Good Luck, Babe(s)! : Who Will Take the Big Four?

This piece originally appeared on November 14, 2024 in Sound Signal, our biweekly newsletter that identifies emerging artists, scenes, and trending tracks, crafted by the world's best writers and curators. Sign up here to never miss our take on what's next in music.

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Next year’s Grammy Awards is setting the stage for an intense double header for its most coveted honor: the Big Four. Pop juggernauts Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan are both nominated for Best New Artist, Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year—an accomplishment that only three artists have pulled off. In 1981, Christopher Cross became the first artist to sweep all four categories for the yacht-rock classic “Sailing.” And it wouldn’t be until 2020 when Billie Eilish followed in his footsteps securing her win with “Bad Guy.” (Note: Adele also is a Big Four winner, despite winning Best New Artist three years before winning the rest).

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The fact that Sabrina and Chappell are up against each other for these categories is one of the high points in an otherwise unimaginative award show. Both women represent different iterations of what pop music is today: Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is campy and melodramatic, meanwhile Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet is bubblegum sweet, with suggestive lyrics that ooze in the center.

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Will the Academy have a taste for that “me espresso?” Or will they want to join the “Pink Pony Club?” Here is how Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan fare since their breakthrough releases, by the numbers.

Released in September 2023, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess has catapulted Chappell to Superstar status, according to Chartmetric where she ranks 60th, falling in the top 1% of artists on the platform. Since its release, the album has gained Chappell 42M listeners on Spotify, growing at almost the same rate on Pandora as well, landing at 43M Pandora streams. Elsewhere, the 26-year-old’s engagement on social platforms is equally as impressive with 48M TikTok Likes—a 681.82% increase since Midwest Princess—and 3.8M new followers (Though, she’s received a backlash for not endorsing a presidential candidate, among other things).

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Sabrina Carpenter’s pop dreamland Short n’ Sweet has racked up a ton of streaming milestones since its release only three months ago. Along with a Chartmetric rank of 15, her presence on social media has grown exponentially, garnering 99M Likes on TikTok (a 35% increase) and 13.8M new followers. That popularity online is present in her growing audience on streaming platforms. Since the album’s release, she’s seen 1.7M increase in Spotify Monthly Listeners, bringing her to a total of 78M, and gained 3.5M Followers on the platform. She is performing particularly well on Pandora, experiencing a daily change of 773K streams, which bring her to a grand total of 682M streams.

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Numbers aside, the Grammys has been known to deviate from the popular vote. Despite an impressive run from both artists, we’ll have to check back on February 2, 2025.