In recent years, the Grammys have served up several decisive sweeps (and head scratching omissions) that have dominated the conversation and led to some record labels celebrating huge wins in the Big Four categories of record of the year, song of the year, album of the year and best new artist. Within the past decade, Interscope Records emerged victorious in all four categories when Billie Eilish swept the top honors in 2020, while Atlantic’s Bruno Mars took three of the four in 2018, Columbia’s Adele did the same in 2017 and Capitol, through Beck (AOTY) and Sam Smith (BNA, ROTY and SOTY), swept them all in 2015.
What makes the full Big Four sweep particularly difficult is the best new artist aspect, in that rarely does an artist make such an impact with their initial breakthrough that they can win, or even get nominated in, the record, song and album of the year categories. It’s not unheard of — Eilish, Smith, Lizzo, Olivia Rodrigo, Amy Winehouse and Norah Jones have all been nominated in the Big Four categories in a single year this century, with Eilish and Jones sweeping the wins — but it’s not exactly common, either.
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Which makes this year particularly notable: Both Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan received nominations in each of the Big Four categories for the 2025 Grammy Awards, marking just the second time that two artists have achieved that in the same year. (Eilish and Lizzo both received them in 2020.) Even more, they’re both signed to Island Records, a historic achievement for a historic label.
With those eight nods — for Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” (record and song); Roan’s The Rise & Fall of a Midwest Princess (album); Carpenter’s Short N Sweet (album); Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” (song); Carpenter’s “Espresso” (record); and BNA for both — Island leads all labels in Big Four nominations, a huge moment for a label that had not been at that table at all in years.
Following Island is Interscope, which racked up seven Big Four nominations through a combination of Kendrick Lamar (record and song for “Not Like Us”), Billie Eilish (record and song for “Birds of a Feather,” album for Hit Me Hard And Soft), Jacob Collier (Interscope distributes his Hajanga label, which put out his album of the year-nominated Djesse Vol. 4), and Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga’s “Die With a Smile” (song), which came out on Interscope (Mars’ label Atlantic did play a role, but Interscope is the credited label).
Beyond Island and Interscope, many of the rest of the nominations were spread out among several labels. Receiving three nods apiece were Republic (album, record and song for Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department and “Fortnite”) and Columbia (album, record and song for Beyoncé’s COWBOY CARTER and “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM”). Elsewhere, EMPIRE (best new artist for Shaboozey and song for Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”) received two, as did Warner (best new artist for both Benson Boone and Teddy Swims), Atlantic (album for Charli XCX’s BRAT and record for Charli’s “360”) and Capitol (best new artist for Doechii and record of the year for the Beatles’ AI-assisted “Now and Then”). Lastly, Epic (album for Andre 3000’s New Blue Sun), dead oceans (best new artist for Khruangbin) and Human Re Sources (best new artist for RAYE) all received one nomination each.
Among the label groups, that means that the Universal Music Group — home to Island, Interscope, Republic and Capitol — racked up 20 of those Big Four nominations, far and away leading the sector. (Given UMG’s recent reorganization, the REPUBLIC Corps Collective claimed 11 nominations, while the Interscope Capitol Labels Group had nine.) Finally, Sony Music had five, Warner Music landed four, while the indie sector claimed three.
