The most exciting Grammys category might not be Album of the Year, where Jay-Z's Platinum-certified 4:44 is going head-to-head against Kendrick Lamar's critically acclaimed DAMN., but instead the overlooked and under-appreciated "Spoken World Album" competition. Seriously — it's in this category that "poetry, audiobooks, and storytelling" go head-to-head, and this year's showdown is a doozy, Uproxx points out.
As the Grammys announced Tuesday morning, the nominees for the category include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and actor Mark Ruffalo's reading of Sanders' Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, Bruce Springsteen's reading of his memoir, Born to Run, Carrie Fisher's reading of The Princess Diarist, Neil deGrasse Tyson's reading of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, and the audiobook of Confessions of a Serial Songwriter by "What A Girl Wants" co-writer Shelly Peiken.
While Sanders is competing against an actual musician in the category, he has some experience behind the microphone — and not just at rallies. In 1987, he collaborated on a folk album, Seven Days reports. Still, you don't have to be a platinum-certified singer to win a Grammy (sorry Bruce). Former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter have all won Grammy Awards, and Hillary Clinton won while she was first lady for the 1997 recording of It Takes a Village.
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Listen to an excerpt from Our Revolution below. Jeva Lange
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