Arts & Entertainment - The 2012 American Music Awards

The 40th anniversary broadcast of the American Music Awards took place on November 18, and like the numerous other music award shows that take place throughout the year, the AMAs was more of a promotional concert for artists who have new singles or albums than an awards presentation. In my opinion, the show should just be renamed the American Music Promotional Concert to stop fooling viewers into thinking they’re watching an awards show.
For those who actually tuned in to watch the few awards that were presented throughout the night, Justin Bieber was the big winner. Not only did Bieber take home the night’s coveted Artist of the Year award, but also won Best Pop/Rock Album and Best Pop/Rock Male Artist. All of Bieber’s Beliebers were probably crying with joy as Bieber kept returning to the stage to pick up prizes, while the rest of America was more curious to see if he would mention girlfriend Selena Gomez in his acceptance speeches. The couple was plastered all over the internet the weekend before the show, due to the inability of blog sites to decide if Jelena broke up or not.
Besides Bieber, the only person to win more than one award was Nicki Minaj, who won trophies for Best Rap/Hip-Hop Artist and Best Rap/Hip-Hop Album. Minaj also easily won the award for “Most Hair Changes in One Night,” especially since Katy Perry and Lady GaGa were not in attendance. None of the awards resulted in any surprises or upsets, even though Taylor Swift looked just as surprised as ever to win the award for Best Female Country Artist. The only wild card of the night was Best New Artist, which was awarded to “Call Me Maybe” songstress Carly Rae Jepsen.
Overall the performances of the night were not atrocious, although nothing happened that was especially interesting either. If ABC ever decides to change the name of the show to the American Music Promotional Concert, the producers might as well tack on “Gymnastics Symposium” to the end as well, since almost every performance included acrobatic tricks of some sort. P!nk’s performance of “Try” was the most impressive gymnastics-wise, with the singer and a dancer performing the entire song amidst challenging choreography.
Ke$ha’s “Die Young” was slightly less trashy and glitter-oriented than many of her previous performances, while Taylor Swift upped the fierce factor with her “opera meets circus” performance of “I Knew You Were Trouble.” The most memorable performance of the evening was came from K-Pop artist and Internet sensation Psy, whose rendition of “Gangnam Style” with MC Hammer had everyone in the audience dancing.