Who Will (And Should) Win At This Year’s Grammy Awards?

This Sunday, Feb. 8, the 57th Grammy Awards will be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. And whether you love, tolerate or love to hate-tweet the telecast -- hosted again by LL Cool J -- countless music fans and industry types will be tuning in to "Music's Biggest Night" to catch an impressive lineup of live performances from Madonna, Sia, Ariana Grande, Tony Bennett with Lady Gaga, Common and John Legend, and Pharrell. And special collaborations like Rihanna, Paul McCartney and Kanye West; Beck and Coldplay's Chris Martin; Mary J. Blige and Sam Smith; Hozier and Annie Lennox; Brandy Clark and Dwight Yoakam; Herbie Hancock, John Mayer and Questlove with Ed Sheeran; and much more.

But what about the actual awards to be given out?

From Category No. 1, Record Of The Year, to Category No. 83, Best Music Film, the Grammy Awards offer a series of musical horse races. Some have a heavy favorite, others are too close to call. Somewhere along the way, a longshot is bound to come in. Here’s a look ahead to some of Sunday night’s more intriguing contests. (Check out the full list of nominees here.)

Record Of The Year

The big kahuna, category No. 1, is a very tough call. Taylor Swift is a musical and social media phenom, and is a threat to win any and every time her name appears. “Shake It Off” is a credible contender, but the millions of teenage girls who follow Swift on Twitter are quite different from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) voters who actually decide on the winner. They tend to be older, and have proven repeatedly over the years that they like “classic” sounds. That makes the field’s lone male contender, Sam Smith, and his “Stay With Me” a possible upsetter. Sia’s “Chandelier” was like a one-woman “Bohemian Rhapsody” – full of soaring melody and implausibly good singing. She has an outside shot. Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” was everywhere until dusted by Taylor Swift; Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” has had a moment, but despite its body-image message, has the feel of a novelty song.

Who Should Win: Sam Smith, “Stay With Me.”

Who Will Win: Taylor Swift, “Shake It Off.”

Album Of The Year

Beyonce’s self-titled sneak attack album attracted critical raves. Pharrell Williams’ Girl features the song of the summer, “Happy,” but nothing else that approaches that level of success. Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour was the best-selling album in this country last year except for that Taylor Swift person, and had several bona fide hits. Ed Sheeran’s X will get the wimp vote; and Beck’s Morning Phase is a finely-wrought, richly-textured collection of atmospheric songs that has no shot.

Who Should Win: Beck, but not in this category -- the album is also in Category No. 15, Best Rock Album.

Who Will Win: Beyonce.

Best New Artist

Iggy Azalea, a white Australian rapper, has reignited the conversation about race in hip hop, but almost all her nominations are in the pop categories. “Fancy” certainly puts her in the running here. Sam Smith, the only nominee in the first four categories, has his best chance for a statue here. Brandy Clark is the latest tough female country songwriter, and HAIM, the trio of sisters from Los Angeles, whose music inspired fond memories of Fleetwood Mac and other 1970s pop-rock acts. Bastille had one hit song, the remarkable “Pompeii,” which was in fact the fourth in a series of singles from their smart, distinctive album, Bad Blood.

Who Should Win: Bastille -- but don’t hold your breath.

Who Will Win: Sam Smith.

Best Alternative Music Album

Skipping the rock and rap categories to get to this one, which sports a pretty interesting lineup. Can Arcade Fire, the indie-rock heroes who stunned the world by taking home Album Of The Year in 2011, win another bit of hardware in a much lower profile category? Reflektor featured some neat videos, production by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, and even a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo by David Bowie. But it also tried the patience of some listeners. Meanwhile, alt-J, the weirdo-art-pop band from the U.K., will also try to add to the mantelpiece after winning Britain’s prestigious Mercury Prize in 2012, with its sophomore album, This Is All Yours. Jack White’s Lazaretto was another step in White’s quest to be the world’s one true guitar hero. St. Vincent, the nom de disque of singer-guitarist Annie Clark, released her glittering dance-ready self-titled record, while showing she's still a shredder of Jack White caliber. And Cage The Elephant plays cleaned-up post-Nirvana rock on the brilliantly-titled Melophobia (a term meaning literally “fear of music”). It's a tough race to call.

Who Should Win: St. Vincent.

Who Will Win: Jack White.

Best Americana Album

This category occasionally makes it onto the broadcast because it’s where you can often find big names (Robert Plant, for example) doing more acoustic or off-center projects. This year, Rosanne Cash leads the pack with her heartfelt The River & The Thread. She’s been named as one of Carnegie Hall’s Artists In Residence for 2016 and has long since found her own place in the music world apart from her famous late dad, Johnny. But Sturgill Simpson is an interesting contender -- a genuine indie artist in a country vein, but full of strange ideas, as suggested by the song "Turtles All The Way Down," from his album Metamodern Sounds In Country Music. Meanwhile, John Hiatt and Keb’ Mo’ are veteran singer-songwriters with individual voices and perhaps a hint of “The Usual Suspects” here. The most likely challenge to Rosanne Cash will come from a re-formed Nickel Creek, with mandolinist and singer Chris Thile riding high after the Showtime special Another Day Another Time and recently winning a MacArthur Fellowship (the so-called "genius" award).

Who Should Win: Nickel Creek.

Who Will Win: Rosanne Cash.

Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media

The adjacent category of Best Song For Visual Media features a bet-the-mortgage “mortal lock,” as horse players sometimes say. That would be Idina Menzel’s recording of “Let It Go” -- written by the songwriting team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez -- from the mega hit film Frozen. This category is more interesting. Christophe Beck’s score for Frozen is here, but this is the instrumental music, not the hit song. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross try to make it three major awards from three major film scores with David Fincher's film Gone Girl, and while it is a dark and unsettling album, it is certainly striking. Steven Price’s score for Gravity made no impression when I saw the movie; Thomas Newman’s music for Saving Mr. Banks is a reliable Hollywood score by a six-time Grammy winner. Alexandre Desplat returns with a score for Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel that is as whimsical and technicolored as the film itself.

Who Should Win: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Will the Academy vote for the darkness?

Who Will Win: Alexandre Desplat. No, they go for the bright lights instead. 

The Grammy Awards feature lots of statues given out in categories that don’t make it to the telecast, although you’ll sometimes see these awards crawling across the bottom of the screen. Here are five more to watch out for:

Best World Music Album

There's some wonderful music in this category, led by the completely acoustic, subtly unconventional pairing of two Malian kora players (the kora is a 21-string folk harp) who happen to be father and son: Toumani and Siddiki Diabate. Toumani has played with Björk and Ry Cooder and dozens of others, but got his start studying with his father; now the tradition continues. Angelique Kidjo, from Benin but now based in Brooklyn, celebrates the beauty and strength of African women in Eve, and includes some striking instrumental and vocal contributions recorded around that continent. Anoushka Shankar carries on the tradition of her late father Ravi, playing sitar and, on Traces Of You, performing with her half-sister and Grammy favorite Norah Jones. Chinese pipa (lute) virtuoso Wu Man welcomes Luis Conte and Daniel Ho for a somewhat self-conscious fusion of cultures on Our World In Song. And Sergio Mendes, creator of the hugely popular Brasil 66 in the late 1960s, continues to blend Brazilian and pop music on his latest, Magic.

Who Should Win: Toumani and Siddiki Diabate.

Who Will Win: Sergio Mendes.

Best Musical Theater Album

Not usually my cup of tea, but an interesting battle between some big name musicals that have been around for a while – Aladdin, West Side Story, and Hedwig And The Angry Inch; and two newcomers – Beautiful and A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder. Both were surprise hits on Broadway, and Beautiful offers voters the chance to kinda/sorta give Carole King another Grammy.

Who Should Win: Philip Glass once said on Soundcheck that “any composer would give his right arm to have written West Side Story.” But the 2009 revival won in this category; time to move on. Beautiful should win.

Who Will Win: Beautiful.

Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical

The ubiquitous Max Martin is here of course – this year with records by Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, plus "Problem" by Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea, and Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” Greg Kurstin, though, also had a good year, with Sia’s “Chandelier,” a bunch of Ellie Goulding songs, and tunes by Katy Perry and Kelly Clarkson. It’s almost enough to make you forget about Paul Epworth, Adele’s producer, who this year is two-handed with songs by FKA twigs and a young lad from Liverpool named Paul McCartney. John Hill and Jay Joyce had very successful years too, and round out a strong field.

Who Should Win: Paul Epworth – the sound of FKA twigs’ “Pendulum” is pretty daring for so-called pop music.

Who Will Win: Max Martin.

Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

Of all the classical categories, this might be the best this year. The string orchestra known as A Far Cry and the formidable clarinetist David Krakauer released Dreams And Prayers, which spans almost a millennium of music, from 12th century Hildegard von Bingen to the 21st century’s Osvaldo Golijov. Violinist Hilary Hahn’s In 27 Pieces is a collection of encores she commissioned – a great idea that has produced a wide variety of hits and misses. The mid-20th century composer, instrument inventor, and one-time hobo Harry Partch is represented by the band called Partch, doing several of his works including a major dance/theater piece. New York Polyphony is a splendid vocal quartet who may be hobbled here by the fact that their album Sing Thee Nowell is a Christmas record. After Hahn, the best known musicians here are cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Olli Mustonen, whose album champions the cello sonatas of the criminally overlooked 20th century Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu.

Who Should Win: All of them. But I’ll settle for A Far Cry.

Who Will Win: Isserlis and Mustonen.

Best Contemporary Classical Composition

Heavy favorite alert: John Luther Adams’ piece Become Ocean has already won this year’s Pulitzer Prize in Music. It’s been on virtually every year-end list compiled by anyone associated with classical music, mine included. It is brilliant. If there’s to be an upset here, I’d rather it came from Anna Clyne, whose Prince Of Clouds continues her run of works that show a keen ear for sonic detail. Writing this makes me feel guilty, as George Crumb, long one of my absolute favorite composers, is represented by Voice From the Heartland; but it’s just too strong a field. Stephen Paulus’s Concerto for Two Trumpets and Band and Roberto Sierra’s Sinfonia No. 4 make up the numbers.

Who Should Win: John Luther Adams.

Who Will Win: John Luther Adams.