Taylor Swift, St. Vincent, and Jack Antonoff are dropped as Grammy nominees for Olivia Rodrigo's SOUR

The teen pop star interpolated their song "Cruel Summer" in her track "deja vu"

Taylor Swift, St. Vincent, and Jack Antonoff are dropped as Grammy nominees for Olivia Rodrigo's SOUR
L to R: Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent Photo: Jon Kopaloff (Getty Images for Teen Vogue), Dimitrios Kambouris (Getty Images), Kevin Mazur (Getty Images), David Crotty/Patrick McMullan (Getty Images)

The Grammys announced they fixed a pretty big error in one of their nominations of Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR. When the nominees were announced in November, Taylor Swift, St. Vincent and Jack Antonoff were listed as songwriters on Olivia’s debut album, which was nominated in the Album Of The Year category. That’s because Rodrigo’s hit song “deja vu” interpolated “Cruel Summer” from Swift’s 2019 album Lover. Now, the Grammys have dropped the songwriting trio from Rodrigo’s nomination.

The Grammys clarified that writers of interpolated tracks are not counted as songwriters for Album Of The Year nominees, and their inclusion was a mistake. They said in a statement, as reported by Variety, “During the submission process, the Academy received credits from the label for the track ‘deja vu.’ Last week, we received the correct credits from the label that recognize Annie Clark, Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift as songwriters of an interpolation on the track ‘deja vu.’”

Though Swift, Antonoff and St. Vincent lost this nomination, they still have other Grammy noms in the mix. Swift and Antonoff are nominated in Album Of The Year for 2020's evermore. Meanwhile St. Vincent’s Daddy’s Home is nominated for Best Alternative Album. Rodrigo’s SOUR is also nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album.

In a video interview with Rolling Stone, Rodrigo explained how “Cruel Summer” influenced her own track. She said, “It’s one of my favorite songs ever. I love like the yelly vocals in it, like the harmonized yells that [Taylor Swift] does, I think they’re like super electric and moving, so I wanted to do something like that.”

Another of Rodrigo’s hits, “good 4 u,” interpolated Paramore’s 2007 “Misery Business,” and in August the band’s songwriters Hayley Williams and Josh Farro were added to the writing credits of that number one hit. Williams and Farro were, correctly, never listed as songwriters in SOUR’s Album Of The Year nod.

 
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