New York indie-rock trio Fun. and L.A.'s breakout R&B/hip-hop star Frank Ocean scored big in Grammy Award nominations Wednesday, earning six nods apiece predominantly in the most prestigious Grammy categories. Absent a single lightning rod artist such as Adele in 2011, the Recording Academy heaped multiple nominations on a broad spectrum of performers. The academy also bestowed six nominations on producer Dan Auerbach, rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West and British alt-country band Mumford & Sons.
Fun. registered a rare Grammy nomination grand slam, receiving recognition in all four general Grammy categories: album of the year for the trio's Some Nights, new artist, record and song nods for its hit with singer Janelle Monae, We Are Young.
Ocean is nominated in three of the top four slots. His Channel Orange solo debut is vying for album of the year, and the single Thinkin' Bout You is up for record - highly unusual for an act that is also nominated for new artist. But Channel Orange is one of the most enthusiastically reviewed albums of the year.
Ocean's album has sold about 390,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen Sound-Scan, compared with 791,000 for Some Nights, a little more than one million for The Black Keys' El Camino, 1.2 million for Mumford & Sons' Babel and more than 400,000 for Jack White's Blunderbuss, the other album nominees.
Conspicuously missing from that field is a firmly established industry veteran, giving this year's album category a decidedly younger, hipper cast.
Even so, Grammy voters largely passed over eligible pop acts that have electrified young teen audiences in the last year, among them Justin Bieber, One Direction and Gangnam Style Korean pop sensation Psy.
