GRAMMY CONTENDERS BY THE NUMBERS: AOTY

The focus shifts to Album of the Year, as we continue to discuss the Big Four categories and the impact their total activity figures may or may not have on earning Grammy gold. Wonderers continue to wonder: Do sales and streams alone lead to victory?

In Album of the Year, Bon Iver’s i,i (94k), Vampire Weekend’s Father of the Bride (314k) and Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! (367k) are the obvious “underdogs,” standing out as the only sets to not top 1m, let alone 500k (or 100k in Bon Iver’s case). But this category is notoriously anyone’s game. Last year, in competition with Drake’s mega-selling Scorpion, Post Malone smash beerbongs & bentleys and Cardi B’s game-changing Invasion of Privacy, Kacey Musgraves walked away as the critically acclaimed queen, even though her own format wouldn’t even play the set’s offerings at radio.