The Grammys are the only award show that might benefit from the pandemic

• The 2021 Grammy Awards are uniquely equipped to overcome the challenges of a pandemic.
• Unlike movie and TV-focused award shows, the Grammys doesn't suffer from a lack of worthy nominees.
• Organizers say the live show, rescheduled for March 14, will feel less glitzy and more intimate.

In times of stress, boredom, or grief, we tend to lean on the arts. We go see movies or plays, head to a friend's after work for "The Bachelor" and a bottle of wine, wake up on Friday mornings to texts saying, "Have you heard this new song?"

During the coronavirus pandemic - a time defined by stress, boredom, and grief simultaneously - one of few of those cultural traditions managed to continue unimpeded. For all its horrors and injustices, 2020 was a year of thrilling musical output.

As we approach an awards season that will struggle to feel appropriate, let alone normal, the Grammys ceremony is poised to flourish. This year's show may look and feel different from years past, but the Recording Academy aims to turn this irregular era into an advantage.

Organizers have teased a stripped-down "intimate" energy that will highlight its nominees and the healing nature of music - and, hopefully, feel like an outstretched hand to struggling fans, rather than a bejeweled slap in the face.

Read more: How the $100 billion Hollywood machine is scrambling to come back after its worst year in decades

Unlike other award shows, the Grammys won't suffer from a lack of options

Every year the Grammys are hit with accusations of irrelevance. Major projects get snubbed and blind spots emerge. The nomination process itself remains shadowy and misunderstood.

And yet every year fans celebrate when their favorite music is recognized. Even artists who distrust or criticize the Recording Academy often congratulate their fortunate friends. To earn the moniker "Grammy-nominated" is still a towering achievement.

That we still discuss, debate, and rage when nominations are announced is proof enough they carry weight, if not objectively then certainly empirically. Artists have observed doors opened after receiving Grammy recognition, their music reappraised, and their credibility boosted.

Read more: Here are the nominees for the 2021 Grammy Awards

On average, Grammy winners see an increase of at least 55% in concert-ticket sales and producer fees during the following year, a 2012 report from Forbes found.

"Even for some people who hadn't quite seen the album in its right light yet, I think maybe they revisited it and changed their opinions on the record," Matt Shultz, Cage The Elephant's front man, said of the band's 2015 nod.

"Everyone wants to have good billing at a festival and I think that's where Grammy nominations and Grammy wins help the most for a band like ourselves."

Tori Kelly put it more succinctly: "It kind of makes you feel like this person is legit."

To be sure, the Grammys deserve scrutiny. But it's still music's biggest night, and this year, it'll seem even bigger by comparison.

Movie and TV-focused events, like the Academy Awards and Golden Globes, will see a dramatic decline in worthy, or even eligible, nominees this year.

After 10 months of set shutdowns, release delays, and outright cancellations, these award shows may even struggle to fill out top categories, which usually have too many movies and shows jostling for inclusion. The best-picture winner at the 2021 Oscars has even become a meme. It seems as if it's a tight race between "Sonic the Hedgehog" and Jason Derulo's TikTok, fans joked.

By contrast, the Grammys were spoiled with options. A lot of the most popular music was also excellent, from Megan Thee Stallion's unrelenting savagery to Taylor Swift's poetic cottagecore.

Swift's 'Folklore' illustrates the unexpected benefits of music made in quarantine

Swift is one of the most-nominated artists at the Grammys this year, thanks to her folk-pop masterpiece, "Folklore."

The album was created through remote methods, with Swift and her main collaborators, producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, never stepping foot in the same room before its release.

Of course, this approach is not new. While many musicians still prefer in-person collaboration and studio sessions, making music doesn't require specific conditions.

Singers can record their vocals in isolation and producers can make beats on their laptops at home. Elements of a song can be sent around and pieced together.

Studios don't need to be professional either. Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, siblings and collaborators, won five Grammys apiece last year for an album created almost entirely in O'Connell's childhood bedroom ("When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?").

This year Fiona Apple netted three nominations for "Fetch the Bolt Cutters," which was recorded at her home in Venice Beach, often using homespun instruments: "containers wrapped with rubber bands, empty oil cans filled with dirt, rattling seedpods that Apple had baked in her oven," The New Yorker reported. In some songs, her dogs can be heard barking in the background.

But recording music during a pandemic had far deeper, more interesting implications than home-studio sessions, especially for the biggest stars.

Read more: The 20 biggest snubs from the 2021 Grammy nominations

Typically, popular artists must juggle myriad pressures when putting together an album. Pop stars, rap giants, and arena-level rock bands alike are expected to think beyond sheer quality: world tours, TV performances, radio appeal, streaming potential, fan service. But during the pandemic, artists could be creative in a relative vacuum.

"I just thought there are no rules anymore because I used to put all these parameters on myself, like, 'How will this song sound in a stadium? How will this song sound on radio?'" Swift said in a recent Rolling Stone feature. "If you take away all the parameters, what do you make? And I guess the answer is 'Folklore.'"

"Folklore" is almost an anti-Swift album. It's defiantly fictional, with very few glimmers of personal drama, and profoundly low-key. This is not the kind of music she could perform for a flashy Netflix tour documentary. But it's the best album of her career.

Now the Grammys will reap the benefits of Swift's quarantine brilliance.

Her previous two albums, 2017's "Reputation" and 2019's "Lover," were commercially massive but largely ignored by the Grammys, especially in the competitive general categories. As a result, Swift skipped the past few ceremonies. Her last appearance was in 2016, when she won album of the year for "1989."

But "Folklore" netted five nominations, including album of the year and song of the year for "Cardigan." Swift was patently overjoyed and she's rumored to perform this year.

Read more: Here's who should win album of the year at the 2021 Grammy Awards

Given Swift's popularity, such awards would be obvious wins for the Recording Academy, which has experienced a lack of superstars in recent years. Drake, Frank Ocean, Kanye West, and Ariana Grande have openly criticized the ceremony, while Beyoncé and Jay-Z seem to be over the whole affair after years of mounting snubs.

Swift will add more than star power to the ceremony, however. "Folklore" is 2020's most successful and highly-acclaimed album, making Swift an odds-on favorite for the night's top category - and giving this year a potentially historic edge.

If Swift were to win album of the year, she'd become the first female artist to do so three times. She'd be the fourth overall, joining Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, and Frank Sinatra.

The Grammys need excitement and intrigue that will translate to viewership. And after hitting an all-time low rating in 2020, the ceremony also needs a new approach.

Conducting 'business as usual' won't cut it this year. The Grammys are uniquely suited to upend expectations and deliver something fresh.

Many award shows rely on a specific brand of in-person buzz: comedic monologues, meme-worthy audience reactions, live mishaps, onstage weirdness, and celebrity interplay.

So far this has proved largely impossible to re-create with a virtual ceremony. When the Emmys tried to channel banter and lightheartedness last year, USA Today said it inadvertently revealed "how pointless the whole charade is."

"Despite the unprecedented nature of the telecast ... Kimmel kicked off the night with an aggressive sameness, a monologue that cracked jokes about the pandemic and the 2020 election as if it was only the typical level of crisis plaguing the world," Kelly Lawler wrote, calling the host, "a comedian cracking jokes as the world burns."

Emmys viewership dropped to a new low in 2020, losing 12% of its audience from the previous year. Several months earlier, the Grammys didn't lose quite so many viewers, but it did become the lowest-rated in history, Variety said.

As traditional ceremonies lose favor - especially with younger audiences, who seem to have less patience for opulent fame - Grammy nominations received remarkable scrutiny in November, largely thanks to The Weeknd's shocking freeze-out.

The stakes seem higher than ever for the Grammys to deliver an engaging, tactful ceremony. The pandemic has also required showrunners to break with tradition - a terrible situation but a valuable opportunity.

"We have really rethought the tone of the overall show," the Academy's chief operating officer, Branden Chapman, told Insider.

Read more: 20 popular artists who have surprisingly never won a Grammy

Chapman said that the red carpet and fashion moments, as well as other symbols of luxury that tend to be staples at award shows, are "obviously taking a back seat" this year.

Instead, showrunners have opted for a more humble, "intimate" ceremony that aims to honor the Grammys tradition without inappropriate flexing.

As plans stand, there won't be an audience. Artists will still perform live at the Los Angeles Convention Center, but do so more as a symbol of mutual respect and support, he said.

"We are toggling away from the concept of prerecorded or Zoom-style performances. We really do want to bring all the artists together," Chapman said. "We have redesigned the stages entirely."

"As a peer-voted award, we also look at our award show as a celebration of artistry by the industry," he explained.

"So, we've gotten creative and helped ourselves accomplish a goal of bringing artists together in a time when, more than anything else, we need to protect their safety, but also recognize their contributions."

The Grammys, originally scheduled for January 31, has been postponed until March 14, so that showrunners can ensure compliance with California's COVID-19 protocols.

Chapman also said the show's original lineup is almost entirely on board with the change - and teased Megan, Lipa, and Eilish as potential performers.

He added: "Ultimately, we think we've struck a tone that merges honor, tribute, and celebration."

There's an appetite in entertainment for over-the-top theatrics, ensemble performances, and carefully executed dance breaks. But there's also a time and a place for such pageantry.

In the time of coronavirus, within a fractured United States, fans have demonstrated a much greater appetite for art that is guileless, raw, and agenda-free. Such moments stand out from a swampy year: Bad Bunny's free concert from atop a bus driving through the Bronx, Swift's pared-down performance of "Folklore" from Long Pond Studio, Ariana Grande's homemade props and one-person choir for the Disney Family Singalong, and BTS head-bobbing and breaking into spontaneous dance in one of NPR's most popular Tiny Desk concerts.

These beloved performances embody sincerity and passion for the music itself, stripped of razzle-dazzle, which is what the Grammys need.

This story is part of Insider's State of Hollywood digital series, which details how the $100 billion entertainment industry shifted in 2020. Click here to read more.