The Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday the nominations for Music’s biggest Night- the Grammys.

The nominations yielded little surprises with British pop star Adele gaining six nominations for her hit album 21, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for hit single “Rolling in the Deep”. Adele was eclipsed in nominations only by rap star Kanye West who received a total of seven nominations including Song of The Year for “All of the Lights” where he will go up against Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and Bruno Mar’s “Grenade.”

Country music darling and last year’s Album of the Year winner Taylor Swift, earned three nominations for the album Speak Now, including Best Country Album and Best Country Song for “Mean”. While the music industry’s registered eccentric Lady Gaga received three nominations for her Album “Born this Way” and British band Coldplay’s new album Mylo Xyloto, released last month, earned the group three nominations including Best Group Performance for hit single “Paradise” and Best Rock Song for “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall”.

In order to make this year’s Grammy’s more competitive, The Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences chose to overlap categories and increase the number of nominations in each category. But this year’s nominations showed some notable snubs with critics and fans alike criticizing the Academy for their failure to award Beyonce a nomination for her R&B album 4 despite it having better reviews than the other nominated albums.

Former teen pop star Britney Spears also failed to receive any nominations for her rebound Femme Fatale which earned her some of the best reviews of her careers and  reminded listeners and critics alike of her early 2000’s heyday.

Even though Taylor Swift did receive three nominations for her Speak Now album some fans and critics were disappointed at the albums failure to show in the Album of the Year category as the album had earned her critical acclaim especially by the New York Times who declared that Speak Now “the most savage of her career, and also the most musically diverse. And it’s excellent too, possibly her best”.

The 54th Annual Grammy Awards will air February 12, 2012 on CBS.