Grammy Awards 2024: Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, SZA and Joni Mitchell shine at the ceremony

Whisper it softly…but can the Grammy Awards get it right this year?

The concert, which takes place in Los Angeles on Sunday, is known for setting its own goals, often rewarding middle-of-the-road heritage acts over cutting-edge contemporary pop.

But this year's nominees are straightforward populist picks, with R&B star SZA leading the field with nine.

There will also be performances by big names like Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Joni Mitchell and U2.

Comedian Trevor Noah will host for the fourth year in a row, overseeing a staggering 94 categories, from Best Contemporary Christian Album to Best Audiobook, where Michelle Obama will compete against Meryl Streep.

Elsewhere, Phoebe Bridgers' indie rock band Boygenius and pop star Victoria Monet each received seven nominations.

Chart stars Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Miley Cyrus, Lana Del Rey and Ice Spice also have multiple nominations in a female-led field.

Here are nine things to know before the event.

First of all, prepare a strong pot of coffee.

More than 80 awards will be handed out at the so-called “first ceremony” at 20:30 GMT on Sunday (12:30 in Los Angeles).

It's often worth pursuing. The winners in the more obscure categories are less polished and more eager to win, and the performances are looser and, dare I say it, more musical than the Hollywood-scale musical scores you'll see later.

You can watch the whole thing on the Recording Academy's YouTube channel and live.grammy.com.

The main show, which will start at 01:00 on Monday GMT, will be broadcast live in the US on CBS and streamed on Paramount Plus. Selected speeches and performances are usually uploaded to YouTube the next day.

If Swift wins Album of the Year for her album Midnights, she will become the first artist ever to lift the prestigious award four times.

Currently, she is tied with Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra, who each have three wins.

But the Grammys were typically less interested in Swift's pop records than her forays into country and folk.

Her competition for album of the year is strong. Below is the complete list of candidates:

Modern-day stars Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, SZA and Olivia Rodrigo will no doubt deliver lavish renditions of their biggest hits.

But the show will likely be stolen by two other female artists who have been largely out of the public eye in recent years.

Joni Mitchell gets a reception worthy of a living legend when she gives her first Grammy Awards performance at the age of 80.

And Tracy Chapman is widely rumored to make a very rare public appearance to join country star Luke Combs in her 1988 classic Fast Car, which put him back on the charts last year.

Other performers on the night include Billy Joel, Travis Scott and Burna Boy.

In the United States, SZA's second album SOS topped the charts for 10 weeks and marked the singer's ascension to the major league.

The singer – whose real name is Solana Imani Rowe – was born in Missouri and raised in New Jersey, and trained in marine biology before launching her music career.

If her latest album wins a Grammy, it would also mean a win for a 20-year-old music producer from Scotland.

Blair Ferguson, who writes under the name BLK Beats, wrote the music for her hit single Snooze in his bedroom in Glasgow, and it went on to sell over two million copies in the US.

“SZA is just a genius and she's able to transform any record with the way she comes up with a melody,” he told BBC News. “I don't think any other artist could have made this track.”

The Best Rock Song category is a cultural clash for the ages, pitting Olivia Rodrigo's Ballad Of A Homeschooled Girl against The Rolling Stones' Angry, the story of a lovers' quarrel.

So who is the face of rock 'n' roll in 2024? The Grammys like to reward longevity, but perhaps they'll be swayed by the rock revival of Rodrigo, who helped spark the first comeback of guitar music in more than a decade.

It's a strong field, with Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age also competing. But the real contenders have to be Boygenius.

Last year, indie songwriters Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julian Baker created a defining guitar album of the era, full of spectral harmonies and poetic lyrics.

Nominated in all the major categories as well as the rock subgenres, it could be this year's landslide winner.

A new category, Best African Music Performance, reflects the growing importance of genres like Afrobeats and Amapiano but also Africa's “profound influence on music history,” according to the Grammy Awards.

The front runners – who would have previously snubbed the world music category – include Nigerian stars Burna Boy, Asaki, Ira Starr and Davido, along with rising South African singer Tila.

“Honestly, the Grammys specifically are a huge accolade,” said Tyla, who achieved global success with Water at the end of 2023.

Two more new awards have also been introduced for 2024 – Best Alternative Jazz Album and Best Pop Dance Recording.

Despite her career, Miley Cyrus has yet to win a Grammy Award, and has only been nominated twice in the past.

But this year, SFKAHM (the singer formerly known as Hannah Montana) received six nominations for her pop album “Endless Summer Vacation.”

Lead single “Flowers”, which was the biggest-selling single in the UK last year and topped the US Billboard charts for eight weeks, is up for record for Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance.

But in a strong year for sad girls singing pop songs, she could leave empty-handed once again.

The country saw a major rebound in the United States last year. Streams of the genre are up 20%, and last August country songs occupied the top three spots on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time.

But none of those artists — Morgan Wallen, Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan — were nominated in the Grammy Awards' biggest categories.

In fact, no country album has been nominated for Album of the Year since Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour five years ago (which won the award).

what's going? It seems to be a reaction to the political and racist undertones of the genre's biggest stars.

Voters are wary of Wallen because of a headline-making incident in 2021, in which he was caught on camera using racial slurs.

With Aldean, politics were an integral part of his song “Try That in a Small Town” — a tale of vigilante justice that some listeners interpreted as having a racist undertone.

Aldean denied the accusations, but apologized when it emerged that he had filmed the video in front of a courthouse in Tennessee, which was the scene of a brutal execution in 1927.

While stars like Jason Isbell and Zach Bryan delivered thoughtful songs that challenged Nashville's more reactionary tendencies, they were also shut out of the major awards.

The Academy, with typical caution, appears to have decided to stay away.

Just 21 years after releasing his first song, Tennessee singer Jelly Roll is nominated for Best New Artist.

The musician, whose real name is Jason Deford, is not a traditional contender for this category, but his recent move from underground to the mainstream makes him eligible under Grammy guidelines.

A convicted felon and former drug dealer, he has served several terms in prison and recently testified before the US Congress in support of anti-fentanyl legislation.

Finally, his emotional tales of addiction and redemption propelled him onto the charts last year after he later shifted in his career from rap to country music.

At 39, he will be the oldest ever winner of the Best New Artist award, surpassing Sheryl Crow, who was 33 on the night of her 1995 win.

But that's nothing compared to the Latin Grammy Awards, which awarded Best New Artist to 95-year-old Angela Alvarez in 2022.