Several of this year’s Grammy races appear to be extraordinarily close. You can make a good case that Kendrick Lamar will album of the year, at long last, but you can make just as strong a case that Bad Bunny will take it. The same is true in best new artist, where Leon Thomas and Olivia Dean appear to be the top two candidates.

Final-round Grammy voting, which opened on Dec. 12, closed on Monday (Jan. 5). That day, I announced my predictions in 12 categories, including the six General Field categories – album, record and song of the year; best new artist; and producer and songwriter of the year, non-classical. I’m not changing any of those picks, but I confess that I am not at all certain about my picks for album of the year (Lamar) or best new artist (Thomas).

The biggest hurdle that Lamar will face in his quest to win album of the year is that three rap albums are nominated for the first time in Grammy history – with Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out and Tyler, the Creator’s CHROMAKOPIA  joining Lamar’s GNX in the finals. They could siphon enough votes away from Lamar to allow Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos to win. (That is the only Latin album in the finals.) Vote-splitting is a real phenomenon, but the presence of three rap albums here doesn’t automatically mean a loss for Lamar. In 2004, when there were just five nominees in this category, OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below won even though another strong hip-hop album, Missy Elliott’s Under Control, was also nominated.

The biggest hurdle that Thomas will face in the best new artist category is the voters’ oft-demonstrated allegiance to women artists in this category. The last eight winners in this category have been female solo artists. The last man to hear his name called as the winner in this category was Chance the Rapper in 2017. That could work to the advantage of Dean, whose stylish “Man I Need” exploded during the voting period.

We’ll find out what the voters decided across 95 categories on Sunday Feb. 1 when the 68th annual Grammy Awards are presented at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

Here’s a preview of 12 categories that we’re watching with particular interest. We show the three presumed front-runners in each category (in alphabetical order by artist), the rest of the nominees in the category (also in alphabetical order by artist) and then our pick to win.