The Grammy Awards continue to celebrate the best in the
recording arts and sciences. Covering 105 categories, the awards
honor recordings in musical fields as diverse as pop, rock, jazz,
blues, rap, classical, folk and more. A Grammy is awarded by and
to artists and technical professionals for artistic or technical
achievement, not sales or chart positions. The Grammy Awards telecast
made its return to Los Angeles for the 46th Annual ceremony after
a rewarding trip to New York's Madison Square Garden in 2003,
the first New York telecast in five years. The show was broadcast
by CBS Television. The awards presentation brought together thousands
of creative and technical professionals in the recording industry
from all over the world. The ceremony is telecast annually to
a potential worldwide audience of more than 650 million. The 46th
Grammys were welcomed back to Los Angeles with the show's
highest television ratings in three years. Fifty-seven million
viewers watched at least part of the three-and-a-half hour telecast,
which featured 19 musical performances, including landmark turns
from Prince and Beyoncé, OutKast, Black Eyed Peas with Justin
Timberlake and the Foo Fighters with jazz legend Chick Corea.
The growing prestige of the Grammy Awards and its surrounding
events has made it a significant cultural event. Grammy Week —
a week-long celebration of Recording Academy events that range
from salutes to classical and jazz music to the MusiCares Person
Of The Year charity dinner and performance, which culminates with
the Grammy Awards ceremony — has become a rich tradition of culture
and arts events as anticipated as the Grammy Awards itself . Taken
together, as CBS President/CEO Leslie Moonves has said, "It
all adds up to one exciting event: the music industry's biggest
showcase." The 45th Annual GRAMMY Awards, held on Feb. 23
in New York City, included performances by many of the top names
in music, including Coldplay, Eminem, Simon & Garfunkel, John
Mayer, Bruce Springsteen, Faith Hill, Nelly, No Doubt and others.
In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, other honors are given every
year by the Recording Academy. These awards recognize contributions
and activities of significance to the recording field that fall
outside the framework of the Grammy Awards categories, and include
the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Trustees Award, the Grammy
Hall Of Fame Award, the Technical Grammy Award, and the
Grammy Legend Award.