This month, as part of a Vanity Fair cover story, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga had themselves a Jack and Rose moment, albeit without the illicit romance. In Titanic, the devilishly handsome Jack sketches the unattainable Rose as she lies sprawled and naked before him. Before any nudity ensues, however, Rose asserts, “The last thing I need is another picture of me looking like a porcelain doll,” and we’re thinking the line could have just as easily slipped from Lady Gaga’s lips. Bennett’s charcoal rendition of Lady Gaga is stripped down and raw — Mother Monster without all the accoutrements we’re used to seeing her robed with. Bennett’s drawing, in short, is of a human girl we’ve yet to really see. And it’s beautiful.
Year in and year out, people watching the Grammy Awards find themselves asking the same question: What is the difference between Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year? What makes this especially confusing is that different songs are usually nominated in each category; in the past five years, only 10 out of the 50 total songs nominated in each of these categories have made both categories (three of those, however, have ended up winning both prizes: “Need You Now” by Lady Antebellum, “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse and “Not Ready To Make Nice” by Dixie Chicks).
To answer the question we posed above, the Grammy for Record Of The Year is awarded to the artist and production team responsible for how the song sounds, while the Grammy for Song Of The Year is given to the songwriters responsible for the composition of the song (meaning: lyrics and melodic structure). With that in mind, here are a few likely candidates to be nominated in these two categories when the 2012 Grammy nominations are announced live on CBS at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Adele, “Rolling In The Deep”
The smoky-voiced siren is the favorite to sweep this year’s major awards, and “Rolling In The Deep” has proven to be MASSIVE in terms of its sound and its popularity; it’s been sitting in the Billboard Hot 100 for 46 weeks and counting.
Bruno Mars, “Grenade”
Bruno was incredibly well-respected as a songwriter in music industry circles long before he became a solo performer; in the Grammys game, respect from one’s peers is equally important as commercial success.