THE day belonged to ex-Fugee Lauryn Hill, who received a whopping 10 Grammy Award nominations yesterday for her debut solo album, ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”
This year’s battle for the record industry’s top awards is girl-powered, with Miss Hill pitted against a nearly all-female field – including Madonna, Sheryl Crow and Shania Twain – for album of the year honors.
The girls were so much in control of major categories that they held eight of the 10 nominations in the record of the year and album of the year categories. In addition to Hill, women who received more than four nominations include Crow and Twain (six each), Madonna (five) and Brandy and Celine Dion (four apiece). Country singer Vince Gill and Kirk Franklin are the only male performers with at least four individual nominations.
Hill and Crow extended their reach into the male-dominated category of producer of the year. Among the other nods for Hill are best new artist and outstanding female singer in the pop, R & B and rap categories.
For record of the year, Hill will cut heads with Dion for ‘My Heart Will Go On,” Twain for ‘You’re Still the One,” Brandy and Monica for their duet ‘The Boy Is Mine,” the all-male rock band the Goo Goo Dolls for ‘Iris” and Madonna for ‘Ray of Light.”
The album of the year competition has Hill’s ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” matched against Crow’s ‘The Globe Sessions,” Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light,” Twain’s ‘Come on Over” and ‘Version 2.0” by Garbage (featuring Shirley Manson).
The ‘all girls, all the time” grip on the 41st annual awards ceremony was loosened for song of the year – a songwriters’ award – with nominations given to James Horner and Will Jennings for ‘My Heart Will Go On” (the theme from ‘Titanic”), Diane Warren for ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” (recorded by Aerosmith), John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls for ‘Iris,” Kirk Franklin for ‘Lean on Me” and Robert Lange and Twain for ‘You’re Still the One.”
The he-man women-haters club, a.k.a. best male pop vocal performance, gave nods to veterans Sting, Eric Clapton and Brian McKnight and to newcomers Shawn Mullins and Eagle-Eye Cherry.
It is a diverse group nominated for best new artist, including – in addition to Hill – teen heartthrobs the Backstreet Boys, opera singer Andrea Bocelli, the country trio Dixie Chicks and Australian alt newcomer Natalie Imbruglia.
The best rap solo performance finds Hill the odd girl trying to beat guys who include Will Smith, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes and Wyclef Jean, Hill’s former Fugees partner.
Crow’s ‘The Globe Sessions” was nominated for best rock album. She’ll compete against ‘Premonition” by John Fogerty, ‘Version 2.0” by Garbage, ‘Celebrity Skin” by Hole and ‘Before These Crowded Streets” by the Dave Matthews Band.
The best spoken word category, which in ’97 delivered a Grammy to First Lady Hillary Clinton, this year has former President Jimmy Carter battling former Superman Christopher Reeve, among others.
In all, there are 95 categories this year, with a total of 460 nominations. The awards will be presented Feb. 24 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The ceremony moved back to L.A. after a two-year gig here in Skyscraper Park. The move was unofficially attributed to the clash between Mayor Giuliani and Grammys honcho Michael Greene, who reportedly cursed out a member of the mayor’s staff at last year’s nominations proceedings. The mayor later boycotted the awards ceremony at Madison Square Garden.
Greene has since said that the ceremony will return to New York. But Los Angeles officials are heavily lobbying the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (the sponsor of the event) to have the year 2000 show held at the Staples Center, currently under construction in L.A. and set to open later this year.