It’s the most exciting time of the year for music-industry awards watchers: Grammy season is officially here! The nominations for the 2023 Grammy Awards will be announced on Nov. 15, 2022. While the nominations in many key categories are up for grabs, and the Grammys are famously unpredictable, that’s no reason we can’t make our best guesses. Here’s what Rolling Stone staffers and music-business experts expect to see when the nominations are announced. (Note: We’ve left off artists like Silk Sonic, Drake, and the Weeknd, who have chosen not to submit their music for Grammy consideration this year.)

Album of the Year

Adele reasserted her dominion, Beyoncé made the planet her dance floor, and Rosalía created pop music without borders 

Adele, 30
Last November, after six long years, Adele finally followed up her 2015 Grammy-winning smash 25 with what will surely be another Grammy-winning smash, 30. The new album is a remarkable meditation on love, heartache, and divorce that pairs Adele’s unmatchable vocals with an equally expansive sonic palette (courtesy of longtime go-to producers like Greg Kurstin, Tobias Jesso Jr., Max Martin, and Shellback). Like her two previous albums — 25 and 2011’s 21 before it — 30 was the kind of cultural event only an artist of Adele’s stature can deliver, spending six weeks at Number One on the Billboard 200 chart and ending the year as the highest-selling album of 2021 — across all formats — according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. “Everything from airplay to streaming to all the metrics were on its side,” says Rob Kruz, program director of Hot 99.5 in Washington, D.C. “This album has just been tremendously successful for her.”

Beyoncé, Renaissance
No one else can read the mood of the global room quite like Beyoncé. Six years after her landmark album Lemonade, she returned to a world in pure turmoil and offered it pure ecstasy. Renaissance — which had the biggest debut sales week of the year for a female artist — is steeped in house and disco, luxuriating in those timeless sounds and honoring their Black, brown, and queer origins while simultaneously carving out a new future for them. It’s all in service of the most noble goal: nailing the sweet spot between the “I” and “we,” finding self-love within the communal spirit of the club. 

Harry Styles, Harry’s House
Harry Styles has only had a solo career for about five…