It’s ironic, coming into the 2027 Grammys, that Ella Langley breaks Mariah Carey’s record for most weeks at #1—and people think it’s cool or reasonable to say they’ve not heard “Choosin’ Texas.” To quote Sylvester Stallone on the topic of country music in Rhinestone, “It’s worse than liver.” Or so the hipster/gate-keeping bias would suggest.

But in the real world, people are listening. Maybe it’s the fact Langley, her good friend Joybeth Taylor, Luke Dick and multiple Grammy winner (and probable 2027 nominee) Miranda Lambert embraced classic song structure while unpacking the agony of romantic defeat. It’s not brain surgery, but it’s honest songcraft—something radical in today’s realm of tag-team writing.

All to say, coming into this year’s Grammys, where Langley seems likely to land in three of the Big Four—Song, Record and Best New Artist—on the impact of “Texas,” the Contemporary Country Album, Traditional Country Album categories and even the American Roots categories are going to have an outsized impact. Maybe it’s the coasts wanting a piece of the pie. Maybe it’s the cycles cycling. Maybe it’s time to get real about the fact that just because “you” don’t love it, plenty of people do. Certainly Nashville is the last bastion of actual musicians, songwriters who aren’t just dropping tracks and even artists seeking to create something beyond a viral moment.

In its second year, the Traditional Country Album category seems designed for legacy acts, mainstreamers mainlining ’80s and ’90s country and those Americana acts who lean toward Nashville and want to hold the line for classic country. It gets the Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris types out of the way of the big flossy radio stars, though a fair number of country acts—including CMA/ACM Vocal Group The Red Clay Strays—are putting their releases in Americana Album.

With that reality established, let’s start with the obvious: Taylor Swift returns to her Nashville songwriting roots with “I Knew It, I Knew You.” Look for her to be a factor in country, alongside Chicago-based STELLA LEFTY, whose “Boston” has landed a minor ubiquity with its start-stop rhythm and wide-eyed chorus. Other obvious Contemporary Album and Country Song contenders are Megan Moroney with the self-effacing Cloud 9, Luke Combs’ evolving every (young)man The Way I Am and ACM Album of the Year nominee Carter Faith’s Cherry Valley. Longer on testosterone, red-dirt roughneck Koe Wetzel rides hard with Night Champion, and 2024 Americana Music Awards New Artist nominee Wyatt Flores’ more centrist Scared of Heights could potentially land here.

Perennial Grammy favorite Kacey Musgraves would be equally at home in Contemporary or Traditional; but also, she could potentially land an Album nod with her multi-influenced, often hilarious and wildly hormonal Middle of Nowhere. Other Traditional contenders include classic country stars like Brad Paisley, Vince Gill, The Bellamy Brothers, Cody Johnson and Carly Pearce, as well as more alternative-leaning forces like Charley Crockett, Flatland Cavalry and California country acolytes Midland.

A couple dark horses deserve shouting out. Killers’ front man Brandon Flowers may be the most unlikely candidate, but his lean THRASHER provides a stark reality check based on old-guard country that lands with equal parts Steve Earle and Zach Bryan. Raised on his father’s old country records, he exudes a post-Johnny Cash populism.

Shaboozey has proven Grammy catnip. But this year, his high-concept The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales merges his Tarantino-spaghetti Western sensibility with a song cycle that brings a pulp fiction tension to some wildly engaging characters.

And Kashus Culpepper’s Act 1 takes a different look at life in the South, one that’s working-class, regal and willing and moves through moods and rhythms with a suppleness that pulls you in. Smoky at times, forthright at others, there’s a seductive nature to his raw-voiced witness to people getting by, going for it and not always making it happen. That ethos defined Merle Haggard’s blue-collar country, and it permeates Act 1.

With Americana and American Roots categories being joined to country, it will be interesting to see how it affects the voting. Will there be an edge for the non-Nashville acts who see themselves as country? Will it allow space for artists who are unapologetically commercial to have a category that’s not legends and the year’s biggest story? We shall find out.

But looking at the nominees, it appears Grammy is creating space at the table for all kinds of country—from folk and bluegrass to rock-informed and soul-permeated.