Get ready for some hot girl-on-girl-on-girl action at tonight’s Grammy Awards.

Of the stars with a shot at sweeping the three top categories on the show — which airs between 8 and 11:30 p.m. on CBS — all boast double X chromosomes.

Vying for Album, Song and Record of the Year honors are fierce R&B diva Beyoncé, faux-country teen star Taylor Swift and dance-floor freak show Lady Gaga.

There’s even a key fourth woman up in two of the top three slots (Album and Record): Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas.

The fact that gender played such a big part in choosing the top candidates speaks to more than just the particular work these women released in the last year.

It proves that estrogen fuels much of what’s left of the music industry itself. More, it underscores the red-alert level of anxiety experienced by the entire business.

As illegal downloading continues to erode CD sales (while, ironically, escalating actual music consumption), the industry has had to choose more carefully who to back with its bucks. At the same time, the infinite choices provided by the Internet have undermined the industry’s attempts to sustain mass-market stars, to the benefit of smaller indie labels. Which means the major companies have to think even harder about who has the goods to endure as the last true panmedia stars.

The thinking goes something like this: Female artists — with their endless hair, makeup and clothing adornments, not to mention the assertive characters they need to survive in a male-dominated world — make more fetching, changeable and interesting icons than most of their male counterparts. (Adam Lambert to the contrary.)

Acts like the Dave Matthews Band, Green Day and U2 may impress no end in the realm of music. But they lack the tricked-out glamour and sizzle that stars like Beyoncé and Gaga can use to get on fashion and lifestyle magazine covers, as well as to land on the most coveted seat on the planet: across from Oprah.

As the general media lose interest in actual music while gaining interest in what’s garish, record companies need singers with big enough backstories and attitudes to snag the most eyes and ears.

That explains why the lone males we see in the top Grammy categories this time are the rather frumpy Matthews & Co. (up for Album of the Year) and, for some token man candy, Kings of Leon (up for Song and Record).

But if this year’s big categories saved at least a seat for males, it’s telling that they haven’t made equal room for a group voters normally make sure to include: arty ringers.

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