The early returns are excellent for Billie Eilish’s third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. The album enters the Billboard 200 at No. 2 with 339,000 equivalent album units — Eilish’s largest week to date by units earned. Of that sum, 191,000 are traditional album sales — her best sales week yet.
Critical response has also been strong. The album has a solid 89 rating at Metacritic.com, the review aggregation site. That’s Eilish’s best mark to date. Her debut, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, posted a 82 rating. Her follow-up, Happier Than Ever, had a 86.
The question now is how well Hit Me Hard and Soft will do at the 67th annual Grammy Awards. When We All Fall Asleep dominated the awards in early 2020. Eilish became the first artist to sweep the Big Four awards – album, record and song of the year plus best new artist – since Christopher Cross in 1981. Her follow-up, Happier Than Ever, was likewise nominated for those Big Three awards, though she didn’t add to her Grammy collection that year.
With the strong early showing, it’s very possible Eilish could join the short roster of artists to receive album of the year nods with their first three releases.
Nominations for the 67th annual Grammy Awards will be announced on Nov. 8. Final-round voting runs from Dec. 12 to Jan. 3, 2025. The awards will be presented at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, 2025.
Here are artists who were nominated for album of the year with their first three releases. Because release patterns were so different in the early years of the Grammys, we’re also including artists who were nominated for album of the year the first three years they were eligible.
The years shown are the years of the Grammy ceremony.
Barbra Streisand
Image Credit: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Streisand was nominated for album of the year the first four years she was eligible. Her debut, The Barbra Streisand Album, won the award in 1964, making Streisand, who was just 22 at the time, the youngest album of the year recipient to date. She held that distinction for 32 years, until Alanis Morissette won the award at age 21 in 1996 with Jagged Little Pill. (Eilish, who was just 18 when she won with When We All Fall Asleep…, is the current record-holder.)
Streisand was also nominated the next three years with People, My Name Is Barbra and Color Me Barbra. The latter two albums were soundtracks to her first two TV specials. To date, she is the only artist on this list to have won the album of the year award — either for one of their first three albums, or for a later release. (If Eilish joins this list, as expected, Streisand will have company in that respect.)
Kanye West
West was nominated for album of the year with his first three studio albums, The College Dropout (2005), Late Registration (2006) and Graduation (2008).
Lady Gaga
Gaga was nominated with her first two studio albums, The Fame (2010) and Born This Way (2012), and with an eight-song EP that was released in between them, The Fame Monster (2011).
Kendrick Lamar
Lamar was nominated with his first four albums that went through major-label distribution. His first album, Section.80, released on Top Dawg Records, was not nominated, but his next four albums, released on Top Dawg through Aftermath/Interscope, were: good kid, m.A.A.d. city (2014), To Pimp a Butterfly (2016), DAMN. (2018) and Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (2023).
H.E.R.
H.E.R. was nominated with her first studio album, Back of My Mind (2022), and with two compilations that preceded it, H.E.R. (2019) and I Used to Know Her (2020).
