Watching the World Around Us

The American Music Awards (A.K.A. The Asylum)

It’s the day before thanksgiving and it’s time to start thinking about what I’m thankful for. My friends, my family,the  blog (of course), the love of my life Ashley Tisdale, and I certainly can’t forget those crazy as all get out televised music award shows. In reality nothing serves up some good entertainment than some mildly insane live performance antics. Whether it be the Jonas Brothers rocking out with Stevie Wonder telling him to show them what he’s got, or GaGa profusely bleeding and being lifted into the air by her hand, the fun never ends. 2009′s music award shows have not failed to bring their best and the American Music Awards were no slouch. There was so much good crazy served to America that night I just couldn’t contain myself from blogging all about it. Let’s discuss these performances shall we?

Now let’s get something out of the way. There were plenty of good simple performances at the AMAs, from Jay Z in his sunglasses strollin’ around the stage occasionally leaning so he could switch it up a bit, to Keith Urban swinging his hips and shaking his groove thing because he was  just wanted to kiss a girl. These performances among select others were great but these are not what I’m here for so there are some performances we’re going to skip over. If you really feel you can’t live without discussing the Black Eyed Peas or Daughtry, feel free to comment and we’ll have some good conversation but otherwise let’s begin shall we?

Now as you may know my home girl Janet opened the show and it was bangin’! I don’t really recall much of the performance because I was too busy reenacting all of the dances from her videos as she performed each song but it was a doozy. Here’s the thing, yes she was probably lip synching, and yes her dancing was not quite what it used to be. Who cares? It’s Janet and she got her groove on and I was all over it. She even closed the performance with her song “Together Again” which she wrote in the nineties as a dedication to lost friends which one could only assume was a subtle tribute to her late brother Michael. Key word being subtle, let’s discuss another member of the Jackson family who attended the event shall we? Did anyone see Jermaine Jackson and the fresh batch of awkward he served up during the show? The AMAs nominated Michael Jackson for a 5 awards and during the show he won two of them on air and two off the air and lost one to the current reigning Queen of the Universe, Taylor Swift. Now it wasn’t superstar Janet Jackson who accepted the award for Michael, oh no, it was Jermaine with his fake sparkly Michael Jackson glove who picked it up. The first award Jermaine accepted he was pretty tame even though I didn’t see it exactly necessary for him to bring his children onto the stage but whatever floats his boat. The second award that he accepted on Michael’s behalf however…. Was it really necessary for the five minute long speech thanking everyone and their mother who ever effected your career before actually mentioning your brother who actually won the award Jermaine? You know the reason Jermaine wanted to accept that award was because he’s never been on the American Musc Awards stage before and he was very excited to actually hold one. It was a very big moment for him. Congratulations Jermaine on the award that you recieved that isn’t yours. I’m very proud.

Now speaking of classy, let’s talk about Rihanna. First of all I don’t understand the need to have an intro video play before she came out. This is not her tour, you get announced and you come out and sing, why does Rihanna get an introductory video, oh and what a video it was. I’m dying to know who in her management came up to her and said “ok Rihanna, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to shoot this video to play before you come out, it’s gonna be hot, people are going to love it. What are you going to be doing in it ? Well you see we’re going to strap you to a gurney and have machines attached to your privates and a metal mask stuck to your face with a song playing in the background. Got it? Love it? Let’s go.” Great choice Rihanna. I also loved the tattoo going down her chest which (I could be wrong) but I believe it said “Anger,” very classy. The performance itself wasn’t bad, the songs she sang are some of her better ones on the new album so overall it was pretty good. Especially when her shoulder spikes started shooting lasers out of them, that was cool, I was all about that. I also couldn’t understand why the announcer kept saying things like “Rihanna’s big return is coming up soon.” What big return? Her last single came out just over a year ago it’s not like she went missing. Yes, she had her incident with Chris Brown but c’mon, big return? I think not.

After Rihanna came two of my favorite singers. First there was Carrie Underwood. I have a question for Carrie, did her clothes not want to attend the performance? Don’t get me wrong her outfit wasn’t exactly racy or anything but for a country superstar it was an odd outfit choice to where a shiny gold one piece. An even odder choice was her backup dancers which seemed to each be having some kind of sexual experience in each corner of the stage. The song she performed, “Cowboy Casanova” is the only remotely sexual song she’s ever done. The rest of her song catalog is all about her mom, love, or Jesus which makes me wonder that, if she goes on tour, what on Earth is she going to do with those dancers and their girations for the rest of the show? Maybe they could carry around some baseball bats for “Before He Cheats” but otherwise I can’t see where they would be relevant. Then we have GaGa who, as usual, delivered like Dominos! Never mind her and her dancers breaking out their new hit dance routine while jammin to Bad Romance let’s talk about the ballad she performed where all the good stuff went down. Have you ever seen anyone playing a flaming piano? I haven’t, but I liked it and let’s not forget when out of no where she just started smashing bottles all over the place. I have a question. When your bad romance leaves you speechless do you play a flaming piano and smash liquor bottles? Now you should.  GaGa never disappoints.

Now I feel that I have to go on the defensive for the next performer. I thought J.Lo did excellent! Yes she fell right on her famous J.Lo booty after climbing off of her man pyramid! Who cares? She is Jenny from the block and one slip and fall should not define an entire performance! I call foul! One person I cannot call foul for is Alicia Keys. I can honestly tell you that I do not remember one word or note of the song that she sang on her own at the AMAs. Her male backup dancer held all of my attention. Let me set the scene. There’s Alicia doing her thing, singing her song with her dancers and her city background. When all of a sudden you see this man climb on the scaffolding behind her and spreading his arms and lifting his head to the sky in a Christ like manner. I thought I was seeing things, maybe it was a mirage, did that man just pull a Jesus right there on the roof of that fake house?! Why yes, yes he did. That wasn’t the end though, oh no, he then proceeded to get off of the set and then spend the rest of the song crumping wildly around Alicia. This was a mid-tempo song, there was no crumping necessary. The most entertaining fact is that Alicia just kept strutting around acting as if he was completely invisible to her which must have been quite difficult with him popping his chest in her face. Not to mention he wasn’t even going with the melody of the song, he was just having a crumping good time. Similar to Rihanna I must ask, who went up to Alicia Keys and was like “ok Alicia, we’re going to have this man pose like Jesus and then come crump around you and you’re just gonna ignore he’s even there. Let’s get that audience confused, it’ll be hot, ok? Let’s go.” Speaking of crumping let’s talk about everyone’s favorite 3 foot tall rapper, Eminem. Remember him? Slim Shady? Well he decided he’d rock the AMAs too, but  all of the good stuff went down when his good friend 50 Cent came out. Oh yes, my favorite part was that almost the entire time that 50 was on stage, there was silence on my TV. Ok, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t dying to know what he was rapping that made ABC bleep almost his entire two minute verse. What series of curse words did this man weave together to deserve utter silence? I almost started to think that the TV was broken by the time the sound came back.  Let us also not forget when 50 left the stage which consisted of him literally skipping, off of the stage. Not pimp walking, not gliding, no this grown man full out skipped off of the stage. Very manly Fiddy, very gangsta.

Last but most definitely not least we have the subject of one Mr. Adam Lambert. Where do I even begin with this human being? Here’s the thing, I will admit that I am a little biased. Adam Lambert was the runner-up on this year’s American Idol and I am a huge fan of this year’s winner Kris Allen. Therefore when Kris came out on stage to present an award with Demi Lovato I may have yelled something slightly along the lines of “WHY AREN’T YOU PERFORMING?! YOU WON THE SHOW AND YOUR ALBUM’S AMAZING! STOP PRESENTING, GRAB YOUR GUITAR, AND TELL US TO “LIVE LIKE WE’RE DYING!!!” Just a little something like that, nothing too obnoxious. Anyway, for those of you who missed the performance let me give you a little play by play of Glambert’s televised solo debut. He began by dancing with one of his female dancers, taking her by the leg and spinning her around and dragging her across the stage. He then proceeded to pick up a pair of leashes attached to two of his male dancers and walk them across the stage. Then he took one of the male dancers by his hair and shoved the man’s face into his crotch and began to make a pelvic thrusting motion. Now at this point the producers decided it would be wise to cut away from the face smashing and change to a different camera angle which was a completely awkward view from above. From what I’ve heard though, Adam decided it would only be fair to take one of the female dancers and shove her face in his crotch too, but the camera was away at that point. It’s good to share Adam. Then it seemed like he had calmed down and was just screeching away when, towards the end, he walked over to his keyboardist and proceeded to “make out” with him/her (I couldn’t really tell the gender). I don’t think you can call it kissing though seeing as he walked over and shoved this person’s face into his and made an almost biting/sucking gesture so I don’t know if making out or kissing would be the proper term for it, I think face eating would be a more appropriate description. The funny part was that it looked almost like the keyboardist was trying to get away and pull his head back from Lambert. All I have to say to this performance is woooooooow. That was definitly the classy high point of the night. Of course there has been much controversy after the performance to which I have to say I am not on team lambert. He’s saying that it was discrimination that they cut the footage out for when it aired on the West Coast and that if a woman like GaGa or Madonna did it they wouldn’t get so much backlash. Ok, number 1, neither GaGa or Madonna made their major award show debut grinding someone’s face. Number 2 I would like to see any footage of either one of them grinding someone’s face. The make-out/snack-time session was whatever, my only issue lies with that poor man’s face. Here’s the thing, it was Lambert’s choice and the majority of the public didn’t like it, it’s not discrimination (well some of it probably is but I don’t count those people), it was just a bad performance plain and simple. That’s not how a serious professional musician who just came off of a reality show and wants to prove themselves, makes a debut.  He made a fool of himself and a mockery of his own song. This is just my opinion of course I’m sure many people loved it and if you did, good! As long as some of his fans like it, I guess he got what he hoped for, it was just not my cup of tea. However I do have to thank the man for giving me something to talk about as I end this blog entry. Therefore I am thankful for you Adam Lambert and even your face molestation, without which I would not be able to do a full blog. I am also thankful for all of you who read my blog! I hope you keep coming back for more and have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow!

- Jeff

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