Which Grammy Award Should Taylor Swift Win?

The Grammys have started rolling out the nominations for the 2015 ceremony and people are on the edge of their seats with nervousness over which category — if any — their faves will get an award in this year. Despite the fact that Taylor Swift has won seven Grammys in the past, and despite the fact that 1989 missed the deadline for consideration, the pop star still managed to walk away with nominations in two categories. So far. As the list of nominees for the Grammys continues to get longer and longer, I'm already focused on Miss Swift and what accolades she has earned in the last year. Does Swift deserve to win Record of the Year, Pop Solo Performance, or both? Well, that depends.

Let's start by defining what both of these categories mean. Record of the Year (which is easily confused for Song of the Year and Album of the Year) is a performance and production award, recognizing not only the artist who sang the song but also the behind-the-scenes people who helped with the music, composition, recording, writing, and production of the song. Meanwhile, Best Pop Solo Performance is an award that highlights amazing solo performances of singles or tracks. Record of the Year is one of the most prestigious Grammys next to Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist, while Pop Solo Performance only came into existence in 2012 as a combination of three other categories.

So where does Swift stack up in these categories? So far, she has been nominated for Record of the Year twice — in 2010 and 2013 for "You Belong With Me" and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" respectively. She's never won a Grammy in this category. As far as Best Pop Solo Performance goes, Swift has never been nominated for the award in its three year run, but she was nominated for one of the categories that it replaced: Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2010 for "You Belong With Me." Shockingly, she didn't win a Grammy for that either.

Now the question is which category Swift deserves to win a Grammy in. Although the 1989 artist has won seven Grammys to date, it would be her first time taking home the trophy in either category. Those who are upset that the entire 1989 album missed the deadline to be considered in the 2015 Grammys might love to see her go home with an award in every category that "Shake It Off" can possibly qualify for. However, one can't simply consider Swift's immense talent when it comes to this decision. There's also the artists she is competing against to factor in.

In both categories, Swift is competing against Sia's "Chandelier" — which, let's be real, was a breathlessly good song to either listen to or see performed live. In Best Pop Solo Performance alone, she's up against John Legend's live performance of "All Of Me," a song that was widely considered to have been snubbed by the Grammys when it wasn't in any of the initially announced categories. "Chandelier" would be hard to beat on its own, but "All of Me?" Do the Grammys need an excuse to give that song the award it so justly deserves?

However, while it might be difficult for Swift to come out on top in Best Pop Solo Performance, she definitely deserves to win Record of the Year. "Shake It Off" not only had a great message, but it broadcast that message in an accessible, pop-heavy way with big band musical composition that practically invited people to dance it out. Everyone involved in the production of that song deserves an award for how easily they showed the difference between the old Swift and what we could expect of 1989 Swift, an epic transition that the world responded well to.

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