2024 Grammy Awards: Preview and predictions for the Rock and Alternative awards

BEST ROCK ALBUM

WHO WILL WIN

It’s the Foo Fighters. I don’t think it’s especially close. They are the only act nominated in all three major Rock categories.

WHO SHOULD WIN

If Metallica cut twenty minutes from 72 Seasons, I think they’d have a classic. Like modern Hollywood producers, they just can’t make anything to scale anymore. Greta Van Fleet is always a contender in a rock competition because they play old-school blues rock in an era that is moving farther and farther away from it. But I don’t think Starcatcher is the album to pull off an upset.

Paramore’s title track from This is Why is a great spiky track – it would be my second choice after boygenius in the Alt Music Performance category – but I don’t think the entire album maintains that standard. That leaves QOTSA’s In Times New Roman… as the only contender in my mind to the Foo Fighters.

It’s a bit of a divisive album, but that doesn’t bother me. I think it’s large a tossup between the Queens and the Foo Fighters, so I’ll give my vote to the QOTSA, who have been nominated two other times for Best Album without winning, as opposed to Dave Grohl’s boys, who already have 15 Grammys at home.

WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED

It doesn’t matter where rock & roll has been or where it is headed. There will always be room for quality old-school rock like you’ll find on the Marvelous Three’s IV. Their surprise album, released twenty-three years after we last heard anything new from them, was one of the most pleasant surprises of the year.

I’ll stop there. Between these five categories and the previous piece on the big four, that leaves just 85 more for you to investigate on your own. Personally, I’m going to go seek out Colin Hancock’s tribute to jazz sax pioneer Loren McMurray – The Moaniest Moan of Them All – something I would know nothing about if it hadn’t snagged a Grammy nomination in one of those obscure fields. Quite frankly, as much fun as it is to argue about what the album of the year should or shouldn’t be, that’s why the Grammys have continuing value.

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