What does Grammy history tell us about Olivia Rodrigo’s chances for ‘Vampire’?

Olivia Rodrigo is back with “Vampire,” the lead single off her sophomore album, the highly-anticipated “Guts.” The song has proven to be yet another hit for her, debuting at number-one on the Spotify charts and poised to do the same on the Billboard Hot 100. With such immediate success come questions about how the song will perform at the Grammys, especially coming after Rodrigo’s three wins at the 2022 event. While it might be too early to declare “Vampire” a general field competitor, there’s one category where the song might already have a path to victory: Best Pop Solo Performance. Rodrigo previously won that category for her smash single “Drivers License.” So how does that affect her chances at a nomination and perhaps a win?

Twelve songs have won Best Pop Solo Performance since that category was created in 2012 (combining the separate male and female awards), and in most cases, the artists who won them got at least a nomination for their follow-up submission. The first winner was Adele’s “Someone Like You,” which won as part of her massive sweep for “21.” Her follow-up was “Set Fire to the Rain (Live)” — a live version was entered because the studio recording was disqualified due to already having been part of a Grammy-winning album. “Set Fire to The Rain (Live)” won Adele the second Best Pop Solo Performance award. Adele got two more nominations after that, for “Hello” and “Easy On Me,” and won both of those times as well.

Another artist who has had good luck with his follow-ups is Ed Sheeran. He was first nominated and won the category for his hit “Thinking Out Loud” and then got nominated for his next submission, the massive hit “Shape of You.” Like Adele, Sheeran is undefeated in the category, although he did not get nominated after “Shape of You” for his hits “Bad Habits” or “Shivers.”

Two more winners who were nominated again are Lizzo and Harry Styles. The former took home the award for her viral number-one hit “Truth Hurts.” Later she was nominated for her second number-one single, “About Damn Time,” which lost the award but went on to win the more prestigious Record of the Year. As for Styles, he won his very first Grammy in this category, for his hit “Watermelon Sugar.” Afterwards he would be nominated for his biggest hit to date, “As It Was.” Although Styles lost the category then, he took home two Grammys for his album, including the most coveted award of the night, Album of the Year.

In the other three cases, the winner has not been nominated in the category again, but they have been nominated elsewhere. In 2014 Lorde took home Best Pop Solo Performance, in addition to Song of the Year, for her breakout hit “Royals.” While her Grammy luck has not been very strong since that win, she did get an Album of the Year bid for her next album, the highly celebrated “Melodrama.”

Pharrell Williams took home Pop Solo the year afterwards for his smash hit “Happy (Live).” He has since received a number of nominations and wins, with his most recent being victories in 2019 for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical and Best Pop Vocal Album for his work on Ariana Grande’s “Sweetener.”

Finally, Lady Gaga won the award in 2019 in a surprise victory for her deep cut “Joanne (Where Do You Think You’re Goin’?)”. Since then, Gaga has not been nominated in Pop Solo, but she has received nominations and wins elsewhere. She has actually won four Grammys since then, taking home two for “A Star Is Born” in 2020, one for her Ariana Grande-assisted “Rain On Me,” and one for her Tony Bennett collaborative album “Love For Sale.”

With all that in mind, it seems like Rodrigo is at least poised to get a nomination. In most cases, Pop Solo champs have also been able to win afterwards, either in the category or elsewhere (sorry, Lorde). Time will tell if Rodrigo can maintain enough hype to prevail. But in the meantime, she should have the satisfaction of knowing that, at the very least, she’s likely to hear her name read again in the nominations announcement.

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