Grammy odds: Miley Cyrus (‘Flowers’) remains #1 on our Record of the Year predictions chart

As of this writing Miley Cyrus‘s “Flowers” is number-six on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart following an eight-week run at number-one, but there’s one chart she’s still on top of: our predictions for Record of  the Year. Scroll down for our graph illustrating the trajectory of the race.

Based on the combined predictions of Gold Derby users, Cyrus gets leading odds of 15/2 in the race. Among those betting on her to prevail are nine of our Top 24 Users who got the highest scores predicting last year’s Grammy nominations and 11 of the All-Star Top 24 who got the highest scores when you combine the last two years’ predictions results. So why do we think the recording academy will bring her “Flowers” now?

Cyrus has only received two Grammy noms in her career. She contended for Best Pop Vocal Album in 2015 for “Bangerz” (losing to Sam Smith‘s “In the Lonely Hour”).

And then in 2022 she was included in the Album of the Year nomination for Lil Nas X‘s “Montero” since she was featured on one of its songs (they lost to Jon Batiste‘s “We Are”).

But she has never had a hit as big as “Flowers,” and she’s not courting controversy the way she was in her earlier eras when she was working overtime to shed her child star image by being as provocative as possible. More conservative, traditional voters might have been biased against the version of Miley Cyrus who swung naked on her “Wrecking Ball.”

They won’t have that problem with “Flowers,” a radio-friendly breakup anthem in the vein of past Record of the Year champs like Adele‘s “Rolling in the Deep” and Gotye and Kimbra‘s “Somebody That I Used to Know.” And it’s not only Cyrus’s biggest hit.

It may also be the biggest hit by any artist in 2023; it spent its first 25 weeks entirely in the top five. Do you agree with our current consensus that “Flowers” will bloom? There are almost two months left in this eligibility period, which ends September 15, so there’s still time for an artist and song to ambush this race.