55TH ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS: WHAT TO KNOW

The 55th Annual Grammy Awards air live from the Sta­ples Cen­ter in Los Ange­les’ at 8PM East­ern on CBS Sun­day (2/10). Here are a few things to watch for:

Tay­lor Swift is open­ing the show with what’s rumored to be a pretty huge per­for­mance!
Dierks Bent­ley and tour­mate Miranda Lam­bert will per­form together, some­thing they’ve been teas­ing on Twit­ter over the past cou­ple weeks.
Car­rie Under­wood is per­form­ing, but the Gram­mys are tight lipped on what she’ll sing. Our guess is her new sin­gle “Two Black Cadil­lacs.”
Zac Brown will join a group of artists includ­ing Elton John and Mavis Sta­ples for a trib­ute to the late Levon Helm.
In a last-minute announce­ment, Hunter Hayes is added to the lineup of per­for­mances. He’s up for three awards!
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill will present an award dur­ing the show, along with four-time Grammy win­ner Keith Urban.
Friend of coun­try artists LL Cool J is host­ing the show. By the way, sources tell us he recently spent some time in the stu­dio with Brad Paisley.

DID YOU KNOW?

CBS report­edly issued a “wardrobe advi­sory” prior to this weekend’s show request­ing atten­dees’ “but­tocks and female breasts are ade­quately cov­ered.”
Ads for Sunday’s Grammy Awards sold for an all-time record $900,000 for some 30-second spots.
The 2012 Gram­mys was the sec­ond most-watched, accord­ing to Nielsen, with 39.9-million view­ers.
Last year’s Gram­mys recorded 13-million tweets and Face­book mes­sages dur­ing the tele­cast.
The record for the most nom­i­na­tions with­out ever win­ning a Grammy Award goes to Brian McK­night with 16
The first Grammy cer­e­mony con­sisted of 28 cat­e­gories. Today, more than 100 Gram­mys are awarded, with the major­ity handed out prior to the tele­vised por­tion.
At 14 years old, LeAnn Rimes was the youngest per­son to receive a Grammy; George Burns was the old­est at 94.

Sources: BlueFin Labs, Nielsen, Xfinity.com, DeadlineTV

CATEGORIES WITH COUNTRY NOMINEES

Best Coun­try Solo Performance

“Home” – Dierks Bentley

“Spring­steen” – Eric Church

“Cost of Livin’” – Ron­nie Dunn

“Wanted” – Hunter Hayes

“Over” – Blake Shelton

“Blown Away” – Car­rie Underwood

Best Coun­try Duo/Group Performance

“Even If It Breaks Your Heart” – Eli Young Band

“Pon­toon” – Lit­tle Big Town

“Safe & Sound” – Tay­lor Swift & The Civil Wars

“On The Out­skirts of Town” – The Time Jumpers

“I Just Came Here For The Music” – Don Williams feat. Ali­son Krauss

Best Coun­try Song

“Blown Away” – Josh Kear & Chris Tomp­kins, song­writ­ers (Car­rie Underwood)

“Cost of Livin’” – Phillip Cole­man & Ron­nie Dunn, song­writ­ers (Ron­nie Dunn)

“Even If It Breaks Your Heart” – Will Hoge & Eric Paslay, song­writ­ers (Eli Young Band)

“So You Don’t Have to Love Me Any­more” – Jay Knowles & Adam Wright, song­writ­ers (Alan Jackson)

“Spring­steen” – Eric Church, Jeff Hyde & Ryan Tyn­dell, song­writ­ers (Eric Church)

Best Coun­try Album

Uncaged – Zac Brown Band

Hunter Hayes – Hunter Hayes

Liv­ing for a Song: A Trib­ute to Hank Cochran – Jamey Johnson

Four the Record – Miranda Lambert

The Time Jumpers – The Time Jumpers

Record of the Year

“Lonely Boy” – The Black Keys

“Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” – Kelly Clarkson

“We Are Young” – Fun. feat. Janelle Monáe

“Some­body That I Used To Know” – Gotye feat. Kimbra

“Thinkin Bout You” – Frank Ocean

“We Are Never Ever Get­ting Back Together” – Tay­lor Swift

Best New Artist

Alabama Shakes

Fun.

Hunter Hayes

The Lum­i­neers

Frank Ocean