2017 Grammy Nominations: Best New Artist

Here for more on the 2017 Grammy nominations, I'm going to dive deeper into the "best new artist" category.  Our contenders:

• Kelsea Ballerini
• The Chainsmokers
• Chance The Rapper
• Maren Morris
• Anderson .Paak

Eligibility Question
Before we get started, you can go check out my convoluted examination and discussion of what makes someone eligible for being a "New" Artist.  Here is the distilled explanation:

Essentially, a "new artist" is defined for the GRAMMY process as any performing artist or established performing group who releases, during the eligibility year, the recording that first establishes the public identity of that artist or established group as a performer. A GRAMMY nomination in a performance category in a prior year disqualifies an artist from competing in this category, unless the nomination came from a single or a guest spot on another artist's recording, and the artist hadn't yet released a full album.

• Ballerini's album The First Time was released on May 19, 2015.  However, the Grammy website says that "For the 59th Annual GRAMMY Awards, albums must be released between Oct. 1, 2015 and Sept. 30, 2016." So Ballerini is not eligible for this award.
• The Chainsmokers have never released a proper album, so figuring out their eligibility is a little harder, but I think their first single that "establishes the public identity" of the group was "#Selfie," which was nominated for a Teen Choice Award and "peaked on the Dance/Electronic Songs chart" in 2014 after its December 2013 release.  So they should be ineligible for this award.  The only way they get eligible is if the voters ignore "#Selfie" and decide that "Roses," "Don't Let Me Down," or "Closer," all from 2016, are the songs that identified the group.  Since "#Selfie" sucks and so does this group, I think it establishes their identity.
• Chance the Rapper is absolutely not eligible for this award.  His first mixtape - Acid Rap - was huge, absolutely put him on the map, won him a BET Hip Hop Award in 2013, made it up to #63 on the Billboard hip hop charts, was ranked as a best album of 2013 by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Complex, and NPR, led to him playing Lolla in 2013.  There is no way you can say with a straight face that Coloring Book first established Chance's identity with the public after how huge Acid Rap was.  Just because the Grammy guys are old and white and asleep doesn't mean that they can break their own rules now.
• Maren Morris is another one that strains the mind to establish that she is a "new" artist.  Her debut album was in 2005, her second album was in 2007, and her third album was in 2011. The big hit album (Hero) was released during the eligibility period in 2016, but come on, aren't there enough truly "new" artists, who haven't been making and selling music for more than a decade, to try to give this award to?  I won't try to argue that Hero wasn't the big breakthrough for her, but this still feels wrong.
• Anderson.Paak released his debut album in 2012, his second album in 2014, and then his most recent in January 2016.  Similarly to Morris, it seems wrong to say he is "new," but he certainly blew up just this year (and is awesome).

So, in my opinion, more than half of the nominees for sure don't even belong out here.  But we've got what we've got, so let's get to it.  I'm sticking with my past Moneyball-esque rating system which will show the deep advanced metrics and statistical relevance of each of these artists' most recent albums. This is an exact science, so know that this stuff is almost certainly 100% correct.

• SPoB.  Long recognized as a deep look at the power hitters of music, this shows the Super Position on Billboard.  Loads of proprietary metrics calculated here.  Highest position, time on the charts, and length of time since release all factor in here.  After extensive calculation and some fact checking by our friends at Price Waterhouse, it looks like Morris takes this statistic. 
• The Chainsmokers are hard to compare apples to oranges since they have no real albums.  Their EP only made it up to 31, but was on for 52 weeks, while their singles (INCLUDING "#SELFIE," DAMMIT) have hit #1 and spent many weeks on the Hot 100.  But their quadrangle fission rating was very low.
• Ballerini and her non-eligible album peaked at 31, but has been on the chart for 77 weeks.  WHICH OBVIOUSLY SHOWS THAT SHE IS INELIGIBLE, SINCE 77 WEEKS AGO WAS JULY 28, 2015!  Damnation!  Points for longevity, but she can't crack 31, which is a black mark on the ttt scale.
• Chance made it up to 8 with a 34 week total ranking.  
• Morris topped out at 5 with a 31 week stay.  
• Paak is the worst on this metric, with only one week on the Billboard 200 and that was at #79.  Really?  Shouldn't a nominee for this award have some sort of popularity?  I guess not in the land of streaming.
• OWGf.  The all-important Old White Guy factor.  Springsteen consistently bats one million on this metric.  Looking back at the past few years for this award, you've got Bon Iver, Fun, Macklemore, and Sam Smith.  100% white dudes who make middle of the road, common-denominator stuff that your grand-dad might think is hip.  And Meghan Trainor last year, who makes generically catchy crappedy stuff, but had been featured on NPR repeatedly and even had a Jimmy Fallon w/ The Roots performance.  And old white guys LOVE NPR.  The Chainsmokers terrify the crap out of a 55 year old white guy (especially if you ever watched that Ultra performance I linked this last year).  Paak appears to have pierced his face, so low marks here, and although Chance's new album sounds like gospel, his last album was named after drugs.  Ballerini has a song called "Peter Pan," and Morris has a song about being a 90's baby in her 80's Mercedes, so I bet both of them get the old voter guys all sorts of excited.  But Morris calls out church, amen, hallelujah, Cash, and Hank, so the old guys are going to like the cut of her jib.
• WmGDtT.  (pronounced WombGut, for when you are discussing this measurement at parties).  A key consideration for the voters each year, this metric measures Would my Grandkids Dance to This?  Ballerini and Morris get extremely low Q-squared value here for their super bland country stylings, which puts them far out of contention.  The Chainsmokers' original music is absolute garbage, but when they play other people's stuff into a pastiche of mashups, they can straight up bang.  But originality is a little known but key component of WombGut. While Chance really makes me want to jump and break windows when I listen to "No Problem," he just can't compare to the unbridled joyful, full-body groove that has been known to occur when people listen to Paak's "Am I Wrong."  This is known.
• EBf.  Expert Bloviating factor.  This stat takes "expert" opinions and ratings into account. AllMusic critic scores, with the number of reviews in parens: Ballerini: 80 (1); Chainsmokers: 70 (1); Chance: 86 (20); Morris 75 (3); Paak: 81 (13). Ha!  I'm right!  Chainsmokers blow! Metacritic somehow doesn't even know that Kelsea Ballerini, Chainsmokers, or Maren Morris exist, which is odd, but Paak gets and 85 based on 18 critics and Chance gets a 90 based on 20 critics.  As is obvious from these results, a lot of critics wanted to talk about Paak and Chance, but Chance is the clear and obvious winner here.
• PPRN.  The most important of all New Artist Musicball statistics, the all important Personal Preference Right Now.  This is measured with 100% subjectiveness, based on my thoughts after listening to this music for a few days.  The following ranking is in opposite order of my enjoyment:
• Kelsea Ballerini.  Without a doubt the worst of the bunch.  Could not be any more predictably bad.  "Yeah Boy" is this terrible banjo and electro combo full of country love tropes (its just tropes about boys in jeans and ballcaps instead of girls in daisy dukes and bare feet).  "Peter Pan" is, shockingly, about her boy who's just a lost boy and won't grow up, over some generic power chords.  "Dibs" is, shockingly, about her making claim to her boy, and sounds so much like "Yeah Boy" I'm confused.  And when she names all the pieces of him that she is calling dibs on, I need to vomit.
• The Chainsmokers.  From everything I've read about these guys, they are unpleasant human beings and douches anyway, but on top of that, their music is terrible generic EDM.  Now, I'm well aware that they are insanely popular and you'll hear them on every pop radio station all day long, but it doesn't change the fact that this music sucks.  For "Closer" to have 763 million streams is just an affront to humanity.
• Maren Morris.  If it weren't for "My Church," I'd peg her considerably lower, but the fact is that it is a great song.  Otherwise, don't care for it.
• Anderson.Paak.  Bad mid-name punctuation aside, this guy makes some really fun tunes. As I mentioned before, "Am I Wrong" is a spacy funk jam that requires a groove and serious dancing.  "Come Down" is on some James Brown action.  Spotify also has a live album thing from some SXSW show in Austin that shows how good this guy can be live as well as in studio.  This guy is good.
• Chance the Rapper.  Dude is legit.  Acid Rap had some great stuff on it, and Coloring Book is even better.  As I mentioned when I reviewed it, Coloring Book is an interesting, somewhat difficult album because most of it is not an easy surface listen.  And it is so gospel influenced that it just doesn't sound like any other popular rap right now.  You've got to dig into the lyrics and do more than just bounce the beats.  But if "No Problem" (see below) doesn't make you want to bounce along, then you are missing out.

  

I think that both my preference and the critical focus are on Chance and he'll take home the Grammy (despite the fact that he is not freaking eligible for the damn category).