After winning an Oscar earlier this year, Jon Batiste now leads the nominations for the 2022 Grammy Awards – with Justin Bieber, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, H.E.R and Doja Cat also in the running for several prizes.
Batiste’s nominations span several genres, including R&B, jazz, American roots music, classical and music video-film, and he is up for 11 in total – including the big prizes of album of the year for We Are and record of the year for Freedom.
Bieber, Doja Cat and H.E.R follow with eight nods, while Eilishand Rodrigo have seven each.
Mercury Prize and Brit Awards winnerArlo Parkscontinues her stellar year, flying the flag for the UK with nominations for best new artist and best alternative album for her debut, Collapsed In Sunbeams.
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After making their return earlier in 2021 with their first new music in almost 40 years, Swedish icons ABBAalso received a nod, for record of the year with comeback single I Still Have Faith In You.
For the top prize of album of the year, Batiste – who won the Oscar for best original score for the Disney and Pixar film Soul – faces competition from Bieber, Eilish, Doja Cat, H.E.R, West, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Rodrigo and Swift.
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The star, who was among the presenters announcing the nominees, tweeted a simple “11 !!!!!!!!!!!!” after the full list had been revealed.
“Oh my goodness! I’m still in a state of astonishment and shock,” he said moments after learning of the nominations.
“I’m just really happy that we were able to make something in complete artistic integrity and have it be recognised.”
Image: Rising British star Arlo Parks has been nominated for best new artist and best alternative album. Pic: Ivors Academy
Image: H.E.R, pictured at the Grammy Awards in 2020, is up for eight awards
In the record of the year category, this year’s nominees range from ages 18 to 95, with nonagenarian – and 18-time winner – Tony Bennett nominated alongside Lady Gaga for their version of I Get A Kick Out Of You, and Olivia Rodrigo, 18, in the running for her hit Drivers License.
Nominees for all the awards were chosen from nearly 22,000 eligible entries for music released between September 2020 and 2021.
Harvey Mason Jr, chief executive of the Recording Academy, which runs the awards, said: “This is an exciting day for music.
Image: Olivia Rodrigo, pictured performing at the American Music Awards earlier in November, is in the running for seven Grammys. Pic: AP Photo/Chris Pizzell
Image: Lady Gaga is nominated for her work with 95-year-old Tony Bennett. Pic: Christopher Polk/Invision for Westfield/AP Images
“These nominations beautifully reflect today’s broad and diverse musical landscape. I congratulate all of the nominees and everyone who submitted work. I’m also so proud of our voters. They voted in record numbers and brought their very best to evaluating the work of their peers, and I thank them on behalf of the entire music community.”
This year’s nominations come following the introduction of a new voting system, which allows the academy’s more than 11,000 members to vote for up to 10 categories in three genres; all voters can vote for the top four awards.
It replaces the anonymous nominations review committee – a group that determined the contenders for key awards.
Some had claimed committee members favoured projects based on personal relationships and promoted projects they favoured and worked on.
The Grammys, the biggest ceremony in the music industry calendar, will be awarded at a ceremony in Los Angeles on 31 January.
With 86 categories in total, there are a lot of awards to dish out. Here are the nominations in the some of the main categories.
Record Of The Year
I Still Have Faith In You – ABBA Freedom – Jon Batiste I Get A Kick Out Of You – Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga Peaches – Justin Bieber featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon Right On Time – Brandi Carlile Kiss Me More – Doja Cat featuring SZA Happier Than Ever – Billie Eilish Montero (Call Me By Your Name) – Lil Nas X Drivers License – Olivia Rodrigo Leave The Door Open – Silk Sonic
Image: ABBA made their comeback earlier in 2021. Pic: Baillie Walsh
Song Of The Year
Bad Habits – Ed Sheeran A Beautiful Noise – Alicia Keys and Brandi Carlile Drivers License – Olivia Rodrigo Fight For You – H.E.R. Happier Than Ever – Billie Eilish Kiss Me More – Doja Cat featuring SZA Leave The Door Open – Silk Sonic Montero (Call Me By Your Name) – Lil Nas X Peaches – Justin Bieber featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon Right On Time – Brandi Carlile
Album Of The Year
We Are – Jon Batiste Love For Sale – Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe) – Justin Bieber Planet Her (Deluxe) – Doja Cat Happier Than Ever – Billie Eilish Back Of My Mind – H.E.R. Montero – Lil Nas X Sour – Olivia Rodrigo Evermore – Taylor Swift Donda – Kanye West
Best New Artist
Arooj Aftab Jimmie Allen Baby Keem FINNEAS Glass Animals Japanese Breakfast The Kid Laroi Arlo Parks Olivia Rodrigo Saweetie
Best Alternative Music Album Shore – Fleet Foxes If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power – Halsey Jubilee – Japanese Breakfast Collapsed In Sunbeams – Arlo Parks Daddy’s Home – St Vincent
Best Pop Vocal Album
Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe) – Justin Bieber Planet Her (Deluxe) – Doja Cat Happier Than Ever – Billie Eilish Positions – Ariana Grande Sour – Olivia Rodrigo
Image: Ariana Grande pictured at the 62nd annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 2020. Pic: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Best Progressive R&B Album New Light – Eric Bellinger Something To Say – Cory Henry Mood Valiant – Hiatus Kaiyote Table For Two – Lucky Daye Dinner Party: Dessert – Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder & Kamasi Washington Studying Abroad: Extended Stay – Masego
Best Jazz Vocal Album
Generations – The Baylor Project SuperBlue – Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter Time Traveler – Nnenna Freelon Flor – Gretchen Parlato Songwrights Apothecary Lab – Esperanza Spalding
Best Rap Album
The Off-Season – J Cole Certified Lover Boy – Drake King’s Disease II – Nas Call Me If You Get Lost – Tyler, The Creator Donda – Kanye West
Best Gospel Album
Changing Your Story – Jekalyn Carr Royalty: Live At The Ryman – Tasha Cobbs Leonard Jubilee: Juneteenth Edition – Maverick City Music Jonny x Mali: Live In LA – Jonathan McReynolds & Mali Music Believe For It – CeCe Winans
Best Latin Pop Album Vértigo – Pablo Alborán Mis Amores – Paula Arenas Hecho A La Antigua – Ricardo Arjona Mis Manos – Camilo Mendó – Alex Cuba Revelación – Selena Gomez
Best Música Urbana Album Afrodisíaco – Rauw Alejandro El Último Tour Del Mundo – Bad Bunny Jose – J Balvin KG0516 – KAROL G Sin Miedo (Del Amor Y Otros Demonios) 8 – Kali Uchis
Horse-drawn carriages, picturesque gardens and endless cups of tea are just some of the stereotypical tropes that have shaped America’s romanticised image of England before even stepping foot on the island.
Thanks to classical literature and a steady stream of period dramas, Lena Dunham was no exception.
“I had so many fantasies,” she tells Sky News about growing up slightly obsessed with British culture.
“I loved Jane Austen, I loved Charlotte Bronte, I love British film, I was one of those little Anglophile kids.”
The writer and director believed it would be that area of classically depicted England that would fill her time when she first moved to “jolly old London” as a teenager with her mother for a brief time.
Instead, her attention was taken by another, and possibly equally influential group of artists.
“There was a pop show about S Club 7 and all I did was just sit in the hotel and obsessively watch things relating to [the group],” she said.
“So, I didn’t go home with all this cultural British knowledge. I went home with a deep abiding love of S Club 7 and came back to school when everyone was obsessed with the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.
“For me, I was literally like, ‘Guys, you got to hear this hot track right off the presses, it’s called Reach For The Stars’.”
Image: Pic: Netflix
It wasn’t until her 30s, when the actress moved again to the city, that reality took hold and she quickly learned the difference between the imagined London and the real city.
Some stereotypes hold true, like the universal love for Paddington. Still, TV tropes like renting a flat on a single income in the city does not necessarily mean you’ll be treated to lavish rooms and a picturesque garden.
She says it was social cues she found most challenging to adjust to, as well as the different dictionaries used when speaking, technically, the same language.
“You come to a new country and even though you speak the same language, you’re totally absent from those tools,” she says.
“And I found that really striking as an adult in my 30s, trying to make friends, trying to date. I found it confusing enough to be a person in my own city of origin, so this was extra confounding.”
Too Much, her new Netflixseries, is loosely inspired by her own London chapter and follows a workaholic New Yorker in her 30s who is sent across the Atlantic to work on a new project.
The 10-episode show is produced by Working Title – the company behind Bridget Jones, Notting Hill, About A Boy and Love Actually – and stars Hacks breakout actress Megan Stalter and The White Lotus actor Will Sharpe.
Image: Pic: Netflix
Dunham says she always wanted to write about her time in the UK, but it was a conversation with Irish actor Andrew Scott that got the ball rolling.
“Actually, he’s the reason that I came to know Meg as an actor because he loved her on Hacks and he loved her videos, and he said: ‘Have you watched this woman’s work? I feel like there’s a real connection between you two’, and I started watching because of him and built a show around her.”
In a full circle moment, Scott appears in the series briefly as an arrogantly odd man who crosses paths with Megan Stalter’s character Jessica.
Image: Pic: Netflix
The Ridley actor isn’t the only famous face joining the cast in a cameo role. Dunham put a call out to most of Hollywood, and luckily lots were on board.
To name just a few, guest stars include Jessica Alba, Stephen Fry, Adwoa Aboah, Kit Harington, Rita Wilson, Rita Ora, Richard E Grant, Emily Ratajkowski, Andrew Scott, Prasanna Puwanarajah and Jennifer Saunders.
“It was one of those situations where you just reach for the stars, literally, and then you can’t believe when they appear,” says Dunham.
“It was just a non-stop parade of people that I was fascinated by, wanted to be around, completely enamoured of.”
Image: A whole host of high-profile cameos feature in Lena Dunham’s Too Much
She adds: “I remember asking Naomi Watson, thinking, there’s absolutely no way that you’re going to want to come play this slightly demented woman. And she’s so playful and she’s so joyful and she just wanted to come and engage.
“Also, Jennifer Saunders has meant so much to me for so long, I had the AbFab box set as a kid, and I just think Patsy and Edina are the ultimate kind of messy women.
“She really showed me what comedy could be and… the space that women could occupy in comedy, and so having her come and join the show was really incredible.
“That was an episode that someone else was directing, Alicia McDonald, an amazing director, so I just got to sit and watch at the monitor like I was watching a movie, and it was very surreal for me.”
Former MasterChef host Gregg Wallace has vowed he will “not go quietly”, amid reports that he has been sacked by the BBC.
It comes after the TV hostfaced an investigation, commissioned by MasterChef’s production company Banijay UK, into alleged inappropriate behaviour while working for the BBC.
In November, the 60-year-old stepped back from presenting the cooking show after accusations that he made sexual comments towards staff and celebrity guests on a range of programmes over 17 years.
Image: Gregg Wallace received an MBE for services to food and charity in 2023. Pic: PA
Broadcaster Kirsty Wark, author and actor Emma Kennedy, and presenter Kirstie Allsopp, were among the high-profile figures who made claims of inappropriate behaviour against Wallace.
In a statement, released ahead of the publication of the summary of a report into the claims, the 60-year-old said he had been “cleared of the most serious and sensational accusations” made against him.
However, he said the report, carried out by independent law firm Lewis Silkin, had found him “primarily guilty of inappropriate language between 2005 and 2018”.
Wallace’s statement, published on Instagram, came hours before the BBC News reported that 50 more people had made claims to the corporation against the presenter, including allegations he groped one MasterChef worker and pulled his trousers down in front of another.
In his statement, Wallace labelled BBC News’s claims as “uncorroborated tittle-tattle”.
Wallace wrote: “I have taken the decision to speak out ahead of the publication of the Silkin’s report – a decision I do not take lightly.
“But after 21 years of loyal service to the BBC, I cannot sit in silence while my reputation is further damaged to protect others.
“I have now been cleared by the Silkin’s report of the most serious and sensational accusations made against me.
“The most damaging claims (including from public figures which have not been upheld) were found to be baseless after a full and forensic six-month investigation.
“To be clear, the Silkin’s report exonerates me of all the serious allegations which made headlines last year and finds me primarily guilty of inappropriate language between 2005 and 2018.”
Image: Gregg Wallace on MasterChef. Pic: BBC/ Shine TV 2024
‘I was hired as the cheeky greengrocer – now that’s a problem’
Wallace said he recognised that “some of my humour and language” was at times “inappropriate” and, for that, he apologised “without reservation”.
“But I was never the caricature now being sold for clicks,” Wallace, who also referred to his recent diagnosis of autism, added.
“I was hired by the BBC and MasterChef as the cheeky greengrocer. A real person with warmth, character, rough edges, and all.
“For over two decades, that authenticity was part of the brand. Now, in a sanitised world, that same personality is seen as a problem.”
Image: Wallace and his partner Anna Wallace, pictured in 2014
Wallace: Complaints from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’
Shortly after the allegations first emerged, Wallace recorded a video where he dismissed his accusers as “middle-class women of a certain age”.
His remarks were met with huge criticism – including from Downing Street, where a spokesperson for the prime minister described them as “completely inappropriate and misogynistic”.
Wallace responded by posting a follow-up clip where he apologised and said he “wasn’t in a good space” when he posted the comments.
In April, Wallace spoke to the Daily Mail, denying all accusations against him and saying he had contemplated suicide following the allegations.
Wallace’s lawyers have previously called allegations that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature “entirely false”.
A spokesperson for the BBC said: “Banijay UK instructed the law firm Lewis Silkin to run an investigation into allegations against Gregg Wallace. We are not going to comment until the investigation is complete and the findings are published.”
A Banijay spokesperson told Sky News: “We won’t be commenting until our report is published.” They have signalled the report will be published later this week or next.
Banijay previously said Wallace is “committed to fully co-operating” with the external review.
Alongside MasterChef, Wallace presented Inside The Factory for BBC Two from 2015 to 2023.
He also featured on various BBC shows over the years, including Saturday Kitchen, Eat Well For Less, Supermarket Secrets, Celebrity MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals, as well as being a Strictly Come Dancing contestant in 2014.
More recently, Wallace has been promoting his health and lifestyle website, offering one-to-one coaching from both himself and a team of experts, which includes nutritionists and doctors, and his wife Anna in the role of recipe curator.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
Ozzy Osbourne has reunited with Black Sabbath and performed his final gig – telling fans “you’ve no idea how I feel – thank you from the bottom of my heart”, in an emotional but truly metal goodbye.
Announced earlier this year, Back To The Beginning at Villa Park stadium was billed as the “final bow” for the man revered as a founder of heavy metal after several years of health problems, including Parkinson’s disease.
Rising up on a black throne featuring jewelled skulls, the 76-year-old performed a solo set before being joined by his original bandmates – Terence “Geezer” Butler, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward – for Black Sabbath’s first performance in 20 years.
“Let the madness begin,” Osbourne cried as he appeared for the first time, telling about 40,000 fans: “It’s so good to be on this stage.”
Image: Ozzy smiles and waves his arms. Pic: Ross Halfin
Image: Ozzy Osbourne sings while sitting on a black throne
With the crowd chanting his name, he performed both sets sitting down, but the voice and the crazed glint in his eyes were there almost throughout.
Singing fan favourites including Mr Crowley and Crazy Train, and Iron Man and Paranoid with Black Sabbath, Osbourne conducted the crowd to sing “louder, louder”, and “go f****** crazy”.
This was an orchestrated exit by heavy metal’s biggest character, with a supporting line-up of hard rock luminaries – from Slayer and Halestorm to Metallica and Guns ‘n’ Roses, plus stars including Steven Tyler, Ronnie Wood, Yungblud, Travis Barker and Chad Smith, who showed up for “supergroup” performances.
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Many said they would not be the musicians they are without Osbourne and Black Sabbath.
Image: Ronnie Wood was among the hard rock luminaries in the line-up. Pic: Ross Halfin
Image: Stars at the concert included Steven Tyler. Pic: Ross Halfin
“You know, there’s not another guy as respected in metal as Ozzy Osbourne,” former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar told Sky News just ahead of his performance. “And for him to be sick and to be saying, I’m out, I’m done. Man. There’s no one else that can replace that.”
“Without Sabbath, there would be no Metallica,” said frontman James Hetfield during their performance.
“We’re not here to say goodbye,” said Anthrax’s Scott Ian. “We’re just here to say thank you.”
Throughout the day, giant Ozzy and Black Sabbath beach balls, in the Aston Villa claret and blue, were bounced around a jubilant crowd.
Tributes from other celebrity friends and fans, from Billy Idol and Ricky Gervais to Dolly Parton and Sir Elton John, were played on screen.
Image: Metallica frontman James Hetfield during the show. Pic: Ross Halfin
Image: Yungblud also performed. Pic: Kazuyo Horie
Hollywood actor Jason Momoa, who hosted the event, told the crowd heavy metal had been a “safehaven” for many growing up, and Black Sabbath’s music had “influenced and inspired musicians” of all eras and genres.
The farewell show was the idea of Osbourne’s wife, Sharon – one final gig to finish his performing career on a high – after he was forced to cancel shows he had planned in 2023, telling fans he “never imagined” his touring days would end that way.
Sharon Osbourne told Sky News earlier this year that his one regret was not being able to say a thank you to his fans, and so the idea for the reunion gig was born.
Profits from the show will be shared between Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and Acorn’s Children’s Hospice.
Image: Confetti rained down on fans during the show
The gig came after the Black Sabbath band members were awarded the freedom of Birmingham earlier in June, recognised for their significance to the cultural and musical identity of the city they grew up in.
The group formed in 1968 and went on to become one of the most successful metal bands of all time, selling more than 75 million albums worldwide over the years.
They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 – Osbourne again later as a solo artist last year – and awarded a lifetime Ivor Novello songwriting award in 2015. In 2019, they were presented with a Grammy lifetime achievement prize.
Image: Back To The Beginning’s all star line-up. Pic: Ross Halfin
Now, their first performance in 20 years will also be their last – one for the metal history books.
The show ended with fireworks and a roar from the crowd, who had chanted Ozzy’s name throughout.
For fans, Back To The Beginning capped it all – the ultimate rock and metal line-up, and one last opportunity to show their love for the Prince of Darkness.
“I feel lucky to be able to attend this,” said Calum Kennedy, 19, from Dunfermline. “It’s the biggest metal show known to man, [the biggest line-up] ever. I’ve never seen anything better.”
Image: Ozzy wore a shiny black jacket and a gold armband bearing his name. Pic: Ross Halfin
Ben Sutton, 24, from Chester, added: “I feel like it’s important – we’re of the younger generation – for us to see some of the heritage and history of the genre we love, metal in general. It’s such an honour to say goodbye to him.”
Steve Townson, from Lincolnshire, said: “I saw him the first time round and the fact that he’s still going is incredible, isn’t it? I was there at the start, I’m happy to be here at the end.”