Mike Posner reacts to Grammy nomination: 'It's a goal of mine'


Don't tell Mike Posner he's the odd duck in the 59th Grammy Awards Song of the Year category.

Yes, his "I Took A Pill In Ibiza" is up against stiff competition from Beyonce, Adele, Justin Bieber (for whom Posner co-wrote 2012's "Boyfriend") and Lukas Graham. But you won't find him waving a white flag.

"What's meant to be will be," Posner -- who was visiting his parents in suburban Detroit on Tuesday (Dec. 6) when the nominations were announced -- tells Billboard. "I'm incredibly grateful to be nominated. I think I deserve to be nominated. I think everybody else in the category deserves to be nominated. There were a lot of good songs this year. I'm not the only good writer, but I'm one of them. And it feels good to be recognized by other writers and other musicians and the people who vote for the Grammys and have them telling me my stuff doesn't suck. That's nice to hear from your peers."

See photos from the 2016 Grammys:

Posner woke up to the Grammy nomination news with an early call from Island Records chief David Massey. "I didn't pick up 'cause I was still kind of sleepy," he recalls. "Then I looked at my phone and saw I had a lot of text messages, so I called him back and said, 'What happened?' Then he told me and, yeah, it's pretty surreal, man. It's quite an honor. My mom just went 'Whoo!' "My dad goes, 'You gonna be on TV?' I said, 'Yeah, I think so. Not today, though.'"

The Grammys, meanwhile, have always been on Posner's radar as a major career goal. "I think about it every morning -- seriously," he says. "It's a goal of mine, and I'm pretty good at making my goals happen when they're the ones I really care about. Like my list of things I want to do: Play Jimmy Fallon with the Roots. That happened. Finish the album [At Night, Alone.]. That happened. So, yeah, I think (a Grammy win) is going to happen at some point -- if not this year, one year."

"Ibiza," which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and went double platinum, is the first single from Posner's sophomore album, his first studio set in six years after a couple of false starts and a label switch. It appears on At Night, Alone. in both a delicate singer-songwriter version and an EDM-flavored remix by

Seeb. Posner is gearing up for some projects in the new year, as well. A book of his poetry, Teardrops and Balloons, will be published March 24, and he has a new musical project called mansionz with fellow writer-producer blackbear.


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