Taylor Swift? SZA? Billie Eilish? Who Will Win the Grammys in the Top Categories?

Taylor Swift dominated 2023 to such a degree that when she was ranked No. 1 on Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of the year franchise in December, our subhead on that story simply said “Obviously.” Swift had one of the biggest years of any artist in the modern pop era, up there with The Beatles in 1964, Elton John in 1975, Bee Gees in 1978, Michael Jackson in 1983 and Adele in 2011.

So, does that mean she’s a cinch to sweep the Grammys on Feb. 4? Not necessarily. Adele won all three of the top Grammys – album, record and song of the year – in her biggest year, but none of these other artists swept all three of these categories.

Swift would make history if she won album of the year. She’s already tied with Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon with three wins in this category. She’s vying to become the first four-time winner.

Predicting Grammy winners has never been easy. Music is constantly changing, and so is the membership of the Recording Academy, especially in the past four years. The Academy has added thousands of new voting members in an aggressive effort to make the voting membership younger and more diverse.

Seven years ago, Adele’s 25 controversially beat Beyoncé’s Lemonade for album of the year. That contest might have turned out differently with today’s voting membership.

This year, for the first time, the Recording Academy bumped producer of the year, non-classical and songwriter of the year, non-classical to what it calls the General Field. This will greatly increase the number of people voting in these two categories. All Grammy voting members can vote in the General Field. After that, they can vote in no more than 10 other categories spread across no more than three fields. (Got all that?)

The awards will be presented at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 4. Trevor Noah, who won a Primetime Emmy for outstanding talk series on Jan. 15 and is nominated for a Grammy for best comedy album, is hosting for the fourth year in a row.

Let’s get into it. Here’s how I see the races shaping up in the six General Field categories.