For young performers at the Grammys, exposure could be the award

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Caulfield tabbed Musgraves as a candidate to benefit greatly from the exposure. The critically acclaimed 25-year-old country singer-songwriter has yet to break out commercially.

"That could change because suddenly people who don't know who she is will be seeing her perform, and it's on the music awards show that has the highest ratings of all music awards shows during the year," he said.

Another example is Canadian pop singer Robin Thicke, whose performance of his Grammy-nominated song "Blurred Lines" with pop singer Miley Cyrus "twerking" (a sexually explicit dance) at MTV's Video Music Awards (VMA) in August overshadowed the ceremony and dominated television chatter the following week.

A performance or provocative stunt that generates water-cooler buzz is also likely to live on longer in public memory than whoever takes home top awards for best record, best album and song of the year, said Lyndsey Parker, managing editor for Yahoo Music.

"It seems like with any musical award show now, no one seems to pay that much attention, especially in the long term, to who won anything," Parker said.

She noted how the 1998 Grammys are best remembered not for Bob Dylan winning the album of the year award but for when artist Michael Portnoy, who was hired as a background dancer, tore off his shirt and started his own impromptu dance behind Dylan with the words "soy bomb" drawn on his torso.

Since Portnoy's stunt, the "soy bomb" moment and the phrase has been widely referenced and parodied, including by comedian Will Ferrell on "Saturday Night Live."

"When you talk about big Grammy moments and big VMA moments, you're always talking about great performances, surprise performances or train wrecks, crazy performances," Parker said.