Twitter has teamed up with The Grammy Awards to beat the music awards show drum, 140 characters at a time.
On Thursday, the social network and awards show organizers announced they were kicking off a series of #OnlyOnTwitter chats giving fans real-time access to artists and nominees leading up to Sunday, including Best New Artist contender Sam Smith and Album of the Year nominee Pharrell.
“We are so excited to work with The Grammys to power a direct connection between superstars and fans before such an anticipated night for music,” Lance Turner, Head of Music Talent at Twitter told TheWrap. “Twitter is uniquely designed for collectively sharing these real-time moments.”
Up first at the mic was a Twitter Q&A between Usher and legendary R&B singer Charlie Wilson Thursday afternoon. The two musicians answered each other’s questions in addition to interacting with fans around the hashtag #AskUsherandCharlie.
.@imcharliewilson @TheGRAMMYs lets get this fireside twitter chat going #GRAMMYs #AskUsherAndCharlie pic.twitter.com/4FAYhsuuu7
— Usher Raymond IV (@Usher) February 5, 2015
Announcements for other heavily nominated artists will be rolled out later in the day with tweet chats continuing through Sunday.
The social media platform has also released its version of a Grammys lineup with a list of the nominated songs and artists who’ve garnered the most buzz on Twitter from December through February. If Twitter users determined the nominees for Song of the Year, the contenders would be as follows:
1. “Shake it Off” – @taylorswift13
2. “All About the Bass” – @Meghan_Trainor
3. “Stay with Me” – @samsmithworld
4. “Chandelier” – @Sia
5. “Take Me to Church” – @Hozier
The 57th Annual Grammy Awards will air on CBS Sunday, Feb. 8 from 8 – 11:30 p.m. (ET/PT).