Well, the Grammys are this weekend and we’re vaguely excited, sort of! In addition to a bunch of not-bad performances, Sunday night’s ceremony will feature the hippest slate of nominees in recent memory: Lil Wayne! M.I.A.! Radiohead! Estelle! Wait a minute, though — didn’t those artists all release their albums in like, 1987? Yes! Thanks to the Grammys’ early-closing eligibility window (to qualify for a nod, CDs must be released by the end of September*), most of the records competing for top awards are ones we stopped listening to over a year ago. And the ones we’ve been listening to for the past four months can’t win anything until next February. So which artists will take home the top awards in 2010?

Best New Artist: This will be an interesting category next year — does the recording industry really have the money to break any new pop stars in 2009? We suppose it could go to an indie artist who’s been around forever and finally gets some mainstream attention (Feist was nominated last year for her fourth solo album), so if Animal Collective can get one of the songs on Merriweather Post Pavillion used in an iPod commercial, we think they could actually have a shot. Just kidding — it’ll probably go to David Cook or someone terrible.

Album of the Year: This Grammy generally goes to an elderly nominee who’s never won it before (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss should be sure to write speeches before this Sunday’s ceremony), which means AC/DC’s Black Ice is a likely contender. But we still think it’ll be U2’s upcoming No Line on the Horizon — they won for 2006’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, and Horizon can’t possibly be worse than that album.

Record of the Year: This award traditionally goes to something really ancient (Sunday’s nominees in this category include M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” which came out in the summer of 2007), so there’s a good chance 2010’s Grammy will be won by a pop song we’ve already heard. Until Judd Apatow makes another great under-the-radar track mainstream-famous by using it in a summer trailer, our money’s on Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.”

Song of the Year: We still don’t know the difference between this category and the previous one, and we bet most Grammy voters don’t either. Our bold prediction for 2010: Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.”

Best Rap Album: Eminem’s comeback album has strong stinker potential, not that that necessarily precludes it from winning a Grammy. But we bet Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 takes this one.

Best Rock Album: Wouldn’t it be great to see Axl Rose finally vindicated for all the time he spent on the low-selling Chinese Democracy? No? Well, U2’s No Line on the Horizon will probably win this award then, too.

Best Pop Album: If David Archuleta’s David Archuleta loses, it will be a blight on the Grammy’s good name.

Source