They don’t award based on popularity though which is why Jon Batiste won two years ago over Olivia Rodrigo, so I think it’s actually a toss up this year on who wins AOTY.
I do think SZA is probably the favorite for AOTY but if there was ever a year it was largely a tossup, it's this one.
I think they realize that the optics of giving it to Taylor over sza when Lauryn Hill is the last black woman to win the award is abhorrent
I’d be surprised if Taylor didn’t win after the year she’s had, honestly. Even with her previous three wins, she wasn’t as dominant in the culture as she was in 2023.
What a year Boygenius is having. Album of the Year and Record of the Year nominations is pretty amazing.
To each their own and all, but I can't see an argument for not calling This Is Why a rock album. At the very least it makes more sense for This Is Why to be a rock album than it did when Ain't It Fun won best rock song
They don’t award based on cultural dominance though. If they did Beck wouldn’t have won over Beyonce for self-titled.
Sometimes they absolutely do. 25 won that award almost solely because it broke the first-week sales record. No one thinks that thing was the actual best album of the year, but it beat out a supposed favorite (Lemonade) because it was a cultural juggernaut.
Aren’t these awards voted by individuals rather than a team of people deciding together? There’s no way to know what’s going on in each voter’s head when they pick who they pick
There’s really no grand unifying theory for album of the year winners. Truly one of the most bizarre collections of albums you could put together. Sometimes, the critical darling wins. Sometimes, it’s the big commercial juggernaut. Sometimes, it’s the person a lot of people in the industry just really like. Sometimes, it’s just a late-career swing from an artist perceived to be overdue. You never really know which direction any given year is going to go.