Okay, so awards season has officially kicked off.

After the disappointing American Music Awards (AMA’s), it’s no surprise who’s leading the pack at the up and coming 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.

From: People magazine
“This year, the Grammy Awards are spreading the wealth.

Fronting a diverse array of nominees, rapper Eminem led the pack with a total 10 Grammy nominations, including nods in major categories like Album of the Year and Record of the Year, it was announced Wednesday night.

Not far behind: Bruno Mars, who nabbed seven nominations, including several as a songwriter, while Lady Gaga and country trio Lady Antebellum each earned six nominations, including an Album of the Year nod for their stirring single “Need You Now.”

“Album of the Year nominations were awarded to Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, Eminem’s Recovery, Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now, Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster and Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream. ”

I’m really glad that Arcade Fire got the well deserved nod! However, I think it’s a long shot.
Especially considering the competition.

From The Envelope:
“The beleaguered record industry couldn’t have been happier about the return to the spotlight in 2010 of rapper Eminem, the biggest-selling artist of the new millennium, and heaped upon him a field-leading 10 Grammy Award nominations for his “Recovery” album, including nods in all three top categories of album, record and song of the year.

Although it was widely expected that Eminem would do well in this year’s Grammy competition, Hawaiian-born producer-singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Bruno Mars caught many by surprise as runner-up to Eminem with seven nominations, announced Wednesday in conjunction with a televised Grammy nomination concert from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.

Mars is competing with himself in the record of the year category for his production and vocals on rapper B.o.B’s “Nothin’ on You,” and as one of the producers of R&B-soul singer Cee-Lo Green’s broadcast-confounding hit single “… You.”

“Given that each record of the year nominee is traditionally performed live on the awards telecast, which will be held Feb. 13 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, Grammy ceremony producers will have a challenge in how to present a song on national television in which the profanity is not simply a casual toss-off that’s easily excised, but central to the song’s message from a guy to the girl who has dumped him. Expectations are that Green will perform the PG-rated “Forget You” version that allowed many radio stations to play it during the year.

Wednesday’s telecast skirted the issue by listing only the names of the artists who recorded the nominated songs, not the titles. When presenters Dave Grohl and Selena Gomez announced the titles, Gomez referred to it as “the song otherwise known as ‘Forget You.’”

The other three nominees for record of the year, which honors performance, production and engineering, are “Love the Way You Lie” from Eminem and Rihanna; Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ love letter to the Big Apple, “Empire State of Mind”; and country trio Lady Antebellum’s romantically desperate closing-time phone call, “Need You Now,” which also earned the country trio an album of the year nomination.
Eminem and Lady A are vying in the album category with Lady Gaga’s “The Fame Monster,” Katy Perry’s frothy “Teenage Dream” and the latest critically acclaimed effort from Canadian indie rock group Arcade Fire, “The Suburbs.” Eminem also got nominations for pop vocal collaboration, short-form music video and every rap category in which he was eligible: rap solo performance, rap-sung collaboration, rap album and twice for rap song.

Green’s profanity-laced send-off also is up for song of the year, which is strictly a songwriter’s award, along with the Lady Antebellum hit written by Dave Haywood, Josy Kear, Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott; Alexander Grant, Holly Hafferman and Marshall Mathers’ “Love The Way You Lie”; Ray LaMontagne’s “Beg Steal or Borrow”; and Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin’s “The House That Built Me,” a hit for Texas firebrand Miranda Lambert, who landed three nominations of her own in country categories.

Lambert got humorously political in choosing “Only Prettier” for her performance segment, in which she sang, “Let’s shake hands and reach across those party lines.… We might think differently, but we got a lot in common you will see/We’re just like you, only prettier.”

Teen idol Justin Bieber shares space in the new artist category with Canadian rapper Drake, Portland, Ore.-born jazz-pop musican Esperanza Spalding and a pair of English groups, Florence & the Machine and rock quartet Mumford & Sons.”

Back to my 2 cents worth:

Fact:
Grammys are awarded for recordings released during the eligibility period between Sept. 1, 2009, and Sept. 30, 2010, and are decided on by about 12,000 voting members of the Recording Academy.

So if you are wondering why Kanye’s new masterpiece isn’t up there… You gonna have to wait for next year.

There are always surprises when it comes to these awards.
Check out this article that the LA Times has posted.

For a full comprehensive view of all the nominees, check out:
grammy.com

Give me a few days and I’ll update on my predictions.