No clear Grammy favorites

The British folk rock band Mumford & Sons has quickly become Grammy favorites.

By GLENN GAMBOA
NEWSDAY

With no Adele-like juggernaut to dominate this year’s Grammy Awards, the field, much like the music industry, is wide open.

Six artists — blues-rockers The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, pop-rockers fun., indie-folksters Mumford & Sons, R&B singer Frank Ocean and hip-hop titans Jay-Z and Kanye West — go into Sunday night’s ceremony with six nominations apiece, showing the diversity of the current music landscape and how there is no clear favorite.

But what if there was actually an unexpected sweep of the top awards. Wouldn’t that be fun? Or, more accurately, wouldn’t that be fun.?

The band fun. is a trio from New York who had an incredible 2012 thanks to its unorthodox but catchy pop hit, “We Are Young.”

Yes, fun. — that’s their name — the ambitious trio from New York who had an incredible 2012 thanks to its unorthodox but catchy pop hit “We Are Young,” are the only artists this year in a position to pull off a sweep, with nominations in all four top categories – record and song of the year for “We Are Young,” album of the year for “Some Nights” and best new artist.

Could it happen? Well, pretty much all the successes the band – singer Nate Ruess, guitarist Jack Antonoff and keyboardist Andrew Dost – saw in 2012 were unexpected, so why not?

“The story of fun. over the past year has been just blowing past even our dream goals,” Antonoff says.

“We’re seeing all these things that weren’t even in the conversation.” Antonoff says being nominated in any of the categories is an honor for the band and that winning any Grammy would be nice.

Fun attitude

However, he adds that being recognized for the band’s body of work in the album of the year category or as best new artist would be extra special.

“Going through the process of this album and seeing it get so big is so wonderful because nobody told us what to do,” he says.

“We’ve learned the greatest lesson in the best possible way. If we were worried about success, what the universe has told us is to follow our hearts. If we weren’t worried about success, we’d just be following our hearts anyway … It’s kind of all awesome.”

The band’s attitude toward the Grammys matches the celebratory and supportive nature of its music, which also boasts an ambitious combination of influences ranging from Queen to hip-hop.