Beck, Beyonce, Pharrell Nominated for Grammy Album of the Year

The daylong event to announce the nominees for the 57th Annual Grammys wrapped up Friday night with A Very Grammy Christmas, where the five nominees up for the Grammy’s biggest award, Album of the Year, were finally announced. Pharrell Williams and Sam Smith were among the performers on the holiday special, and both walked away with a Grammy gift: Williams’ Girl and Smith’s In the Lonely Hour each picked up Album of the Year nods, along with Beyoncé‘s Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran’s X and, most surprisingly, Beck‘s Morning Phase.

Earlier in the day, Beck’s melancholic quasi-Sea Change sequel scored some Grammy love by grabbing a nod in the Best Rock Album category, while the album’s standout single “Blue Moon” was nominated for both Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song.

However, the Album of the Year nomination was likely unexpected to even Beck himself. The singer was last nominated in the Album of the Year category in 1997 for Odelay and 2001 for Midnite Vultures. Beck’s most recent Grammy win came in 2000 when his Mutations took home Best Alternative Album.

After missing the cutoff for last year’s Grammys, Beyoncé was a shoo-in for the 57th annual ceremony. Earlier in the day Beyoncé became the most nominated female in Grammy history when she picked up a nod in the Best Urban Contemporary Album. That was Beyoncé’s 47th career nomination, which surpassed Dolly Parton’s long-running record for female artists.

That 47th nomination also put Beyoncé in a tie with producer David Foster as the seventh most-nominated artist overall, but the Beyoncé Album of the Year nod gave the singer sole possession of that spot on the all-time list. In total, Beyoncé earned six nominations for the 57th Annual Grammys.

Smith also racked up six nominations, including recognition in all the major categories: Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “Stay With Me” and Best New Artist, where the young British singer will face off against Haim, Iggy Azalea, Bastille and Brandy Clark.

Pharrell, who had a stake in last year’s Album of the Year winner thanks to his “Get Lucky” collaboration on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, is also up for six Grammys. More impressively though, Williams’ name pops up in the credits of three of the five Album of the Year nominees: In addition to Girl, Williams is also listed among the producers on Beyoncé and Sheeran’s X.

In other Grammy categories that were revealed later in the day, it was announced that Jack White’s Lazaretto, St. Vincent’s St. Vincent, Arcade Fire’s Reflektor, Cage the Elephant’s Melophobia and Alt-J’s This Is All Yours all grabbed nominations in a heated Best Alternative Album field.

The competition in the Best Rap Album category is even more intense as six albums will duke it out for the Grammy: Schoolboy Q’s Oxymoron, Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP2, Common’s Nobody’s Smiling, Wiz Khalifa’s Blacc Hollywood, Iggy Azalea’s The New Classic and Childish Gambino’s Because the Internet.

Visit the Grammy official site for the compete rundown of nominees. The 57th Annual Grammy Awards will air live February 8, 2015 from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.