Did Beyoncé’s Grammy nods really top Michael Jackson’s for ‘Thriller’?

On Friday, as the news emerged of Beyoncé’s 11 Grammy nominations for her country-Beyoncé-style album Cowboy Carter, some fan accounts on social media trumpeted that it had become “the most Grammy-nominated album of all time,” and claimed that Beyoncé had even topped a record set in 1984 by Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the mega-blockbuster against which all other hits have since been judged.

Was that true? Not quite. But in some ways her accomplishment was equivalent to Jackson’s.

In the sometimes confusing world of Grammy stats, nominations for an artist can be spread across multiple projects, and the performing artist on a song or an album is not necessarily an award’s nominee — prizes can (and often do) go to collaborators like songwriters, producers or engineers.

And Beyoncé is not the only recent artist to receive 11 nominations in one year. Kendrick Lamar did so for the 2016 awards, as did Jon Batiste for 2022 — but in both cases, they were not all for work on a single album. (Lamar’s nods that year, for example, included his guest appearance on Taylor Swift’s song Bad Blood.)

Officially, Thriller received a total of 13 nods when the 26th annual Grammy nominations were announced in early 1984. Jackson himself was cited in 11 of them. Of the two others, one was for Bruce Swedien, the album’s renowned engineer. The other cited Quincy Jones and James Ingram, the writers of the song P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), which was up for best rhythm & blues song. In a sign of Jackson’s thorough dominance that year, two other “Thriller” songs were nominated in that same category: “Billie Jean” and Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. (“Billie Jean,” credited to Jackson as the sole songwriter, won.)

Ultimately, Jackson collected seven awards for Thriller, including album of the year and record of the year (for Beat It). Swedien won best engineered recording, non-classical. That night was one of Jackson’s most iconic moments. He attended the show with Brooke Shields and Emmanuel Lewis as guests, and wore a sparkling blue-and-gold military-style jacket, with a crystal glove over his right hand.

But that was not all. Jackson narrated a soundtrack album for the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, with music by John Williams — which became a legal nightmare because MCA Records, which released the E.T. album, had not gotten the necessary clearance from Jackson’s label, Epic, for him to appear on it.

Epic refused to provide that clearance until a deal — meaning a big payment — could be sorted. “It went on for months, corporate lawyers yammering back and forth as only they can,” Jones wrote in his memoir, Q. According to Jones, Epic received a $500,000 advance for its permission, and neither he nor Jackson received a penny of it. At the Grammys in 1984, Jackson’s E.T. album won best recording for children — his eighth trophy of the night.

So Jackson had more nominations total in 1984, though Beyoncé has now tied him for the number of nods for a single album.

In Grammyland, however, there are often asterisks. The 12 nominations that Jackson received in 1984 were the most in a single year for any artist to that point. But in 1997 his record was tied by Babyface, the R&B producer and songwriter. How did that measure up?

Babyface, who has had a golden touch for years — he’s won producer of the year at the Grammys four times, more than any other person — received his nominations that year for projects involving multiple artists, including Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, Brandy and Eric Clapton; in some categories, Babyface worked on multiple titles, which limited the number of awards he could have won. He ended the night with three wins.