Two of the most exciting races every year at the Grammys are Best Music Video and Best Music Film. These are very interesting for their visuals, and they often feature passionate picks as nominees. Plus their winners are typically very good, with small films sometimes prevailing over big names. This year the nominees include an eclectic mix of global superstars and acclaimed indies. Let’s take a look.
Best Music Video
This should look like an easy win for Taylor Swift’s acclaimed “All Too Well (The Short Film).” The video has swept this category at every other award show — VMAs, AMAs, EMAs, etc. — and Swift is a known Grammy favorite. Furthermore, it boasts more technical achievements than its competition, being a 15-minute short film rather than an ordinary music video. However, Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version)” underperformed. The singer missed expected Record of the Year and Album of the Year nominations, as well as Best Country Album and Best Pop Solo Performance. This could mean that voters aren’t that enthusiastic about this era for Swift, which is reminiscent of Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” missing a couple of key noms and then losing Best Music Video despite also sweeping the video awards everywhere else.
But if Swift loses, who would win? Last year’s surprise victory for Jon Batiste points to a possible correlation between winning in the general field and winning here. Perhaps this means that Adele (“Easy on Me”) or Harry Styles (“As It Was”) — the likeliest winners for Song and Record of the Year — could both pull a upset. Styles’s video is the more artistic of the two, and it actually won a VMA for Best Cinematography. However, we know voters can easily go gaga for Adele and reward her everywhere. Don’t rule her out here. Ultimately though, Swift is doing Oscar campaigning and really pushing “All Too Well,” so it’s likely she still scoops this up along the way.
Will win: Taylor Swift – “All Too Well (The Short Film)”
Likeliest upset: Harry Styles – “As It Was”
Dark horse: Adele – “Easy On Me”
Best Music Film
This award feels like one of perhaps many Adele will take home. But even if Adele loses everything else, this feels like the one place she’s likely safe. Her nominated film, “Adele: One Night Only,” swept the Emmys, taking home five statuettes out of its five nominations. The film is also going to be helped by Adele’s current Vegas residency, giving her more momentum and more visibility.
Adele’s disadvantage here is that documentaries often win: see “Summer of Soul,” “The Sound of My Voice,” and “Amy” in recent years. That said, since the Grammys require the films to have at least 50% of their runtime be music, maybe we will see fewer documentaries take the prize in the future. But if they do go for a documentary, the winner could be “Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story.” The film is highlights an important music event (much like “Summer of Soul” last year) and features many celebrities like Katy Perry, Pitbull, Bruce Springsteen, and B.B. King. And Frank Marshall, one of its two directors, is a five-time Oscar nominee, which adds even more prestige to the film. If both of these films lose, though, it could go to Justin Bieber’s “Our World,” which features both performance and documentary elements.
Will win: Adele – “One Night Only”
Likeliest upset: “Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story”
Dark horse: Justin Bieber – “Our World”
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify record executives and music stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where thousands of showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
