Will Kanye West Re-Emerge for the Grammys?

Tonight, CBS will air the Grammy Awards nominations in a sort-of mini Grammys ceremony that will not only unveil the contenders, but will feature performances by the Black Eyed Peas, Maxwell and others.

Though he remains on many people’s shit lists thanks to his tirade at the MTV Video Music Awards, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Kanye West is hands down the most deserving of this year’s album of the year award for his latest release, “808s and Heartbreak.”

Since he released his first album, “The College Dropout,” in 2004, he’s been a Grammy darling, taking home the prizes for best rap album and best rap song for each of his three albums. But he’s never won the top prize – losing out to irrelevant and uninteresting acts like Herbie Hancock and Allison Kraus.

Irony of ironies, in a year in which he’s been written off as an arrogant bully, West actually released his most mature, warm and subtle album. “808s” is a departure from his past three albums in which West actually does a good deal of singing (with the help of autotune), which L.A. Times music writer Todd Martens describes as “a sort of virtual glue — a computer stitching together a broken heart.”

It’s easy to forget that while West enters this awards season the enemy of the industry, last year it was he, and not Taylor Swift, who was being celebrated as the poor, vulnerable victim. He rapped his song “Hey Mama” at the ceremony not long after losing his mother, and the performance brought down the house.

Just for the record, I think Taylor Swift is an adorable and utterly likable (if mediocre) artist. But Kanye West is infinitely more talented – and he deserves to be recognized for it. It’s an incredible shame that after losing the album of the year race three times so far to lesser albums, West might not even get nominated because of a one-time, idiotic but meaningless tantrum.