in their fields, but they're also people [where] whatever they're making, you didn't really know what it was before it kind of popped in.

So, I would rather people hear my music and not think it's a jazz-rap collage. What if you don't relate it to anything else? What does it sound like to you?

The thing about the last album with Brownswood [Recordings, 2020's I THINK I'M GOOD]: I was like, "Bro, so many songs I'm making that y'all are considering to be B-sides would work well next to a Frank Ocean or James Blake record." 

Maybe it's a little too poppy for Brownswood's audience, but f— Brownswood's audience, you know what I mean? But there's a million people over here that don't even know what a Nord or a Rhodes is, and they f— with what I'm doing.

So I think that's the frustration I've dealt with. I'm just a dude making songs about my life. That's all it is.

Kassa Overall. Photo: Patrick O'Brien Smith

Was it a difficult process to find a post-Brownswood home that was conducive to what you want to do?

No, it was very easy. And shouts to Brownswood; I'm not saying "F— Brownswood." That's the homies. [Label founder] Gilles Peterson is still a big supporter of what I'm doing. I'm just saying moreso my image and branding — if you want to make it seem like I'm this organic Afro-bop type, it's not gonna really sell. My s— is way too sad boy.

Somebody from Warp hit me up after I THINK I'M GOOD came out and asked me to make some beats for Danny Brown. Actually, they asked me if I had some beats. I was like, "Bro, give me two weeks," and I made three beats for Danny Brown; he picked two of them.

And then, that same A&R came back around and was like, "Yo, I think you should touch some other tracks on the album and 'Kass out' the whole album." So, I added all sorts of little drums and vocal throws — different things to give my little texture.

I ended up working on four joints total on Danny's next record — and fully producing one, which is one of the singles, but it sounds like a Kass kind of thing. So, that relationship started, and we chop it up on music stuff regularly.

When I started getting ready to shop for my next record, it was kind of like, "Y'all want to do it?" and [Warp] was like "Hell yeah."

I could have signed somewhere else and gotten more money, but the branding would be the same "What is this?" type of thing. I think Warp has the history of electronic music, and they have artists there now — it tells a story of what I'm doing, in a good way. I fit into the thing.

You came up in the jazz scene, and your relationship with ambition weighs heavily on ANIMALS. What is it about that world that lends itself to a hyper-competitive, rise-and-grind spirit?

I think it's the displacement of a cultural home. I understand what you're talking about — jazz, self-help, motivational. There's so many connector cables there, and I'm guilty of it all. 

As a jazz musician, you have to learn how to practice. Like, I'm gonna practice all day, and the gigs are gonna come, and you're damn near doing, like, affirmations, and then you go sit in at Smalls. It's not like a doctor goes to school, and then applies, and it's an actual, visible track, The music thing is very pie-in-the-sky.

If you think about self-help as its own branding and industry, a lot of jazz musicians are susceptible to that kind of rhetoric. Because it's like, this person is huge, this person has nothing, and they're almost equally talented. One of them grinds his ass off; the other one drinks. 

The other thing — this might be a little darker, a shadow thing — is one thing that happened with jazz is colleges. Once jazz became this academia thing, that's the student industry. That means you have jazz musicians turning to students as a means of sustainment.

That's not really the culture of the music. The music isn't really rise-and-grind. The culture is not even about success. People like Jimmy Heath expressed this to me: it wasn't popular. 

It's popular now, or it looks like it. A Love Supreme is this huge thing, right? But if you listen to Elvin Jones interviews and stuff, he talks about playing in these clubs, and there's, like, six people there. Four of them are waiters, and people were not trying to hear that noise.

The idea is that you're going to choose this music that's not really designed for mass appeal, but the motivation is mass appeal. It's kind of a conflicting direction. That's not to say it can't work; there's a lot of people making it work.

But we're all screwed a little bit. It might not just be a jazz musician thing, and it might not just be a musician thing, but we're all kind of in this place of Work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, and who works the most wins.

I don't want to live like that, and I find myself in that position at times. I'm going like, Something's got to give eventually. It's supposed to be more of a spiritual thing — a practice.

Kassa Overall. Photo: Patrick O'Brien Smith

You mentioned Kanye; I love the way he seemed to use collaborators as instruments on Donda. I get that same feeling from ANIMALS.

It's funny you say this. When I started working on this record — we're talking about 2019, even, some of these joints — I always pick a couple of albums to compete with. That's kind of one of my secrets. The last record was <a href="https://www.grammy.com/artists/calvin-broadus/14274">[Snoop Dogg's] Doggystyle and <a href="https://www.grammy.com/artists/2pac/7233">[2Pac's] All Eyez on Me. And this record was Dark Twisted Fantasy.

I haven't said this much in interviews, because I don't want to be like, "Kassa Overall drops album dedicated to Kanye!" [Laughs hard] But he was a huge influence on my process. 

You have these long-ass songs. It's an open-ended beat. And however many minutes [into Dark Twisted Fantasy], Rick Ross comes in. Or you have Paul McCartney working on the melody. That was the inspiration behind this. If you listen close to a lot of the sonics, you'll hear, Oh, this is in conversation with that production process.

A musician like Kris Davis, for example. An absolute weirdo. You sit down and talk with her — so stoic. Who she is in itself is an anomaly. And then the music she makes is so unique.

Somebody like her would never cross paths with Danny Brown, who's equally strange. Even just his voice; he was a weirdo in his world. He was signed to G-Unit. He came up in Detroit, street rap adjacent, but when he popped off by kind of busting out of that and embracing more of the weirdo myths of his art. He's a standout in his own space.

I look at those two artists as people that actually have more in common than you would think. They're similar because they're very different in their own spaces. I think the world that Danny Brown lives in is better with Kris Davis in it. And I think the world that Kris Davis and Vijay Iyer are in is better with Lil B in it.

10 Emerging Jazz Artists To Watch: Simon Moullier, Mali Obomsawin, Julieta Eugenio, Jeremy Dutton & More

Among serious music fans, it's a common rite of passage to realize there's a lot more to Steely Dan than meets the eye. And a lot of that is biting, sardonic wit.

If you think Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's three-time GRAMMY-winning partnership is just the stuff of smoothed-over yacht rock, you could have a change of heart: Dan bangers from "Deacon Blues" to "Don't Take Me Alive" to "Hey Nineteen" are full of pitch-black character studies, acidic turns of phrase, and one-liners that may singe your eyebrows.

Sure, this component of the group is key to their conceptual essence. But in your dance with the Dan, take the next step: If you took away all the sarcasm, all the seediness, all the salt, Steely Dan would still be one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Because their musical sophistication was second to none.

For decades, connotations of soft-rock yuppiedom have calcified around Steely Dan; The Onion once summed it up with an article headlined "Donald Fagen Defends Steely Dan To Friends." But not only do they barely resemble yacht rock on any level; their compositions and playing were of a stunning level of sophistication. It's no accident that unquestionable musical godheads Wayne Shorter, Bernard Purdie and the Brecker brothers played with them.

Steely Dan is a tangled web indeed, and a new book illuminates every nook and cranny of their legend. Journalist Alex Pappademas and visual artist Joan LeMay's Quantum Criminals, arrived in May and  pulls apart the Steely Dan myth like Russian nesting dolls.

"We're all looking out at the world with a Donald and Walter-ish kind of dismay. So they make a lot more sense now," Pappademas recently told Rolling Stone. What seemed cold and remote and jerky about them back in the day — now, that's just the way people talk. They're also also writing apocalyptically about their time, and our time now seems so unavoidably apocalyptic.

In the same interview, Pappademas cited the final album of their original run, 1980's Gaucho. "Gaucho is the ultimate one because it's the slickest," he said, mentioning an ultra-complex drum machine they built to remove any vestige of humanity. "Eventually, the solution is, 'We're going to invent sampling so that we can reduce the amount of human error.'"

Of course, Steely Dan didn't literally invent sampling. But the comment at least tacitly bridges two worlds few know are bridged: Steely Dan and hip-hop. As Pappademas put it in the book — albeit in the context of a contentious royalties agreement — “Even if nothing about Steely Dan was hip-hop, everything about them was hip-hop… they were about that cash.”

According to WhoSampled, the Dan have been sampled 152 times; in a number of cases, those samples were in rap songs. Pappademas acknowledges this component of the Dan's legacy in the chapter "Peter/Tariq/Daniel" in Quantum Criminals.

In tandem with Quantum Criminals, let the following list of Dan-sampling rap songs elucidate this misunderstood band for neophytes: they were not only gritty lyrically, but conducive to musical grit.

De La Soul - "Eye Know" (1989)

Smack in the middle of De La Soul's debut album, 1989's 3 Feet High and Rising, is "Eye Know," which samples the Mad Lads' "Make This Young Lady Mine," Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay," and Lee Dorsey's "Get Out of My Life, Woman."

Underpinning it all is the clavinet from key Steely Dan hit "Peg," a single from their 1977  masterpiece, Aja.

"Hip-hop love this is and don't mind when I quiz your involvements before the sun," Pos raps over the burbling chords. "But clear your court 'cause this is a one-man sport." Between verses, a sampled Fagen bleats, "I know I'll love you better!"

Ice Cube - "Don't Trust 'Em" (1992)

Get past the… er, interesting cover art, and 1976's The Royal Scam is a jewel in Steely Dan's crown — a revisitation of their rock roots as they hurtled into ironic smoothness.

"Green Earrings," about a remorseless jewel thief, is a highlight, and Ice Cube incorporated a sped-up sample of its keyboard part in "Don't Trust 'Em," from his 1992 album The Predator. 

The crystalline-toned hook is woven into brutal storytelling, as the former N.W.A. MC details how a sexual encounter can get you hogtied in a trunk: "You can't trust a big butt and a smile," Cube sagely warns.

Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz - "Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)" (1997)

Aja's opener, "Black Cow," remains of one Steely Dan's all-time funkiest cuts, and it provides the engine for East Coast rap duo Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz's debut single, "Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)".

As Pappademas lays out in Quantum Criminals, Fagen and Becker would only clear the sample if they received 100 percent of the royalties. "People are under the impression that we put the record out and got sued," Gunz said, according to the book. "We didn't get sued. We got stuck up." "Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)" turned out to be Tarique and Gunz's one and only hit song, from their one and only album.

MF DOOM - "Gas Drawls" (1999)

Other MCs clearly got the memo on "Black Cow": it shows up early on the late MF DOOM's "Gas Drawls," from his 1999 debut album Operation: Doomsday, and pops up repeatedly throughout the song.

"You were very high!" Fagen crows just before Dumile punches in, in media res: "By the way, I re-up on bad dreams, bag up screams in 50s/ Be up on mad schemes that heat shop like jiffy."

Kanye West - "Champion" (2007)

Like Ye's cartoon-bear mascot on the cover of 2007's Graduation, "Champion," a cut from that album, blasts into the air — buoyed by a vocal sample from Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne."

"Did you realize/ That you were a champion in their eyes?" Fagen croons as the song's chorus, giving "Champion" its thrust as well as its title. At first, Fagen and Becker were reluctant to clear the sample; they relented after West sent Fagen a heartfelt, handwritten letter.

Today, the verse resonates in the rapper now called Ye's legacy — not only for this particular song, but because it seems to sum up his rise and fall. Clearly, Pappademas was right: Steely Dan has nothing to do with hip-hop. Steely Dan is hip-hop.

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The pandemic wreaked global havoc on many levels. Beyond the human toll, the disruptions brought on by the spread of COVID-19 caused deep and lasting damage to nearly every business sector, including live entertainment. Virtually overnight, workers lost their livelihoods, businesses closed their doors or drastically curtailed operations, and supply chains were hobbled. 

Within days of lockdown, multiple outlets published sobering articles detailing the tours, concerts and festivals that had been affected by the outbreak; Insider.com article identified at least 170 postponements or cancellations. In a flash, every artist across the globe witnessed the live performance side of their careers vaporize. Crews were sent home, and all of the businesses that served the sector — logistics, audio gear, food service and more — found a barren landscape.

During the pandemic, major promoter Live Nation saw a drastic drop in the number of concerts and festivals under its banner: from over 40,000 events in 2019 to just over 8,000 in 2020. But by the end of 2022, Pollstar.com reported that the year’s top 100 tours sold approximately 59 million tickets — more than 2019's sales. 

Three years after the beginning of the pandemic, life is in many ways returning to normal. Yet the costs associated with putting on a concert have risen dramatically, due to both the pandemic's inflationary pressures and a surge in demand for the goods and services necessary to sustain tours. For those working in and around the live music business, the "new normal" means some things work as they did before COVID-19 while others have altered radically — either temporarily or for good. 

GRAMMY.com spoke with a cross section of industry professionals about some of the most profound changes, how they’re being addressed, and what it all might mean for the future. 

New Touring Paradigms

With the return of live music has come a corresponding, pent-up surge in demand, notes Christy Castillo Butcher, Senior VP, Programming & Booking at the 70,000 seat SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. "To satiate that demand, you have to have a bigger venue." 

In 2023 alone, SoFi Stadium is hosting several megashows: Billy Joel & Stevie Nicks, Grupo Firme, Romeo Santos, a five-night Taylor Swift residency, Metallica, Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran and P!nk are all on the venue’s calendar, with additional shows awaiting announcement. Madison Square Garden saw multiple sold-out performances by Janet Jackson, and will host a seven-night Phish residency. 

Since the pandemic, some artists have taken different approaches to touring. Tandem tours and residencies are just two of the phenomena that seem to be increasing in popularity with touring artists and their management teams.

Teaming up for a tandem tour isn’t a new idea; package tours have been part of the concert landscape from the days of Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars in the mid 1960s. And in an era when post-pandemic-related shortages and logistical snags make touring even more challenging, the practice is finding renewed interest.

One of the highest-profile tandem tours of 2023 is the ZZ Top/Lynyrd Skynyrd Sharp Dressed Simple Man tour. Visiting more than 22 cities across the U.S, the tour brings together three-time GRAMMY nominees ZZ Top with the popular Southern rock band.

"You want to give the fans the value of seeing two bands together," says Ross Schilling, Lynyrd Skynyrd's Tour Manager. (Pollstar reported an average ticket price for the top 100 North American tours in the first half of 2022 at more than $108. Meanwhile, ticket prices for megastars such as Beyoncé and Swift have reached astronomical levels.)

Schilling acknowledges that there are pros and cons for the artists as well. "You're sharing the expenses and the revenues," he notes, adding that the production is often halved. "Video, pyro, smoke, whatever kind of elements you want to add" can be shared on a tandem tour.

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Another option experiencing a renaissance is the concert residency. "Residencies are not new, of course," says Phil Carson, a touring and management veteran who spent many years on the road with high-profile rock bands including Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, AC/DC and Yes. "They started with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. when there was really only one place to go: Las Vegas." 

Today there are many more options, but the motivations are often the same as before. "Sammy, Dean Martin… all those guys wanted to hang out together, and didn't want to go on the bloody road," Carson explains. As their audiences grew older, they too were interested in the idea of going to one place to see their favorite performers.

And Carson thinks that the multi-night approach may well be part of a trend for the future. "We’re starting to get two-and three-night runs in casinos across America," he says. Adele, Bruno Mars, Maroon 5, Luke Bryan, Katy Perry, Carrie Underwood and Carlos Santana are just a few of the artists eschewing the road in favor of a series of dates in one venue. 

The trend is extending to smaller venues as well. Singer/songwriter James McMutry and his band launched a residency at Austin' Continental Club in November 2021; that booking continues to the present day. And just last August, Robert Glasper announced a 48-show residency at the Blue Note Club in New York City; it’s his fourth extended run of dates at the famed jazz venue.

Festivals Return En Force

Following increased demand for live entertainment post-lockdown, major music festivals returned with a force in 2022 and continue to do so in 2023. Coachella and Lollapalooza were among the multi-day, multi-weekend events returning after COVID-forced cancellations, while mid-level events such as San Francisco's Outside Lands also saw over 220,000 attendees in 2022 — a major boon for a live music industry that had been in crisis only a year before.

Celebrating and featuring a multigenerational lineup of Latinx artists and performers, the Bésame Mucho Festival premiered in December 2022 at the 56,000 capacity Dodger Stadium. Tickets sold out within 70 minutes. The lineup for the 2023 event was announced in February; once again, the event sold out almost immediately.

Read more: Latin Music's Next Era: How New Festivals & Big Billings Have Helped Bring Reggaeton, New Corridos & More To The Masses

Ashley Capps has been wholly immersed in the festival scene; former head of AC Entertainment, for many years he oversaw the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. These days he has scaled back his activities but still curates the adventurous Big Ears Festival which he founded in 2009 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

"The post-pandemic Big Ears has seen extraordinary growth," he says, noting a pre-COVID trajectory of growth, with an annual 20 percent increase in ticket sales. The 2022 Big Ears — the first after a two-year pause — experienced a 35 percent growth. "That led us to declare our first full-on sellout," he says, "five weeks before the festival happened." 

In 2023, Big Ears noted another surge in ticket sales, surpassing 50 percent over the previous year. The multiple-venue festival added additional larger venues to accommodate the increased demand. Concertgoers "are certainly hungry to get back into the live music experience," Capps says. "And the artists we’re working with at Big Ears are eager to be back out and in front of appreciative audiences."

That pent-up demand on both sides of the equation can result in a crowded field, with many events — even beyond music — competing both for attention, staffing and gear.

The Cost Of Making Music

Global logistical bottlenecks that plagued every industry continue to take a toll on the live music industry. Worldwide economic inflation — which hit 8.8 percent in 2022, nearly doubling year-over-year, a partial result of the pandemic — has increased costs and cut profits, laying the groundwork for a "rocky road to recovery." Finding themselves without opportunities for work during the pandemic, untold numbers of skilled tour technicians left the business. 

"People got out of the industry across the board, from musicians to agents to managers to bartenders to production staff," says Morgan Margolis, CEO/President of Knitting Factory Entertainment. "'I’ve got to do something else.' I saw a lot of that." Some never returned, causing a personnel shortage once live touring resumed.

All that affected live music venues, too. "We were shuffling around tour managers, production managers, box office personnel," says Margolis. He characterizes his company — active nationwide in venue operations, festivals, artist management, touring and more — as an "all hands on deck" operation. "I actually slung some drinks in Walla Walla at an Aaron Lewis concert," he says. 

Increased costs mean it’s essential to run the leanest operation possible while maintaining quality. Margolis recalls the landscape when live music started coming back in 2022. "Vans and buses: everything was running out, even rental cars," he remembers. "And everything — generators, lighting rigs, staging rigs – was now 20-30 percent more expensive, because everybody was spread so thin."  

But like many in the business, Margolis simply made the best of things. "Personally, I was excited to be on the ground again," he says. "I wanted to be around people." 

After a nearly overwhelming surge of music artists getting back into live performance, he says that he is seeing a "more methodical" mindset taking hold. That compares to how he characterizes 2022: "Throw it all against the wall: we’re going everywhere!"

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Another new wrinkle: proposed rule changes by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would increase the costs to international musicians of obtaining a U.S. visa by as much as 260 percent. "The more these policies are made, the harder it is for us to share our music,” says Sampa the Great. The Zambian singer/songwriter and rapper notes that the proposed changes will hit independent artists especially hard: "Touring is the only way our music gets heard globally."

Such across-the-board cost increases can mean that some international artists have to have tough conversations. If not through touring, Sampa the Great wonders, "How else do we connect with the people who support our music? And how else do we independent artists sustain our careers making music?"

Schilling admits that during the worst of the shutdown, he thought about retiring — and so did one of his biggest clients. Skynyrd began a farewell tour in 2018, which was ultimately cut short by the pandemic, prompting serious soul searching. "When everyone’s livelihood was ripped out from under them, they decided 'We want to go out on our own terms.'" This year’s tandem tour with ZZ Top puts things right, Schilling adds. 

That kind of thinking is widespread among the professionals who remain in the game post-COVID. From many working as venue owners to tour managers to crew to artists, the chance to get back on the road outweighs the challenges that they will inevitably encounter. There are many career paths easier than working in the live music industry, but few can compare with its rewards.

Changes Backstage And Post-Show

Before the pandemic, many touring artists arranged meet-and-greet sessions before or after their shows. They provided an opportunity for interaction between fans and artists, and represented an additional revenue stream for the artists. During the pandemic era, those sessions disappeared, even for the new shows that could still take place. Today, even while enforced social distancing has largely disappeared, the state of meet-and-greets is not what it was. 

"My last three artists aren’t doing meet-and-greets, because there's still that concern of COVID," says David Norman, a longtime promoter, tour director, manager and accountant currently on tour with Evanescence; his past clients have included Prince, John Fogerty, Earth Wind & Fire, Green Day, Alicia Keys, Tyler, the Creator and many others. 

Norman points out that his artists take a financial hit by eliminating the meet-and-greets. "But it’s better to be safe than sorry," he says, noting that a musician who tests positive for COVID can "shut down [performances] for weeks. Then you have to reroute [the tour], and refund money to people who aren’t able to come to rescheduled shows."

Others take a different approach. "Lynyrd Skynyrd will do meet-and-greets," says Schilling, adding that his team "wants to get back to as normal as we possibly can, as fast as we possibly can." André Cholmondeley is a musician, longtime tour manager and tech support professional who worked as guitar tech for Yes guitarist Steve Howe. 

Before 2020, "if you bought the meet-and-greet package, you could shake their hands," he says. "There were lots of hugs and pictures." Now the experience involves more waving and fist-bumping. Foreigner, meanwhile, has recently swapped meet-and-greets for Q&A sessions. “Everybody has a great time, and the band is not bored with it because it's different every night," says Phil Carson, the band's Tour Manager. 

Life away from the audience has changed, too. 

"One major change across the board is the huge difference in catering," says Cholmondeley, who has recently toured with Pat Metheny and Ani DiFranco. Before COVID, touring artists and their crews would typically find a buffet backstage. "We order a lot more food now," Cholmondeley explains. "You get a couple of menus texted to you each day."

Carson notes that the band has found an alternative solution that works for them. "Our singer Kelly Hansen is a chef who won an episode of Food Network’s 'Chopped,'" he says with pride. "He's got a whole kitchen range on our tour bus. He makes breakfast, he makes tacos after the show." 

Carson readily admits that such an approach stands in sharp contrast to rock‘n’roll road dining in the ‘70s. "Back then," he says with a hearty laugh, "it was a few lines of coke and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s!"

Bridging The Gap

Beginning in March 2020, the cancellations and disruptions brought upon by the pandemic reverberated throughout the live music industry. But as the business sector enters the third quarter of 2023, the focus is once again on the future, and guarded optimism is the prevailing perspective. 

Festival season is officially underway, with Coachella wrapping up two weekends of massive-scale excitement, and a host of other events slated throughout the summer promising an active several months for touring musicians and crews. Taylor Swift's Eras tour is selling out fast, while Beyoncé's Renaissance tour has only just begun (to much fanfare, as expected). It seems as if touring as we once knew it is falling back into place. 

Even with her focus on recording — she counts two albums, an EP, two mixtapes and nearly 30 singles — Sampa the Great emphasizes the appeal of live music for both audience and entertainer. 

"Performing is the best way to connect with an audience," she says. "You're translating your music from audio to something visual, something physical. It bridges that gap from just hearing an artist or seeing them on social [media] to actually experiencing the artist." 

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Before Taylor Swift and Beyoncé became household names, their biggest champions were their mothers. Today, these global superstars honor their beginnings by being their own mother's biggest fans.

These musicians honor their moms through everything from social media posts to actually sharing the stage. In recent years, Lizzo has been vocal about the importance of her mom's support (and supportive of her mom and sister parking a food truck outside of stadium concerts); John Legend praises his mom for always encouraging him to sing in school and church. Swift wrote a song in tribute to her mother’s cancer journey, while Miranda Lambert and Sheryl Crow have shared important lessons learned from thier moms. Beyoncé tells the world, "I got this s— from Tina."

For Mothers Day, GRAMMY.com honors seven more musicians who celebrate their remarkable moms.

Jacob Collier

Jacob Collier truly grew up in a house of music. The singer/songwriter was raised to love multiple instruments by his mother Suzie Collier, herself an internationally sought-after violinist and conductor who teaches at the Royal College of Music.

Naturally, Collier's music career began in the family home and recording YouTube videos in a room decked with instruments. For more than 10 years, the Colliers  have shared themselves playing lively jazz standards and Christmas songs from this foundational space.

"Really, I was brought up with music as a second language," Collier reflected in an interview with The Irish Times. My mother was extremely encouraging of the sensitivities of my brain. It was this sense of curiosity but never pressure."

Several years and five GRAMMY Awards later, Collier delights his audiences with surprise duets with "Mamma Collier," where they speak this language (and rock fantastic matching jackets) of their own.

Christina Aguilera

Christina Aguilera was taken by her mother, Shelly Loraine Kearns, for singing auditions at the age of 7 and it eventually landed her placement in the iconic "Mickey Mouse Club." Yet childhood was far from perfect for Aguilera. Much of her music written in adulthood is a testament to Kearns' strength and their shared experience of domestic abuse at the hands of her father.

"I watched my mom have to be submissive, watch her Ps and Qs or she's gonna get beat up," Aguilera recalled to Paper Magazine. In considering what kind of woman she wanted to become, she adds, "You can either be, unfortunately, so damaged by it that you take a turn for the worse, or you can feel empowered by it and make choices to never go down that route."

Aguilera powerfully honors her mom's survivorship in several songs, such as "Oh, Mother" and this vulnerable performance of "I'm OK," which offers the chorus: "Bruises fade father, but the pain remains the same… Strength is my mother for all the love she gave / Every morning that I wake I look back to yesterday / And I'm OK."

Tupac Shakur

In Tupac's resonant single "Dear Mama," the rapper praises his mother Afeni Shakur as a "Black queen." He ends the track with, "You are appreciated." 

Afeni's story is as fascinating and complex as her son's. While pregnant with Shakur, Afeni faced a 350 year jail sentence on charges related to her affiliation with the Black Panther Party. She acted as her own attorney in court and served 11 months of the sentence, giving birth as a free woman. While she went on to battle addiction, she and Tupac reunited and she encouraged Shakur in using his creativity in the fight for justice.

This spring, the story continues through a five-part special with the same title on FX Network. 17 year old Shakur accounts in the trailer, "My mother taught me to analyze society and not be quiet."

Shakur's music and legacy center themes of freedom, inspired by his mother. This includes anthems like, "Keep Ya Head Up"  and "Changes."

"My mother taught me to analyze society and not be quiet," he late rapper says in the trailer for an FX docuseries about their relationship. "I think my mother knew that freedom wouldn’t come in her lifetime, just like I know that it won’t come in mine."

Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish has one of the most recognizable families in music, including her and FINNEAS' mother, Maggie Baird. Baird has appeared in multiple of her daughter's Vanity Fair interviews, documentary, and frequently travels on tour with her daughter. They share a mission in vegan activism and have received environmental awards for their efforts.

Most importantly, Eilish credits her mother for saving her life when she was feeling suicidal. Baird checked in regularly with her daughter giving her permission to take a break from the world stage at any point.

In a most recent birthday post, Eilish affectionately wrote of her mother, "You make the world go round. I told you yesterday that when I think about how much I love you, I want to sob and throw up."

WILLOW

In recent years, WILLOW played homage to her mother, Jada Pinkett Smith, for Mother's Day. After a loving video tribute, she planned a surprise performance of a favorite song from Pinkett Smith's former metal band, Wicked Wisdom, alongside its original members. In which, WILLOW mirrors Pinkett Smith’s confidence and vocal range.

Throughout her childhood, WILLOW watched her mother perform with wonder. She elaborates, "I was my mom's biggest fan. Every night, I wanted to ride on the security guard's shoulders and watch her perform. She was a rock star, and I was living for Wicked Wisdom," WILLOW said. "I felt like it was only right for me to pay homage to a time in her life because she showed me what womaning up really is about."

This legacy comes through in WILLOW's most recent explorations in the worlds of alt and pop-punk.

Beyond a shared love of music, WILLOW, Pinkett Smith, and Jada's mother deepen their bond with their show Red Table Talk on Facebook Watch. In which, they share multi-generational, candid conversations on provocative topics ranging from race relations to forgiveness.

Camila Cabello

Camila Cabello and her mother, Sinuhe Estrabao, traveled far to get where she is today as an international pop-star. The two had a month-long journey when migrating from Cuba to the US when Cabello was six years old. Cabello shares in Popsugar, "I think the most important thing I've learned from my mom has been: You're human if you have fear, but you can't ever let it determine how hard you go at a situation. If anything, it should make you go harder — go for it all the way."

Though introverted, Cabello channeled this courage into making the decision to audition for "The X Factor" as a teenager.

When Cabello received Billboard's Breakthrough Artist Award, she began her acceptance speech by acknowledging her No. 1: "The only reason I am standing here on this stage, in this auditorium, on this soil in this country is because of one woman - and that's my mom."

Dave Grohl

Dave Grohl has an immense passion for a mother's role in a musician's life, and even hosts and executive produced the documentary series, "From Cradle to Stage." The series features interviews with rock stars and their moms; his own mother, Virgina Hanlon Grohl, wrote a book in 2017 with the same title.

In a NBC interview, Grohl said, "The relationship between a mother and their child — the mother and the artist — is maybe the most important relationship of any musician's life... It's the foundation of their understanding of love, and love is every artist's greatest muse. You know, every lyric you write is rooted in that."

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