You want "artistic excellence?" Though that's what the Grammy Awards vow to recognize each year, you may not necessarily get it when you tune in to the 52nd annual ceremony at 7 p.m. CST Jan. 31 on CBS. For every deserving winner in recent years (hard to argue with last year's album-of-the-year winners, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss), there are a half-dozen blunders (my all-time favorite is the New Vaudeville Band's "Winchester Cathedral" topping the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" and the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" in 1966 for best rock recording). Below, we play the perilous game of predicting how the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences will vote, and point out the artistic excellence they overlooked (remember, only recordings released between Oct. 1, 2008, and Aug. 31, 2009 are eligible).

--Greg Kot, Tribune critic
Read a Grammy preview on Turn it Up HERE.