Pearl Jam earns first Grammy nominations in 14 years

It’s already been a big year for Seattle’s biggest band. This spring, Pearl Jam released their well-received 12th studio album “Dark Matter,” with a new-look world tour to follow. All that fanfare and critical positivity for the Seattle rock giants has carried over into recognition from their peers, earning their first Grammy nominations as a band in 14 years.

As the big-category Grammy nominations were announced during a Friday morning livestream ceremony, Pearl Jam quickly picked up three nods, including best rock album.

The title track, “Dark Matter,” is also up for best rock performance and best rock song.

The Grammy nominations are Pearl Jam’s first since 2009’s “Backspacer” scored a best rock album nod.

With the recording sessions helmed by hotshot producer and Pearl Jam superfan Andrew Watt – who produced The Rolling Stones’ “Hackney Diamonds,” also up for best rock album – many of the songs were hashed out in quick-paced sessions with all the band members in the same room.

“We’re all musical adventurers,” Gossard said earlier this year. “Everyone in the band wants to get into that moment of creativity and to be part of something that has that sort of magic and that feeling that transcends reality in some way.”

Pearl Jam aren’t the only Washingtonians to pick up a high-profile nod this morning. Monroe-raised Benson Boone is unsurprisingly nominated for best new artist. The singer-songwriter has had a monster breakout year, thanks to his smash hit “Beautiful Things,” which was at one point the biggest song in America by someone not named Taylor Swift.

In May, the back-flipping showman opened one of Swift’s London concerts at fabled Wembley Stadium, easily the biggest gig of Boone’s young career.

“Beautiful Things” might be his life-altering smash. But at a sold-out homecoming date at Showbox SoDo in May, fans already knew all the words to every song on his then month-old album, “Fireworks & Rollerblades.” An elite balladeer with stylistic range, Boone made like a seasoned pop-soul troubadour at times during the show, delivering soaring folk-pop anthems like “My Greatest Fear” and his cathartic new single “Pretty Slowly” alongside glistening pop rockers like “Be Someone.”

Another Washington-raised breakout, known as The Dare, had a hand in one of pop’s big things. The dance-punk producer and indie sleaze revivalist co-produced Charli XCX hit “Guess,” featuring fellow left-field pop heroine Billie Eilish, which is up for best pop duo/group performance. The real-life Harrison Patrick Smith grew up in Woodinville, playing around the Pacific Northwest as Turtlenecked while attending Lewis & Clark College in Portland. Smith later moved to NYC where’s he’s become a suit-and-tied nightlife sensation, catching the club-attuned ear of Charli XCX.

Seattle-rooted vocal quartet and master arrangers säje bagged another couple of nominations this year. The Grammy darlings’ sterling “Silent Night” a capella, released just before Christmas last year, is up for best arrangement, instrumental or a capella. In the same category, the group also features on Scott Hoying’s “Rose Without the Thorns,” for which säje members Amanda Taylor and Erin Bentlage earned nods for their arrangement work on the song.

Rounded out by Cornish College of the Arts professor Johnaye Kendrick and Seattle-raised/Los Angeles-based Sara Gazarek, säje’s second full-group nomination is for their August single “Alma,” featuring violinist Regina Carter.

Elsewhere, revered jazz guitarist Bill Frisell landed two nominations, including best contemporary instrumental album for this year’s “Orchestras (Live),” recorded with the Brussels Philharmonic and the Umbria Jazz Orchestra. Frisell, who lived in the Seattle area for roughly three decades before moving back to New York in 2017, is also nominated for his work on trumpet star Ambrose Akinmusire’s “Owl Song” (best jazz instrumental album).

The music industry is deep into the streaming era, but the Recording Academy still thankfully recognizes the behind-the-scenes players who put together beautiful physical media packages. Nirvana’s final masterpiece “In Utero” recently received a mammoth box set reissue to mark the album’s 30th anniversary and art directors Doug Cunningham and Jason Noto of NYC-based design studio Morning Breath earned a nod for best boxed or special limited edition package.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.