This year’s Grammys were supposed to be a return to normal. Then came The Slap

As stagehands wheeled an infinite reproduction of what seemed to be Lil Nas X’s head into place, the black-and-white faces of dozens of pop stars regarded on from cardboard placards organized, two to a bistro desk, on the ground of the MGM Grand Backyard Area right here.

With Billie Eilish simply an outstretched arm from Girl Gaga and Carrie Underwood inside murmuring distance of Jon Batiste, the comfy setup for Sunday night time’s long-delayed sixty fourth Grammy Awards guarantees loads of the superstar hobnobbing lacking from final 12 months’s masked-and-distanced rendition of music’s most essential awards ceremony.

“This present is about neighborhood, about seeing folks that we love and watching them be celebrated amongst their friends,” mentioned Jesse Collins, one of many Grammys’ government producers, throughout a tech rehearsal this week.

However simply days after Will Smith smacked Chris Rock onstage on the Oscars, setting off world chatter in regards to the dangers of reside tv, it’s not laborious to see the Grammys’ up-close-and-personal vibe as a possible legal responsibility — if additionally, maybe, as a draw for viewers desirous to witness another wild and unpredictable occasion.

“It’s true that one of many issues folks love about reside TV is that you just don’t know what’s going to occur,” mentioned one other of the present’s government producers, Ben Winston. “You don’t know who’s going to win an award. You don’t know who’s going to win the Tremendous Bowl. And also you don’t know what’s going to occur when a load of individuals are in a room collectively.”

Not one of the Grammys’ organizers would characterize The Slap, because it’s already recognized, as a very good factor for his or her present.

“I might hate to be the beneficiary of one thing like that,” mentioned Jack Sussman, who oversees reside occasions for CBS, which can broadcast the Grammys. Watching the Oscars on ABC final weekend, Sussman mentioned, “I used to be simply so glad I wasn’t within the [production] truck when it occurred.”

Added Harvey Mason Jr., chief government of the Recording Academy, which presents the Grammys: “Nothing was nice about what occurred.”

But when it comes to attracting an viewers, the Grammys can inarguably use any assist they’ll get. Final 12 months’s telecast, the primary underneath Winston’s management after 4 a long time with Ken Ehrlich on the helm, received heat opinions however hit a historic low in Nielsen rankings, with a mere 8.8 million viewers — down 53% from 2020.

And although that’s in step with a slide throughout all awards reveals — excluding this 12 months’s Oscars, whose rankings have been up greater than 50% from 2021’s lowest-ever figures — the Grammys are dealing with explicit challenges heading into Sunday’s ceremony.

Kanye West, all the time a dependable driver of consideration, was barred from acting on the present due to current threats he’s made on social media. A scheduled efficiency by Foo Fighters was canceled after the band’s drummer, Taylor Hawkins, died out of the blue on tour final week. Constructive COVID check outcomes for 2 members of BTS have thrown that massively fashionable boy band’s look into query.

After which there’s the truth that the Grammys are happening for the primary time in Las Vegas, two months after the present was purported to occur Jan. 31 at its longtime house of Crytpo.com Area in downtown Los Angeles. On the time, the academy mentioned it had no selection however to postpone the occasion amid an outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

“I simply hope folks know in regards to the present,” mentioned Winston, a veteran of British TV finest recognized to Individuals for turning James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke” right into a viral sensation. (Different members of the Grammys mind belief embrace government producer Raj Kapoor, who’s serving as showrunner, and co-executive producer Jeannae Rouzan-Clay.) “Folks all the time suppose the Grammys is on the finish of January, so my concern is that they understand it’s this weekend” — a message CBS has been hammering in TV spots throughout the NCAA basketball event.

Olivia Rodrigo performs throughout the 2021 American Music Awards at L.A.’s Microsoft Theater on Nov. 21, 2021.

(Kevin Winter / Getty Pictures for MRC)

To drum up curiosity, the present has performances deliberate by Eilish, Gaga, Underwood, Olivia Rodrigo, Lil Nas X, Silk Sonic, Brandi Carlile and Chris Stapleton, amongst others, in addition to a tribute to Stephen Sondheim, who died in November. Trevor Noah of “The Day by day Present” will host. Presenters will embrace Megan Thee Stallion, Dua Lipa, Joni Mitchell (this 12 months’s recipient of the academy’s MusiCares Particular person of the Yr award) and Questlove, whose “Summer time of Soul” was named finest documentary on the Oscars instantly after Smith’s altercation with Rock.

Batiste, a jazz and R&B composer who’s additionally the bandleader on “The Late Present With Stephen Colbert,” is the night time’s most-nominated act, with 11 nods. However youthful viewers could also be extra inclined to tune in to see whether or not 19-year-old Rodrigo sweeps the Grammys’ 4 greatest awards — album, file and music of the 12 months, together with finest new artist — on the energy of her smash energy ballad “Drivers License.” (If she does, she’d comply with Eilish, who pulled off the feat in 2020.) One impediment in Rodrigo’s path: 95-year-old Tony Bennett, whose assortment of Cole Porter tunes with Girl Gaga is up for album of the 12 months. Different high-profile artists vying for that prize are Eilish, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Doja Cat.

Relating to a possible look Sunday by Bennett, who has Alzheimer’s illness, Kapoor mentioned the producers are in contact along with his group “each day.”

“We might roll out the crimson carpet ought to he have the ability to come,” Winston added. “However we’re unsure for the time being.” (On Thursday a placard with Bennett’s picture was amongst these within the nominees’ seating space.)

Bennett apart, this 12 months’s performers skew younger in comparison with the Grammys in Ehrlich’s day, when old-timers like Sting and the Eagles appeared to take up as a lot air time as any present hitmaker. Kapoor mentioned the producers are merely reflecting the nominations, that are more and more going to youthful acts — itself a change for the Grammys, which for years drew criticism for rewarding established acts on the expense of pop innovators.

On the 2021 ceremony, the academy shut out the Weeknd’s blockbuster “After Hours” album from even a single nod; the group later overhauled its voting course of to remove secretive “nomination evaluation committees” of insiders that many (together with the Weeknd) suspected of rigging the vote. The academy has roughly 11,000 voting members, a pool of recording-industry professionals it’s labored to diversify alongside age, race and gender traces.

“We’ve additionally moved away from doing too many tribute performances that it’s a must to kind of work out why,” Winston mentioned. “The Grammys historically have gone, ‘Oh, it’s the seventy fifth anniversary of this,’ or, ‘It’s 20 years since this occurred,’ and that’s an excuse for doing one thing. Our style is that it is perhaps higher to showcase one thing newer or one thing that individuals are interacting with.

“However we haven’t made a acutely aware resolution that we don’t need anyone over 45 on the present.”

Requested to elaborate on the choice to bar a efficiency by 44-year-old West — who now goes by Ye and later this month will headline the Coachella pageant — Mason mentioned, “I don’t wish to touch upon who we don’t invite to the present. I believe it’s in poor style to speak about it as a result of there’s loads of totally different causes artists are capable of carry out or not carry out.” The academy has a famously rocky relationship with hip-hop artists, who say Grammy voters don’t admire or perceive the tradition; Drake requested this 12 months that his album “Licensed Lover Boy” be withdrawn from awards consideration, presumably as a type of protest.

Does Mason fear that not having Ye is a misplaced rankings alternative?

Harvey Mason Jr., chairman of the board of trustees of the Recording Academy, mentioned there was nothing the group might have accomplished to maintain the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles this 12 months.

(Bryan Bedder / Getty Pictures)

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“With each artist there are nice issues that come together with them, and also you’re all the time weighing the whole lot,” he mentioned. The rapper and producer, who has 5 Grammy nominations (together with album of the 12 months for his “Donda”), is “positively, positively invited” to attend the present, Mason added.

Although the telecast itself might be again to pre-pandemic dimensions, with elaborate units and a reside enviornment viewers on the MGM Grand, the so-called Grammy Week of occasions that surrounds the ceremony is smaller this 12 months due to the present’s transfer to Las Vegas. Key events like Clive Davis’ annual night-before-the-Grammys gala and an annual brunch hosted by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation aren’t occurring; Spotify, which throws a preferred bash celebrating the 12 months’s finest new artist nominees, continues to be doing its social gathering, minus the same old reside performances.

Invoice Werde, director of the Bandier Program for Music and the Leisure Industries at Syracuse College, usually travels to the Grammys in L.A. to community with the “subsequent era of music {industry} leaders.” However this 12 months he’s staying house.

“That layer of the music enterprise — the parents just below the CEOs of main labels — loads of them aren’t gonna go to Vegas,” he mentioned, “so it’s a method much less attention-grabbing proposition for somebody like me.”

Mason, who identified that occasions like Friday’s MusiCares dinner honoring Mitchell have offered out, mentioned, “There was nothing we might’ve accomplished” to maintain the Grammys in L.A., given the present’s calls for on a venue.

“Folks go, ‘Crypto should have been accessible. The Discussion board should have been accessible. It’s solely two or three nights that you just want,’’” Winston mentioned. “We load in two weeks earlier than, so when you’re searching for a venue you’ll be able to take for 2 complete weeks in the course of [NBA and NHL] seasons and touring bands — nobody’s sitting round going, ‘Oh, this enviornment’s empty.’”

“For us it will’ve been cheaper to be in L.A.; it will’ve been nearer to the {industry},” Mason mentioned. “There’s loads of issues that might’ve been in our favor if we’d been capable of keep in L.A.” Amongst them: promoting the costly luxurious containers at Crypto to deep-pocketed music bizzers; the MGM enviornment has no containers.

Winston additionally defended the delay from January. “Omicron was simply flying,” he mentioned. “I didn’t know anyone that didn’t have it.” Again then, he added, “There have been artists that didn’t wish to go as huge with their efficiency. They didn’t wish to do it with as a lot ambition when all of it would possibly go an hour earlier than the present in the event that they check constructive.”

Suspending “wasn’t a PR resolution,” mentioned Mason. “We have been in the course of an enormous outbreak in L.A. We have been involved about hospital beds; we have been getting studies from our CDC folks saying that going forward with the present was very dangerous.”

Now, with COVID numbers on the decline, “I believe folks need this sense of neighborhood again,” Collins mentioned.

Kapoor was on the Oscars and mentioned that — no less than earlier than The Slap — “you may sense how totally different it felt within the room. There was truly a lot pleasure with folks having the ability to work together.”

That pleasure, Winston mentioned, is what he’s hoping viewers get from the Grammys — supplied, after all, they trouble to observe.