Records of the Year: An Analysis of the 2021 GRAMMY® Nominees

The GRAMMY® awards are on March 14th, and there’s a lot to learn by analyzing some of the records that have been nominated. But where to start? There are so many questions surrounding music production, mixing, and mastering, especially now that streaming services have started to move towards loudness-normalized playback. How loud should I make my master? What tonal balance should I aim for? How high should I set my limiter ceiling? How dynamic should my record be?

iZotope posted a fine article examining the tonal contours of some of the 2021 GRAMMY® awards