Familiar Local Names Among Grammy Nominees
By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 2, 2011 4:40PM
Wednesday night's Grammy nominations may have shaped as the Adele show, with Bon Iver crashing the party in much the same way The Arcade Fire did last year. But this is Chicagoist and we're gonna focus on the local acts.
Kanye West earned the most nominations with seven, but we doubt that will stop him from saying he isn't appreciated. 'Ye's in the running for Song of the Year for "All of the Lights" from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. West and Jay-Z also earned a Best Rap Performance nod for "Otis" from Watch the Throne." (In which Kanye seems to be channeling Screaming Jay Hawkins.)
New Jack Swing pioneer and noted water sports enthusiast R. Kelly's Love Letter picked up a Best R&B Album nomination. Kurt Elling's The Gate, which in this writer's opinion is one of the best jazz records of the year, earned a nod for Best Jazz Vocal album.
Wilco's The Whole Love earned a Best Rock Album nomination and The Numero Group picked up two nominations, for the Syl Johnson Complete Mythology box set and Ken Shipley's liner notes in the set for best album notes. Small classical ensemble Eighth Blackbird earned a couple of nominations for small ensemble performance and engineered album, classical, for their Mackey: Lonely Motel -- Music From Slide.
Sun-Times music critic Thomas Conner has a full list here, which he included Evanston-born Eddie Vedder. We were on the fence including Kanye, but if Conner is including Vedder, we'll include the Louis Vuitton Don.