Last night, the 47th annual American Music Awards took place in Los Angeles. As they mentioned about 100 times throughout the night, this is the largest fan-voted music awards ceremony. Because it’s fan-voted a lot of the stars actually come out for this and cherish the awards because it’s a sign of general popularity and community; that’s why all of the awards are titled “Favorite” and not “Best”. The Grammys, by contrast, have been extremely controversial in recent years, alienating a large number of artists due to their biases and ratings for the show have declined significantly. I think the problem with these award shows, particularly for music, is that they don’t seem to understand what audience they’re targeting. Because music spans so many different genres and speaks to so many people, they try to appeal to everyone. However, I don’t think many rock or indie fans are tuning into the AMAs – they should be trying to target the main audience of generally top 40-type listeners. Maybe this is my own bias leaking in, since I am one of those top-40 listeners, and maybe I’m generalizing saying no rock fans are tuning into the AMA’s but maybe I’m not. And maybe if they narrowed their focus more, they’d be more successful. Just a thought, but really I’ll spend the rest of the article speaking for myself. I was literally bored to tears by half of the show. I apologize, but I do not care about you anymore Green Day. All the respect and love to Ciara and Shania Twain and Toni Braxton, I love jamming to your music as throwbacks, but you are certainly not why I watch the AMAs. I came to the AMAs for one reason only: to watch Taylor Swift accept her Artist of the Decade award (and a slew of others she won including Artist of the Year, Favorite Pop Album, Favorite Music video and more). So I only watched up until her performance and then I turned off the AMAs after I saw her medley but these were my thoughts as I watched 2 hours of AMA content.
- Selena Gomez kicks off the show with her two new songs “Lose You To Love Me” and “Look at Her Now”. I love the former and think the latter is at least fun to dance to. I’m a big Selena fan and am looking forward to her new album in January. With that being said… I’m 90% positive Selena had a stroke during this performance. She quite literally did not hit a single note in “Lose You To Love Me”. Articles have been coming out today saying that she actually had a panic attack before her performance due to all the pressure she put on herself. This makes sense. Her dancing during her dance song “Look at Her Now” looks like a routine even I could pull off; she looked exhausted. The performance didn’t make me want to listen to her music any less, but I certainly don’t want to attend her concert if that’s how she performs. I feel bad judging her so much since she’s still clearly suffering from anxiety and mental health issues, but if that’s the case, she probably shouldn’t perform? Better to keep herself safe and put herself first than going through with a performance where she very clearly couldn’t put her best foot forward.
- Billie Eilish wins her first award for Favorite Alternative Artist. She’s cute when she’s not being terrifying. This acceptance speech was admirable.
- Lizzo is a dope flautist? Did we know this? It’s very random but very cool
- Halsey wins Best Pop/Rock Song. I’m personally not on the Halsey train and was very confused by her eyebrow (or lack thereof) situation. She gave a speech talking about how she grew up being obsessed with awards but now she’s past the fake gloss of winning awards, which is maybe a shot at the Grammys? But then she pivots again and says that while she’s over it, she’s actually not over it and is happy to win this specific award because it is voted on by the fans and she loves her fans. It was a roller coaster of a speech that only made me more confused about Halsey.
- Lizzo performs her new song “Jerome”. Probably one of the better performances of the night – she sounded incredible at least.
- Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello take the stage for the first time of many in the night to perform “Senorita”. I like these two individually, but their relationship, which literally everyone thinks is fake, is very hard to watch. Camila looked like she was trying to force sex faces the whole performance and the two once again, in their 100th rendition of this performance, didn’t even kiss at the end. In one of the best moments of the night, Jenna Dewan was caught on camera saying that Camila is “always so extra” which is SO true and so savage. We all agree with you Dewan, we all agree.
- Dan Levy makes an appearance as a presenter and reconfirms my love for him. He looked incredible.
- Taylor wins her first award of the night for Favorite Pop Album. In her speech, she drops that she’s so thankful for her new label Universal Media Group (UMG) for letting her own her art and make the music she’s truly passionate about. A clear, but subtle, jab at Big Machine, who’s she’s been having a very public, ongoing battle with.
- Kesha is here? She has a new song? It’s kinda good? But why is she performing TikTok? Was this promotion for the app TikTok?
- Toni Braxton is here? Paula Abdul introduced her? Is it 1999? Do we really need this content in between Kesha and Billie Eilish? Feels very out of place but okay…
- Carrie Underwood wins Favorite Female Country Artist and Favorite Country Album. Happy to see her back.
- Billie performs and rocks the performance. I’m not in the Billie hive and her vibe seriously frightens me but I respect her and think she’s a great performer. She’s clearly good at what she does and is passionate about it.
- Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello win Favorite Collaboration for “Senorita”. Camila, in her try-hard ways, takes the opportunity to shout out Shawn’s mom for him??? Why?? UGH and we’re not done with her yet… Also shocked that this won over Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus for “Old Town Road”.
- Billie wins for Favorite New Artist. Beats out Lizzo which I thought was surprising as well. Go Billie Go.
- Halsey performs a very elaborate interpretative dance / art routine to her single “Graveyard”. Love the song, just continuously confused by her.
- Billie introduces Green Day who she credits for continuously inspiring her then Green Day performs two songs. I definitely didn’t need this. I get we’re in nostalgia mode but I wasn’t having it.
- Post Malone wins Favorite Rap Album and holds his beer the entire time he accepts the award. Love him.
- Camila Cabello performs AGAIN. My roommate noted that Camila had more sexual chemistry with one of her backup dancers than she had with Shawn. She’s not wrong.
- Jonas Brothers perform “Only Human” from Boston. They’re amazing and so hot and grown up. Went to their Happiness Begins tour this past weekend and had the time of my life. Big fan.
- FINALLY the moment we’ve all been waiting for – Carole King introduces Taylor Swift and then they roll a montage of all she’s done over the past decade for music, artists rights, equal rights and more. It was emotional. Then Taylor performs the medley she worked so hard for starting with “The Man” off her new album – a clear moment of Big Machine almost prevented me from doing this, which is exactly why I wrote that song. Then she took us back and performed “Love Story” from Fearless, a SICK remix of “I Knew You Were Trouble” from Red, “Blank Space” from 1989, then “Shake it Off” also from 1989 which she performed with Halsey and Camila Cabello (ugh again, but at least this was cute because Camila opened for Taylor on her reputation tour) and finally, she ended with “Lover” from Lover. The piano she played “Lover” on had the names of all of her old albums which was so nostalgic and cute. Interesting that she skipped Speak Now and reputation. I’ll also NEVER understand why she has yet to perform any of her best songs from Lover. Give us “Cruel Summer” or “I Forgot That You Existed” or “Death By A Thousand Cuts” or “Cornelia Street”!!! What do we have to do to get you to perform one of those BANGERS instead of freaking Me! Anyways… her speech was great she thanked Carole King for inspiring her growing up and said that she appreciated the award because every album has given her such incredible memories, both of her life and with us, the fans. It was a great moment. Also watching Selena and Taylor’s mom sit and watch and sing along with Taylor was so freaking cute. It was genuinely incredible watching Taylor perform – there is NO ONE who knows how to put on a show like she does. All I wanted was the entire show to be a Taylor concert. Her production value, dancing, remixes, voice, lyrics – just all of it is so far above so many other artists who took that stage. I really admire everything she’s able to do.
Okay this is when I stopped watching, and I’m glad I did. Apparently nothing else that exciting happened. The more of the story is that we got WAY too much Halsey and Camila Cabello. Debatable if I’ll tune into the Grammys or not but at least we got some good Taylor and Jobros content out of this.
