GRAMMY #2

“We don’t feel new,” Mr. VanWyngarden said. “But people are still finding out about our band every day. So it makes sense that it’s a new album for some people. We’re not really going to be disputing it.”

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But Grammys broadcasts rely heavily on classic artists and memorials to departed stars. Ken Ehrlich, the veteran producer of the Grammys, had a long association with Jackson, and knew that he would be putting together some kind of tribute event for the award show. For guidance he remembered a meeting with Jackson at the Staples Center on June 24, 2009.

“It was the night before he passed away,” Mr. Ehrlich said. “I happened to be there the night he was looking at this 3-D version of ‘Earth Song.’ We were in his little backstage room, and he threw me a pair of glasses, and we watched it.”

Mr. Ehrlich, who also produced the Jackson memorial in July, decided to take that 3-D footage, from Jackson’s planned “This Is It” concerts, and invite Smokey Robinson, Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood, whom he called some of Jackson’s favorite singers, to accompany his taped voice. Free 3-D glasses — branded Jackson, of course — are being distributed at Target stores.

While the Jackson tribute had been in preparation for months, most of the performances come together in a few weeks or even days before the show, in a rush of production activity made even more frantic this year because of the earlier date, Mr. Ehrlich said. These performances, and the choice of presenters, can be an up-to-the-minute counterbalance to the music being celebrated on the show, which is often a year or even two years old.

The Haiti benefit with Ms. Blige and Mr. Bocelli, Mr. Ehrlich said, came together only a week ago. And among the presenters are the newly minted stars Ke$ha and Justin Bieber, whose albums are still fresh in stores.

“We try to wait until they become eligible, but that’s not to say that we don’t want to be on the edge,” Mr. Ehrlich said. “The last thing I want is for the Grammys to be looked at — as sometimes we are — as not recognizing what is going on now. And we do.”