{"id":62616,"date":"2025-10-09T02:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T02:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/62616\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T02:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T02:13:07","slug":"grammys-2026-predictions-best-country-song-nominees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/62616\/","title":{"rendered":"Grammys 2026 Predictions: Best Country Song Nominees"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLeading up to\u00a0the Grammy nominations on Nov. 7, Rolling Stone is breaking down 10 different categories<\/a>. For each, we\u2019re predicting the nominees, as well as who will (and who should) win on Grammy night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen it comes to country music, the Grammys tend to skew toward the traditional and musically conservative. Nowhere is this more the case than with Best Country Song, a category where old-school-leaning artists like Brandy Clark and legends like Willie Nelson have had more success garnering nominations in recent years than contemporary hitmakers on country radio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year feels a bit more wide-open than most, leaving lots of questions for fans to ponder: Will anything from the less-country album by category heavyweight Maren Morris earn a nomination? Which Chris Stapleton<\/a>\u2019s one-off single will get recognized? Which newcomer has the best chance? For this category, the key thing to remember, according to former CMT exec and FEMco founder Leslie Fram, is that the \u201cauthenticity, rather than chart success, always comes through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tBest Country Song \u2014 Our Predictions\t<\/p>\n

\n\tKelsea Ballerini<\/a>, \u201cBaggage\u201d
Tyler Childers<\/a>, \u201cBitin\u2019 List\u201d
Eric Church<\/a>, \u201cHands of Time\u201d
Miranda Lambert<\/a>, Chris Stapleton, \u201cA Song to Sing\u201d
Dolly Parton<\/a>, \u201cIf You Hadn\u2019t Been There\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tWho Will Win?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMiranda Lambert, Chris Stapleton, \u201cA Song to Sing\u201d
It wasn\u2019t featured on a big album, barely cracked country radio, and generally wasn\u2019t a major cultural factor in 2025. But this one-off duet by two of the most respected country songwriters of the past decade has that extra factor to appeal to Grammy voters, according to Ty Bentli, host of The Ty Bentli Show on Apple Music: It\u2019s a song\u00a0about songwriting. With 49 Grammy nominations between these two artists combined (and three wins in this category alone for Stapleton), the odds seem to land in their favor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tWho Should Win?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTyler Childers, \u201cBitin\u2019 List\u201d
It\u2019s a goofy, good-natured song about old-fashioned enemies and rabies written by one of the most exciting young stars in country music, an old-school throwback tune that nevertheless went instantly TikTok viral. That\u2019s the case with a lot of Tyler Childers songs, but he\u2019s done a great job turning this latest one into a real moment for fans. Childers doesn\u2019t get much country airplay but that hasn\u2019t stopped the Grammys from recognizing him in this category. \u201cHe wants to be in country,\u201d says Fram, \u201cand he\u2019s been there before.\u201d And as Bentli points out, the fact that Childers himself is the sole writer can\u2019t hurt in a category where artistic credibility is everything.<\/p>\n

\t\tForecasting the Field\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a year where discourse about authenticity in art has never been more present, thanks to the increasing influence of AI, expect throwback songs like Church\u2019s \u201cHands of Time\u201d and Childers\u2019 \u201cBitin\u2019 List\u201d to pack even more of a punch than usual for Grammy voters. The former, as Bentli puts it, \u201cis one of the songs stating the case for art\u201d in today\u2019s age, a message surely to resonate.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd although the song had little to no commercial or cultural impact in the United States, Dolly Parton\u2019s \u201cIf You Hadn\u2019t Been There,\u201d released as a tribute to her late husband, could be a dark horse pick in a category where songwriters like her and Willie Nelson have tended to find success. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t rule out Dolly,\u201d says Fram,\u201d \u201cjust as I wouldn\u2019t rule out Willie.\u201d And as Bentli puts it, songs written by just one writer, like Parton\u2019s and Childers\u2019, might stand out even more this year, given the ongoing AI discourse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere does that leave several other candidates? Relative newcomers and contemporary stars like Zach Top and Jelly Roll seem poised to break out this year, even if they have zero Grammy wins between them. The only question is whether it\u2019ll be in this category, which can lean even more traditional, or elsewhere. Another question is whether Maren Morris, a Grammy stalwart with five nominations in this category, will be considered after marketing her latest album,\u00a0Dreamsicle, as a step away from the genre.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leading up to\u00a0the Grammy nominations on Nov. 7, Rolling Stone is breaking down 10 different categories. For each,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7954,37390,146,46052,38161,85,46,7950,40639,409,46053],"class_list":{"0":"post-62616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-chris-stapleton","9":"tag-dolly-parton","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-eric-church","12":"tag-grammys-2026","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-kelsea-ballerini","16":"tag-miranda-lambert","17":"tag-music","18":"tag-tyler-childers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}