ADELE VS. BEY: AN EMMY BATTLE

It’s Beyoncé vs. Adele in the first awards battle of 2016. Bey’s HBO special Lemonade and NBC’s Adele Live in New York City received four Emmy nominations each today, with both shows contending for the Variety Special trophy. The list of nominees from the music world includes Diane Warren, Jim Beanz, Grease: Live and, believe it or not, HBO’s recently canceled Vinyl.

Besides Variety Special, Lemonade received nominations for direction (Kahlil Joseph and Beyonce), picture editing and production design. The director of Adele— Beth McCarthy-Miller—was nominated as well, alongside Louis J. Horvitz for the 58th Grammy Awards. Adele is also up for technical direction and lighting design.

Liz Garbus’ documentary on Nina Simone, What Happened, Miss Simone?, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015, received an Oscar nomination and was one of Netflix’s first major acquisitions, pulled in six nominations, among them best documentary, direction and cinematography.

Warren also received an Emmy nom for a song that was also Oscar-nominated—and at one time considered an odds-on favorite—“‘Til It Happens to You” from The Hunting Ground. The documentary played in theaters and was aired on CNN. It is the only song in history to be nominated for an Emmy, Oscar and Grammy. Difference for the Emmys is that Lady Gaga’s participation in the song, she sang it and got co-writing credit, is that her participation was determined to be 10%; a co-writer needs to have 20% participation to be nominated.

It goes up against Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, who wrote for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with Rachel Bloom and Jack Dolgen; Beanz’s “Good People” from Empire; Alan Menken and Glenn Slater’s “A New Season” in Galavant; and “Frozen Lullaby” from the Garfunkel & Oates women, Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci.

Fox’s Grease: Live nabbed 10 nominations in categories such as direction, casting and costumes; it’s also up for Outstanding Special Class Program against the Super Bowl Halftime Show with Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars, the Oscars, Tonys and Golden Globes.

And deep in the extraordinarily long list of categories, you’ll find Vinyl up for main title design and makeup. Now if you care about all the other categories, the list is here.

The 68th Emmy Awards will be handed out 9/18 at the Microsoft Theater in L.A.