2008 American Music Awards: Just The Good Parts
Good being relative, of course. AMA stands for Auto-Tune Music Award so it wasn't long before Kanye was onstage. Upon accepting his first ever AMA, for Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album, Kanye urged his contemporaries to join him in pushing the pop music envelope, a la the Beatles, Hendrix and Zeppelin. "In any other industry, you're supposed to do better than the past, like computers should get smaller and faster," he said. "Whenever you say, 'I wanna be Elvis,' they say, 'What's wrong with you?' Well, I wanna be Elvis." It was a heartfelt moment, though less entertaining than his tantrum at the '04 AMAs. Kanye even dedicated his second win (Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Male) to Lil' Wayne: "If it was last year, this would have been my award. This year, it's Wayne's award." That means a lot coming from a guy who won't listen to rap in his apartment. (He later performed "Heartless" from a laser tag arena.) Meanwhile, three time winner Chris Brown said he would have given his Artist of the Year trophy to Coldplay. Annie Lennox won a special lifetime achievement award, but did not indicate whether someone else deserved it more. Weiland was so visibly intoxicated when introducing Pink's "Sober," host Jimmy Kimmel joked that the now sixteen year old Miley Cyrus should give him a ride home. Videos of everything after the jump.
Weiland Tries To Introduce Pink
Kanye West Accepts Hip-Hop Album Of The Year
Coldplay Perform "Lovers In Japan"
Beyoncé Performs "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)"
Annie Lennox Performs "Why"
Kanye West Performs "Heartless"
Here are the winners from the televised event...
Artist Of The Year: Chris Brown
Pop Female: Rihanna
Pop Male: Chris Brown
Pop Band: Daughtry
Pop Album: Alicia Keys - As I Am
R&B Female: Rihanna
R&B Album: Alicia Keys - As I Am
Country Female: Taylor Swift
Country Male: Brad Paisley
Country Band: Rascal Flatts
Hip Hop Male: Kanye West
Hip Hop Album: Kanye West - Graduation
Breakthrough Artist: Jonas Brothers
Special Merit: Annie Lennox
...other winners here.
Posted at 9:06 AM by Scott in Video
Tags: American Music Awards | Annie Lennox | Beyoncé | Chris Brown | Coldplay | Kanye West | Scott Weiland
Beyonce's performance was flawless!
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Oh dear. Look at the winners. Pop music sucks so much nowadays.
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dude beyonce frickin killed. and im not too proud to say i got pretty joked up at annie lennox's award presentation.
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joked up like a clown?
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I'm so tired of Coldplay performing on top of a recording of half the album track's instruments. Is most of America too dumb to not realize there are a half-dozen missing musicians on stage? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...crap.
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Oh great, more music awards from the most irrelevant institution in the world. This is the sort of thing that should have died out years ago. Annie Lennox was the only slight saving grace. And Beyonce's legs. Oh, and I fail to see how any of the artists named by Kanye are breaking stereotypes and pushing the envelope. If this is what's seen as innovation these days, pop music is truly dead.
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Just a quick note: I believe the official Kanye quote is "I wanna be better than Elvis." The copy says otherwise.
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you guys act like you can make a fucking pop hit...if so make one...your bitching isnt getting your bitch asses anywhere...so shut the fuck up.
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in all seriousness, judging by the standard of today's output, anyone with even a minimal knowledge of music could make a "fucking pop hit". I could've written a better "fucking pop hit" than 'Single Ladies' by clenching a pen in my sphincter, squatting over a page and masturbating simultaneously. It would probably have better grammar and punctuation too.
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all i have to say is ewww... and stop being a hater .. if you really could write somthing better why the fuck are we not listening to your music? hmmm...
i fucking hate music snobs. while i agree with you i fucking hate your tone... and that masturbation bit....i'm sure u do a alot of that... but there is no need to share
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I'm not gonna have sex with your mom, but that won't keep me from talking about her scabbed over, fish-stank, cottage cheese covered body.
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Anyone with a mac could make the songs kanye makes. seriously. You don't even have to sing or play any instrument, just click and drag.
It's not about the music. It's about the people they know, and how well they can sell their product.
The "pop hit" is something that is provided by an institution, and if you're out of the institution's loop, your song will not be a hit. No one will even hear it.
Luckily, not everyone is ignorant, so there is a nice place for good music too.
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Scott Weiland introducing a song called "Sober." Don't worry everybody, irony is alive and well.
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i feel like we're from different planets. plus, i do agree...pop music is dead now. R.I.P
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FUCK THIS SHIT!!!!!!
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beyonce was really good. she worked it out.
i agree with most of you guys though.... pop music is dead. :(
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stephen, you're a fucking clown. no, you could not write a better song than "Single Ladies."
anyway, a good number of these people indeed do suck, but beyonce is not among them.
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Single Ladies is a great song. That was a great performance. Unforunately, Beyonce's new CD is not very good. : (
I was a little underwhelmed by 'Ye's performance, though the live instrumentation on Heartless sounded beautiful.
Stereogum, you guys should have included Ne-Yo's performance. He's really upped his game, performance-wise. Again, I wish his album could live up to the singles.
Both Ne-Yo and Beyonce actually suffer from the same disease. Too many songs either use super-bland techno techniques or super-bland acoustic instrumentation. It's really pissing me off. Chris Brown does too. These great entertainers are making obvious hackneyed grabs for expanded white listenership, when they're actually losing respect of their cores.
Meanwhile, Kanye is losing support for doing the opposite. Trying new things and being brave. But even if 808's wasn't the excellent album it is, I would far prefer it, conceptually, to this treadmill dreck.
The-Dream said he wanted to choke the Jonas bros.
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Oh yeah, and the New Kids on the Block performance should have been included for how spectacular awful it was.That shit should be the nail in their career coffins. Donnie, moar act&less sing, plz.
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what, all of a sudden beyoncé's trio has gone biracial? blondie homegirl ain't got nearly enough booty to dance that song effectively.
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I thought people visited this site cause they liked INDIE music. The fact that Beyonce's single is a hit is embarrassing for the state of music. Most people that write pop hits are whore's for attention that have terrible taste in music and happen to be talented, people that actually music smarts and can write good music write stuff that's too good for the american public. The Decemberists will never be as popular as Nickelback because they write intellectual lyrics that challenge you and they use metaphors rather than literal stuff. You can tell they care more about the message and the music than they do about selling records. Sorry, I'll take Fleet Foxes as my band of the year over Daughtry any day. I apologize if you think I'm "hating", that's my opinion and rather than slandering someone for having a "negative" opinion, how about you engage them with why you disagree and provide an opposing view.
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lol the decemberists are so 2004...and they're signed to capitol so they aren't even "indie" anymore. they're last record sucked and i'd take single ladies over that any day.
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I'm sorry, indie to me is a state of mind and a sound moreso than it is the status of the label. The Decemberists and bands like Death Cab For Cutie will always be indie to me irregardless of the label. I appreciate you're attempt to be contrary though. Why are the Decemberists so 2004? Was that when you're friends liked them? Does time move that slow that 2004 is that long along? I highly enjoyed The Crane Wife although it wasn't any of their prior 3 albums, it's still better than most music out there and I love Colin Meloy's lyrics. It's not about what's popular to anyone else, it's about what you like and what speaks to you.
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"It's not about what's popular to anyone else, it's about what you like and what speaks to you."
If you really believe this, why was your entire first post dedicated to shitting on millions of people's music tastes?
By the way, The Decemberists write pop music.
To take the stance that as soon as someone writes music for it to be a hit makes it bad excludes so much music. Like, Michael Jackson/Quincy Jones, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Outkast, etc.. Don't be naive/extremist. Good music is good music, regardless of why it's written.
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Because millions of people like what TV and Radio and their friends tell them to like rather than what they want to like. All those artists you mentioned are from a different era sans Outkast. Pretty much everyone likes the Beatles. It's important to have stances and beliefs and opinions. It would be pretty boring if everyone just liked everything and everyone was the same. Pop culture is very cyclical. Labels tell people what to listen to and people eat it up so the labels feed them more of the same stuff. The Decemberists are a rock band to me by the way. Everybody wants to fit everything in a genre. Post-rock, pop-punk, power-pop, grunge, nu-metal, rap-rock... turkey-salami, turkey-bologna, turkey-ham, turkey-pastrami... I hope you get my point. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon and shits on people that are different. Have an opinion about something, have ideals. I just completely rambled but I know some people got my point.
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Well, music blogs like this one also create a "scene" , where certain bands are well known over others, just like the pop music world only on a smaller scale. Notice how one minute Pitchfork praises a band/artist, like The Streets one minute (they get a lot of attention from other blogs about their new album and eventually wind up on plenty of year-end lists by several blogs and respectable magazines. Then they release the follow-up some years down the line and they don't get that "push" they once received and the response to the new effort is lackluster and the artist is soon forgotten about. I've seen this happen to many a band for the past couple of years. In short, when many blogs/mags endorse certain artists like the Decemberists they're at the top of the game then once it goes away they're quickly forgotten about or suddenly its deemed "uncool" to like them. It's the same story with pop music. People feel the need to relate to the same artists because its much easier to fit into a timeline. We want to be able to relate to each other, to look back on the year that was and have somebody know what the hell we're talking about.
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irregardless
also, please describe this indie sound. downstrummed powerchords over droning half-sung vocals, amirite?
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Why does indie need to be described? I would consider Calexico, Black Mountain, and Of Montreal all indie and it has nothing to do with label. I would describe The Strokes, Aimee Mann, and The Killers as indie bands as well even though they are on major labels. I may be wrong on Aimee Mann but i'm pretty positive her new album is on a major label so don't call me out on it. I'm not arguing semantics.
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There's a key difference between pop music and popular music. Popular music is on it's way out. The internet is mercifully destroying the traditional music industry, and the music industry's response has been to start churning out more crap than ever before. That's not to entirely dismiss popular music - that's terribly shortsighted and exactly why 'indie' fans are branded as being snobs. But I imagine the music industry in a couple of decades being less focused on major, broadly-popular acts on more on variety. Sort of a decentralized industry.
Sorry for rambling, I'm writing a paper on this right now.
Changing topics: WHY DID NICKELBACK PRESENT THE AWARD FOR BEST HIP-HOP ALBUM????
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The fundamental problem with all the negative commenters on music blogs is that the term "indie" has taken on new meanings. The definition of what makes an indie band an "indie band" is no longer just being an alternative rock band on a non-major recording label. And even if this is YOUR definition of indie, remember that there are still sub-genres, including indie rap, indie reggae, indie soul, etc.
Also, the notion that once a great indie band transitions to a major label, (or transitions into the "biggest band in the world") that they instantly lose all their credibility, and therefore respect as musicians is just plain dumb.
No, Beyonce is not by any means "indie" at all, but she is popular artist of the Pop and R&B genres, who happened to give a great performance at an awards show that this music blog decided to give the highlights of. So, stop being so uptight.
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It was refreshing to see Annie Lennox's raw performance in the midst of all those polished/lip-synching "idols" (I'm looking your way Mariah Carey). But I though P!nk's performance was quite amazing especially because it seems like it would be hard to sing like that in 90 feet of fog.
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Am I the only one confused as to why Crackback are there? They aren't even American. Is Rhianna American now too? These awards don't make any sense.
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