Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic Has Won 3 Grammy Awards for Album of the Year — But Not From His Work With the Band
Ryan Tedder is most known as the lead singer of the band OneRepublic. However, music fans might not know that Tedder has also worked as a songwriter and producer for hits by Adele, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Blackpink, Maroon 5, and Paul McCartney. As a result of his songwriting and producing work for other artists, Tedder has won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards three times.
Ryan Tedder has won three Grammy Awards
In music, the Grammy Awards is considered the most prestigious award show. Put on by the Recording Academy, the award show recognizes singers, producers, songwriters, and other industry professionals across genres each year.
Throughout his career, Tedder has been nominated for 11 Grammy Awards. Of those nominations, only one has come from Tedder’s work with the band OneRepublic.
This occurred when the band’s song “Apologize” was nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 2009 Grammy Awards.
Tedder’s other 10 nominations have come from his work as a songwriter and producer. In 2012, Tedder won Album of the Year for his work on Adele’s album 21.
He then won the same award at the 2016 Grammy Awards for his work on Swift’s album 1989. The next year, he won Album of the Year again for working on Adele’s album 25.
Ryan Tedder has worked with Adele multiple times
Tedder worked with Adele on her 2011 album 21 and her 2015 album 25. In a 2020 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tedder described what it was like to create the song “Rumour Has It” on Adele’s album 21.
“So first session we wrote ‘Turning Tables’ and then we got together three weeks later in the U.S. and she had written ‘Rolling in the Deep’ and ‘Someone Like You’ and said, ‘What do you want to do today?’ I said, ‘I just don’t want to do a ballad.’ She’s like, ‘Alright let’s do something that moves,'” Tedder told Entertainment Weekly.
He continued, “But it came from a conversation: She walked into the studio and was so pissed off, saying, ‘I’m so mad, all my friends are spreading rumors — rumor has it Adele did this, rumor has it Adele’s sleeping with this guy….'”
The OneRepublic singer also collaborated with Taylor Swift
On Swift’s 2014 album 1989, Tedder co-wrote and co-produced the songs “Welcome to New York” and “I Know Places.” In the interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tedder described how “Welcome to New York” came to be.
“She said, ‘I have this song, I’m obsessed with New York and I just moved there, I want to write an ode to New York because no one’s done it in a long time.’ And then she sent me a voice memo. She’s like, ‘I want it to sound like the 1980s.’ So the next day I brought in a Juno-106, which is a very 1980s keyboard, and I literally programmed that entire song right in front of her. It was very much on the fly, and that song was done in about three hours,” Tedder said.
In the interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tedder revealed that the version of “Welcome to New York” that fans heard on 1989 was not his favorite one.
“I did four versions of ‘Welcome to New York,’ one of which I liked personally more, but the thing about artists is they become very obsessed with the demo. She was in love with the demo so no matter how hard I fought, she brought it back to the demo, so really what you hear is what I did on the first day,” said Tedder.
