The Recording AcademyThe 60th Annual Grammy Awards, hosted by James Corden, airs live from New York’s Madison Square Garden Sunday night on CBS. Grammy Executive Producer Ken Ehrlich advises that you plant yourself in front of your TV or computer as soon as the show starts, because you definitely won’t want to miss the show opener.
“Let’s put it this way…two of the three artists that are involved in it have been on the show before, [but] it’s something you just have never seen,” Ehrlich tells ABC Radio. “It’s a pretty amazing number.”
E! Online reports that U2, comedian Dave Chappelle and rapper Kendrick Lamar will open the show, which starts at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Overall, Ehrlich says the Grammys’ musical collaborations are always his favorite part of the telecast.
“The different genres, different generations,” he tells ABC Radio. “I mean, a show that could…put Miley Cyrus and Elton John together on stage and then 10 minutes later…you see Pink and then you see Childish Gambino and then you see Kesha and then you see…Little Big Town…that’s what I love about the show. It’s got everything.”
Recording Academy president Neil Portnow agrees, predicting the 60th Grammys will be “the most amazing 3 1/2-hour live music spectacle on television anywhere on the planet.”
This year’s telecast will honor the famous artists we lost this past year, as well as the victims of concert violence. Says Ehrlich, “This year in particular, there are a couple of things that I think will definitely resonate with the crowd.”
But will the Grammy winners address the #TimesUp movement on stage, as other 2018 award shows have done? “I mean, obviously, we do allow artistic freedom,” says Ehrlich. “That’s part of what we do.”
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