Recording and Song of the Year Predictions: With Ella Langley, Taylor Swift, Olivia Dean and Other Frontrunners, Expect a Showstopper

Predicting the Grammy 2027 Record of the Year race is both very easy and very challenging, depending on whether we focus on narrowing thousands of first-round ballot candidates down to eight nominees, or leap ahead to determine who will ultimately win. These are the nominees we feel […]

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Predicting the Record Race of the Year for the 2027 Grammys is both easy and very challenging... depending on whether we're focusing on whittling down the thousands of first-ballot candidates to 8 candidates, or jumping ahead to determine who the ultimate winner will be. These are the engagements we feel we perform well in. But the ultimate winner? That's a different story, with at least a few entirely viable scenarios as to which candidate will ultimately win. Related stories "The Boss Simpsons" season one guest stars Emma Thompson and Colin Jost. 'Treehouse of Horror' spoilers; Jack in the Box Easter egg and video update

So it's a good thing that right now, the main task is to say who will end up in square eight. In real terms, the competition has only just begun, as public voting for members of the Recording Academy opened on Monday, with first-round voting running through October 22. From then, it will be a few weeks until the nominations are announced on Nov. 16, nearly two months before music's "most exciting night," known as the Grammys, takes place on Feb. 20 and 27. Popular in Variety

As we did with Variety's published Album of the Year predictions , we've narrowed down what we see as record-of-the-year nominees into categories — first a list of 10 front-runners from which we expect eight to be selected, followed by another 10 that have at least a decent chance of slipping up, followed by a broader list of dark horses we don't want to completely ignore. After that, we take a look at the Song of the Year competition, where there's inevitably a lot of overlap, but some distinctions too. Take a look and see how these match up with your predictions:

Also in the conversation: Audrey Hubbard's "Sue Me," Phoebe Bridgers' "Lost Boys," Lady Gaga & Ducci's "Airport Runway," Stella Lefty's "Boston," Carol J's "B.Y.", Paul McCartney's "The Days We Left The Car," Paul McCartney's "Errtime," Ravin Lena's "Handel," Katsi's "Animals," "Beautiful Things" by Megan Moroney, "Chanel" by Tyla, "Morning Grass" by Beyoncé, "Die Die Burns Donk" by Shakira and Borna Boy, "Die Dieburns" by Borna. "Babydoll (Live)" and "Girl, Get Up" by Doechii.

Honestly, we're unusually confident that the eight nominees will all come from the first 10-person list — which is silly, because this is the Grammys, with thousands of voters from wildly different seasons and demographics choosing from thousands of submissions. A surprise or three is always on the agenda. But it seems to be close to a settled ground. If asked to remove two people from the first field of 10 to bravely make it eight, I'd probably beat Ariana Grande and Rosalia's records. Arguably, Grande has a longer shot than the others, simply because, for reasons that still seem puzzling, she hasn't been a hot favorite in the majors in recent years. As for Rosalia, it's the strangest song on record here – it opens with a sound of neoclassical symphonic music, then the singer sings in German and Björk pleads in English, before ending with a male voice dropping a long string of sexually-directed FF-bombs. Plus, Hot Rosalia might be more focused in the album of the year category... but these are both just great songs, both have huge fans, regardless of whether or not they make it in the midst of such stiff competition.

So let's assume the final field comes down to Olivia Dean, Noah Kahan, Ella Langley, Bruno Mars, Rae, Olivia Rodrigo, Sienna Spiro, and Taylor Swift, to keep it in alphabetical order for now. This is the record of a murderer. If, pending the eventual winner, the idea is to continue with the process of elimination, then we can eliminate Mars and Khan because they're men, right? It's just not their year I'm kidding, but the tide is turning towards a dominant diva.

With Mars, feelings about that album's most popular song are widely divided. He submitted "I Just Might" for Record of the Year and "Risk It All," the soulful ballad, for Song of the Year. "Risk It All" seems to be the song that has longer legs, even if "I Just Might" is bigger. Hit, so chose wisely? Time will tell. She brings some of the same factors that Swift does: Does showering with so many Grammys help or hurt? Kahan is in an opposite position from Mars, to the point where he has virtually no history at the Grammys. Previously, his only nomination was for Best New Artist. It wouldn't be surprising if there are a significant number of voters who think now is a great moment for this stadium-filled act to make up for lost time. Plus, Kahan is such a winning character, you know he's going to give the funniest speech of the night. (Who's considering voting this? Hopefully it's just me.)

If we take these guys a little longer, though, let's look at the amazing field of female leads: Taylor Swift vs. Olivia Rodrigo, who will engage another million ugly fans on social media before it's all over, plus a Fab Four of relative newcomers to the scene—Langle and Spiro. Now there will be fierce competition to see if Langley or Spiro wins Best New Artist. (We haven't made an official prediction in that category yet, but yes, consider this a spoiler for where that article is headed.)

If one of them was going to win record of the year, the obvious bet would be “Choosin’ Texas,” because it was clearly record of the year by any standard of real, verifiable, objective data. "The Choice" recently passed the milestone of 24 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, setting a new record and making it Tennessee's elephant in the room. Country has underperformed even in the top categories in recent years, but Langley will obviously be the exception, and has a good chance to become the first country winner for record or song of the year since Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" won in 2011. genre again

Meanwhile, Spiro will strike a chord with many neoconservative voters. It would be shocking (but not unthinkable) if she could use that cute beehive hairdo as a battering ram and make her way through the bigger blockbusters here. Ray is like Spiro, in that you'd imagine she'd be a poster girl for the Recording Academy and the Grammys for years—perhaps decades—to come. Isn't that huge, almost instant reservoir of goodies to whip up a signature song like "Where's My Husband!" Or "die on this hill" to the top of the stack is an open question. Screams of joy will be heard if anyone kills it.

But the best betting odds could go to Dean (a relative newcomer himself who won Best New Artist last year), Rodrigo or Swift. Earlier in this column, we looked at how Olivia Bindo's album of the year competition might be tight enough that each of them would have to wait a few beats to hear the winner in that category. Maybe we can say the same about the record of the year. But we also devoted a recent column to the interesting position Swift is in this year, as the recipient of some "She's Overdue!" Feelings If you haven't read the previous coverage and wonder how that could be, here's the answer: For all the gold in her closet, Swift has never won Record of the Year or Song of the Year...only Album of the Year seemingly a million times (and, of course, some "lesser" categories, too).

"Ophelia's Fate" certainly rivals "Choosin' Texas" as the biggest single of the year in some regards. Definitely deserves the award for the coolest meme maker of 2025-26. Anyone who's spent any time on Instagram in the past 12 months will know that "Ophelia" has now told hundreds of thousands of fans recreating the music video's dance moves, something that might come to mind when considering what makes the record of the year. And that may end up being more of a determining factor in a possible win than which Superstar has been stolen from.

Swift had several No. 1s and split her submissions for the record and song between "Ophelia" for the former and Pixar's "I Knew It, I Knew You" for the latter. But it's interesting that Dean and Rodrigo, who also had several big hits, didn't similarly split their luck between songs, with Dean having "The Man I Need" all the way through, leaving "So Easy (to Fall in Love)" by the wayside. For Rodrigo, he ditched the delirious "Drop Dead" and "Stupid Song" for the brooding ballad "The Cure." "The Cure" seems obvious in one way — he's called it his best song, and fans might agree — and dangerous in another, given how little history there is for a song built so heavily on melodrama to win an award.

So don't ask us to choose between any of the top candidates right now. We have about four months to go, and during that time, we do what "The Cure" advises us to do: have children.

As is always the case, many Record of the Year nominees will be copied in the Song of the Year category. But with an emphasis on songwriting, you can be left out on some tracks that seem particularly production or rhythm-driven. So Sonnet's songs that might be considered strong for record of the year are less frequent here, perhaps making room for an acclaimed singer-songwriter who goes softer to fill that gap, or something that had a high profile without becoming a Hot 100 hit, like Bruce Springsteen's protest song ICE Melting Ice.

As mentioned earlier, Swift is hedging her bets on "I Knew It, I Knew You," garnering a lot of attention here, while "Ophelia" competes for her record. He doesn't want to just hope for a Grammy, of course: A title for his Pixar film could boost his campaign to win an Oscar for best original song in the coming weeks and months.

Swift is not alone in splitting her luck with different submissions. With the title ballad of his late 2025 album, Carlyle here fronts Rocker's "Human" for the record. Mars has what many considered the most soulful track on the album, "Risk It All," competing here for a bigger hit.

Harry Styles is in which of these categories? He'd have to be considered a contender for any of the top three songs, but "Aperture" was far from "The Way It Was," and it had enough "vibe" that voters might give it more credit for the production than the songwriting per se, making it more likely a contender for Record of the Year than Song.

Another question about what might be the most obvious MIA is: Where is hip-hop? For anyone who follows the genre closely, it may not be a big question that there is much opportunity to sigh, because this has not been a red year for rap. Don Tolliver is the most obvious hip-hop contender to make it with the Recording Academy in all-genre categories, as Drake once again didn't participate at all, and neither did J. Cole. Without an obvious choice for consolidation like Kendrick Lamar, hip-hop probably won't be recognized in mainstream categories like country.

Also not submitted: BTS, as you've probably read — not even in the "big" categories, let alone the controversial Asian pop section — and PinkPantheress/Zara Larsson's "Stateside," which seemed like a record-of-the-year contender, were also not submitted for consideration.

This is one of a series of columns predicting nominees for key Grammy 2027 categories.