20 most surprising Grammy nominations

What's so surprising about arguably the most popular band in rock-and-roll history earning a Grammy nomination? Well, prior to 1965, no rock-and-roll artist had cracked one of the Recording Academy's top categories (Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year). The Beatles broke through in '65 (also becoming the first rock band to be nominated for and win Best Performance by a Group), and, as far as the Grammys were concerned, rock-and-roll was here to stay.

The Recording Academy has a tendency to lag behind the times when it comes to certain musical genres, and they outdid themselves in 1989 with this brand new category. Metallica was expected to become the first heavy metal band to win a Grammy (for "... And Justice for All"), though they faced stiff competition from AC/DC, Jane's Addiction and Iggy Pop. Instead, it was the flute-driven hard rock of Jethro Tull, a well-known but hardly relevant-in-1989 outfit, that took home the trophy. The shock and outrage prompted by the win forced the Grammys to split Hard Rock and Metal into separate categories.

Kid Rock may have exploded onto the rap-rock scene in the late '90s with his LP "Devil Without a Cause," but he actually released his first hip-hop album, "Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast," in 1990. Though not aggressively marketed, the LP was produced by Oakland hip-hop legend Too $hort, and managed to sell 100,000. Kid Rock put out two more albums before "Devil Without a Cause." So while Kid might've been new to the mainstream, he was old news to most rap fans.

Even now, Grammy voters can be a little conservative when it comes to tawdry lyrics, particularly in the top categories. So Grammy experts were pleasantly surprised when Meghan Trainor's effusive ode to ample booties snagged nominations for Record and Song of the Year. At long last, the Recording Academy joined the club: they like big butts, and they cannot lie.

Quincy Jones walked into the 1990 Grammy Awards with fifteen previous wins. He left the ceremony with six more trophies –  one of which he should've never been nominated for. Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group was a new category for a still-nascent art form the industry hadn't quite figured out, hence the lack of nominations for seminal LPs by Ice Cube, Salt-n-Pepa and A Tribe Called Quest. "Back to the Block" featured verses by the respected likes of Big Daddy Kane, Kool Moe Dee, Ice-T and Melle Mel, but it was a novelty that didn't belong. That it beat out Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet" for the Grammy was inexcusable.

2014 was a highly competitive year in a number of categories, so it was a surprise to see Bareilles's modestly successful "The Blessed Unrest" land an Album of the Year nomination over the hugely popular duo of Justin Timberlake ("The 20/20 Experience") and Bruno Mars ("Unorthodox Jukebox").

Who knew that sitting around the living room making prank calls to random people for weeks on end could result in recognition from the most prestigious body in the recording industry? Probably not The Jerky Boys (Johnny B and Kamal), but sell millions of albums (their first two LPs went platinum), and the Grammys will take note. A bit of trivia: Radiohead named their first LP, "Pablo Honey," after a Jerky Boys bit.

In these days of over-produced, same-sounding country music, it's refreshing - and, according to Grammy observers, somewhat shocking - to see a throwback artist like Sturgill Simpson vie for Best Country Album. Simpson's drawn comparisons to legends like Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Marty Robbins, but he's not afraid to go his own way. "A Sailor's Guide to Earth" features contributions from the funk/soul collective The Dap Kings and a cover of Nirvana's "In Bloom."

Never heard of Vocally Challenged? Well, don't attempt to Wiki them: they don't even have an entry (at the time of their Grammy nod, they didn't even have a social media presence or an official website). Granted, very few people pay attention to this category, but longtime Grammy observers were caught off guard by this nomination for the heretofore unknown group's medley of Bruno Mars songs. If you're a fan, maybe do them a solid and give them a Wikipedia page.

"Genius Loves Company" was Ray Charles final studio album (he passed away in June of 2004), so when the 2005 Grammy nominations were announced, it was expected that this all-star, Starbucks-distributed collaboration would get a little love. But Album of the Year in a competitive year like this? Critical darling Franz Ferdinand found themselves out of the running, but surely Kanye West ("The College Dropout"), Green Day ("American Idiot") or Alicia Keys ("The Diary of Alicia Keys") would take home the Grammy. Nope. The late genius capped off his big evening with his eighth win.

In 1983, Garry Trudeau took a year off from drawing his popular political comic strip to spearhead a Broadway musical adaptation. While the show wasn't a disaster, it received mediocre reviews, got completely shut out by the Tony Awards and closed after 104 performances. By the time "Doonesbury" received this out-of-left-field Grammy nomination, Trudeau was back to writing the strip. The show has never been revived on Broadway.

All due respect to Uncle L, but the self-proclaimed "Future of the Funk" had seen his best days in the recording studio by the time "Mr. Smith" dropped in late 1995. The LP had a few memorable tracks (most notably "Doin' It"), but had no business being nominated over Jay Z's "Reasonable Doubt," De La Soul's "Stakes Is High" and Outkast's "ATLiens."

Give Highly Suspect credit: unlike fellow 2016 nominee, Vocally Challenged, they have a Wikipedia page. Still, rock trio out of Cape Cod was relatively unknown when they scored two Grammy nominations for their debut LP "Mister Asylum." Grouped with established acts like Muse, Slipknot and Death Cab for Cutie, this surprising Grammy showing put Highly Suspect on the map. Their 2016 release, "The Boy Who Died Wolf" missed the 2017 Grammy deadline, so fingers crossed for 2018!

When people say Eddie Murphy saved "Saturday Night Live" in the early 1980s... they're right. But it's easy to forget that his cast mate Joe Piscopo was earning huge laughs at Murphy's side. From his overexcited sportscaster to his spot-on Frank Sinatra, Piscopo seemed destined for some kind of stardom. Perhaps hoping to follow in Murphy's recording footsteps, he released a comedy album of his own titled "New Jersey". It bombed. For some reason, the Grammys saw fit to nominate one track off the LP, "Honeymooners Rap," on which Piscopo and Murphy did Jackie Gleason and Art Carney impersonations.

You may not recognize him without the cascading hair-metal locks, but rest assured that is former rock god Kip Winger. Before he began fronting his band Winger in the late 1980s, Kip studied classical music in his hometown of Denver and, later, New York City. He still records with the band, but, at age 55, he's branched out into ballet-inspired classical compositions, and just earned his first-ever Grammy nomination for his efforts.

This ludicrous celebration of yachting killed as a "Digital Video" on "Saturday Night Live," and was one of the standout tracks on The Lonely Island's debut LP "Incredibad." Everyone loved it. But no one saw the comedy trio (assisted by autotune master T-Pain) scoring a Grammy nomination outside of the Comedy category for the song. Hip-hop can be hypersensitive to anything that feels like ridicule, but "I'm on a Boat" was so banging in its own right, no one complained about the nod.

It's not uncommon for U.S. Presidents to receive nominations for the Best Spoken Word Grammy (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have all won it), but this is entirely different. These interviews, dramatized in the play and film "Frost/Nixon," culminated in the disgraced president admitting to having committed illegal acts while in office. There was talk of Nixon saving his reputation prior to these interviews. Instead, he confirmed the world's worst suspicions about his behavior. In other words, it is highly unlikely Nixon would've accepted the Grammy had he won.

It was a beautiful thing when most of the top recording artists in the U.S. came together in January 1985 to perform "We Are the World." Their combined efforts wound up raising over $40 million to fight the brutal famine in Ethiopia. So no one batted an eye when the single won Record and Song of the Year. But the nomination for Album of the Year? For a slapped-together collection of B-sides (and Prince's original composition, "4 the Tears in Your Eyes")? It was a nice gesture, but robbed deserving artists like Don Henley ("Building the Perfect Beast") and John Fogerty ("Centerfield") of recognition.

Technically, this R&B band inspired by a "Saturday Night Live" skit represented John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd's debut as musicians. But with a band comprised of session-musician legends like Steve "The Colonel" Cropper and Donald "Duck" Dunn, a Best New Artist nomination felt a tad egregious. The Recording Industry thankfully declined to nominate The Traveling Wilburys in 1990 (the same award eventually vacated by the fraudulent Milli Vanilli).

One of the all-time Grammy stunners. It's hard to believe these two hugely popular and influential LPs were denied Album of the Year nominations in 2012, but it's also easy to make a case for most of the competition that made the final cut. In hindsight, Bruno Mars's "Doo-Wops & Hooligans" and Rihanna's "Loud" should've been on the outside looking in.