Three things we know for sure vis-à-vis the GRAMMY AWARDS, which will announce its 2018 nominations this morning: There will be lots of ED SHEERAN; a little but not a lot of TAYLOR SWIFT, whose best-selling-album-of-2017 came out well past the cut-off date and won't be eligible until the far-off concept that is 2019; and presumably no DRAKE, who declined to submit his own 2017 blockbuster for award consideration. Beyond that, expect the Grammys to be the Grammys, hitting here and missing there, welcoming this and excluding that, perpetually caught between a very real desire to be young and au courant and its inability to shake its old-school, traditional pop values rooted in the production and performance norms of the mid 20th century. Anyone want to take bets on how many times the names CARDI B, MIGOS and LIL UZI VERT get mentioned today? (Whatever the over/under is, I wouldn't bet either way.) Might be a big year for JAY-Z. Also might not. There's no single automatic cultural favorite like BEYONCÉ this time around, and no single automatic commercial sledgehammer like ADELE to upset her come JAN. 28. So, go KENDRICK. Go SZA. Go KHALID. Go MIRANDA LAMBERT. Also, please do not nominate BRAND NEW... The province of ONTARIO was close to passing legislation that would have required ticket sellers tell the public exactly how many seats are on sale for any given event, but it dropped the transparency measure after pushback from pretty much the entire music industry. The relatively low percentage of seats made available to the public for some major events is undoubtedly part of the problem with concert-ticket pricing, and transparency is undoubtedly a good thing, but is it possible this would have been a bit much? Artists' and promoters' concerns are laid out here. They sound—reasonable. Am I missing the bigger picture? Is there a way to incentivize promoters to hold back fewer seats while letting them maintain their business privacy?... Speaking of tickets, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, who has never quite figured out how not to come back out for a second or third or ninth encore, has extended his BROADWAY run for another four months. He'll now be at the WALTER KERR THEATRE through June... It's bad enough that overzealous compression is ruining pop music. But is it also ruining your experience of waiting on hold for that one available customer service representative? Because that would be the last straw... The saddest thing about the legal fight between DONALD FAGEN and WALTER BECKER's estate for control of STEELY DAN is that we'll never get to hear a BECKER/FAGEN song that obliquely addresses it... Acclaimed JUSTIN BIEBER/LINKIN PARK/GUCCI MANE collaboratoir BLACKBEAR celebrated his 27th birthday Monday by releasing his album CYBERSEX on whatever day he felt like releasing it. Also, by letting you know he's still in love with you and he hopes your whole life sucks.