Presented by Trevor Noah, the show will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center and its surroundings. All performances will take place from there, although the Grammy makes use of other spaces for reading nominations and announcing winners in various categories.
This will be Swift’s seventh Grammy performance and the first in five years. It is widely expected that she will win the album of the year for the third time with her hit album Folklore.
This will be Martin’s sixth performance (counting Coldplay) and Mayer; the fifth for Lambert; the third for Cardi B and Morris; and the second for Carlile, Eilish, Howard, Lipa and Post Malone.
Half of the acts on the show will make their televised Grammy debut – a landmark event in an artist’s career. The newcomers are Bad Bunny, Black Pumas, BTS, DaBaby, Doja Cat, Guyton, Haim, Lil Baby, Megan Thee Stallion, Ricch and Styles.
All nominees for the album of the year are scheduled to perform, except Jhené Aiko and Jacob Collier, the young innovative artist whose album of the year was one of the biggest surprises when the nominations were announced on November 24 – outside of The Weeknd’s complete closure. . Aiko will perform (but will not perform) the Premiere Ceremony that afternoon, where the vast majority of Grammys will be performed. (Coldplay, nominated for the album of the year, is not performing, but the band’s lead singer is.)
All nominees for the record of the year are expected to perform, except Beyoncé, who was nominated for her socially conscious solo hit “Black Parade” and “Savage”, her collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion.
Although Beyoncé and her husband, Jay-Z, are among the top nominees and winners in Grammy history, they have not been very successful in the famous “Big Four” categories – album, album and music of the year plus the best new artists. Beyoncé won the song of the year 11 years ago for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)”, but that was the only victory in these categories for the best couples in music. This year, Beyoncé has a good chance of winning both record of the year (for “Savage”) and song of the year (for “Black Parade”).
Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion are the only best new candidates for artists who are ready to perform.
All artists are nominated today, except for Cardi B and Mayer.
Of the 22 performers, 11 are female solo artists; a 12th artist is a girl group, Haim.
Nine of the artists are black – counting the mixed race Black Pumas. There is a Latin artist (Bad Bunny) and an Asian artist (BTS).
The broadcast will pay tribute to independent sites that have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Various categories will be presented by club employees, including bartenders and ticket managers, from The Troubadour (Los Angeles), The Hotel Café (Los Angeles), The Apollo Theater (New York) and The Station Inn (Nashville).
The use of multiple spaces will allow social distance. The Academy of Country Music used a similar strategy last year (which is repeating itself this year), with performances from three iconic Nashville venues: Grand Ole Opry House, Ryman Auditorium and The Bluebird Café. At the Grammy, however, these other venues they will not be used for presentations.
The show will include footage shot inside the Los Angeles Convention Center, as well as on the venue’s outdoor deck and on the streets around the venue, including Chick Hearn Way, LA Live Way and Georgia Street. In some cases, the Staples Center, the Grammys’ usual home, will be visible in the background.
The Recording Academy promises “The artists will be together, though still safe apart, to play music for each other as a community and celebrate the music that unites us all.”
This will be the first Grammy broadcast since Ken Ehrlich ended a 40-year stint as a producer or executive producer on the show. It will also be the first show with Noah as a host. Jon Stewart, Noah’s predecessor as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, hosted the Grammys twice, in 2001-02.
Fulwell 73 Productions will produce the broadcast for the Recording Academy. Ben Winston is the executive producer, Jesse Collins and Raj Kapoor are executive co-producers, Fatima Robinson, Josie Cliff and David Wild are the producers, Patrick Menton is the talent producer and Hamish Hamilton is the director. Wild is also one of the program’s writers.
The broadcast will air live on Sunday, March 14, at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT on CBS. The show will also be available for live streaming and on demand at Paramount +.