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Last week, the Recording Academy released its nominations for the 2025 Grammy Awards, and although it wasn’t too surprising seeing Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar in the lead, there was one nominee that surely caught people off guard — André 3000’sNew Blue Sun for Album of the Year.
3000’s foray into spiritual jazz sticks out like a sore thumb against the categories’ pop star-leaning roster — Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft, Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Charli XCX’s Brat, Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet and Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department — with the only other outlier being prolific jazz-turned-multi-genre musician Jacob Collier’s Djesse Vol. 4 (which is also, essentially, a pop album).
Despite this, a number of fans responded favorably to the artist getting a nomination for one of the award ceremony’s biggest prizes.
And even André himself acknowledged the news, telling The New York Times, “I was just waking up and I heard that the nominations came in. We were trying to be nominated in some type of way for alternative jazz or ambient, possibly. But I was totally surprised by this. So yeah, it was super, super, super duper cool.”
Now, with the nomination revealed, the big question is: Can André actually win the award, especially when stacked against contemporary pop’s biggest stars? Sure, he’ll likely fare better in the two other categories New Blue Sun is nominated for — Best Alternative Jazz Album and Best Instrumental Composition — but what about Album of the Year?
Well, he actually does.
Although quite rare, the Grammys have previously thrown curveball wins for the award — even as recent as its 2022 ceremony. During that one, Jon Batiste’s We Are ended up winning Album of the Year. When compared to its competition — which included Justin Bieber’s Justice, Doja Cat’s Planet Her, Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever and Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour — We Are was undeniably an unexpected win.
Batiste’s unquestionable musical talent, paired with the timely lyrical content of the album, made We Are a Grammy darling. As Okayplayer wrote about the win at the time, it’s “an album with musicianship and a socially conscious message all tied together by a sound the academy is all too familiar with.” Because of that, it also served as the Grammys’ attempt at being unpredictable, as if to say, “Yes, although the music industry has and continues to grow more pop-centric, we can still champion bodies of work that go against that.”
There have been other Album of the Year wins that speak to this sentiment: Beck’s Morning Phase besting Sam Smith’s In the Lonely Hour, Beyoncé’s Beyonce and Ed Sheeran’s x at the 2015 Grammys; Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs besting Eminem’s Recovery, Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster, and Katy Perry's Teenage Dream at the 2011 Grammys; and Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters besting Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, Kanye West’s Graduation and Foo Fighters’ Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace at the 2008 Grammys.
So, it’s possible that Andre could take the win, earning his second-ever Album of the Year award (with his first courtesy of Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below). Nevertheless, it’s still a feat that New Blue Sun got nominated for the honor in the first place.
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