8pm – Christina Aguilera opens the show with a medley. A capella “Beautiful” with an orchestra that kicks in first. I bet a lot of chicks are unhappy she’s back performing because her voice is capital A-mazing. The next song is the new single which then segues into “Genie In A Bottle” complete with quick changes. OOOOO! It’s “Dirrty” – i dig that song. Her outfit is very Madonna minus the garish accouterments with a splash of “Cabaret”. “Ain’t No Other Man” is next. This song didn’t get nearly enough play. “Stronger” is rounding things off. I really like her thigh high boots.
8:07pm – Jimmy Kimmel comes out for his monologue. He mentioned that, for virgins, the Jonas Bros are running through a lot of girls. Wow. At least he brought it back around as a dig on himself.
8:11pm – Jamie Foxx is a master as self-promotion. His whole Fave Soul/R&B Female Artist presentation was pimping his next album.
8:13 – Rihanna’s got this quasi-cute doilly dress on – she smartly gets up and walks on stage without flashing her bits to America.
8:14 – Kimmel says Rihanna and the Jonas Bros get their hair done at the same place. Oldest Jonas the only one amused since he basically just gets it cut as opposed to a blow out or a pompadour.
8:15 – NKOTB come out to perform. They start with “Single”…and it goes into “The Right Stuff”. There are claps and triumphant hands raised in the audience. Ooooo…and it’s “Please Don’t Go Girl”. Joe McIntyre is a much better singing than he used to be thanks to all that Broadway. But my favorite is the candles on the screens for “I’ll Be Loving You Forever”. They end the set with another new song “Dirty Dancing” and the crowd actually gets up. Clap that shit up people. They started off shaky because of nerves but they’re better dancers than they ever were.
8:23 – Paris Hilton (aka “She Who Will Not Be Named”) & T-Pain come out to present. Her dress is so short, you’d think she was going to her lady doctor appointment. But I love have T-Pain was mocking her “model walk” on the way out.
8:25 – Scott Weiland introduces Pink…and seems a little, um…drunk. I hope not because I really don’t like seeing people fall off the wagon.
8:26 – Pink perfoms. She looks good – her hair is Veronica Lake meets punk. I’ve always liked her.
8:34 - Taylor Swift performs “White Horse”. Wow, it’s the best I’ve heard her sound live. Perhaps the emotional song helped her focus and deliver?
8:37 – Lance Bass presents the Country Group/Duo award to Rascal Flatts who’ve I’ve heard nothing but grat things about.
8:38 – No celeb intro for Ne-Yo, just straight to performance. He’s the new millineum Michael Jackson. I like his primary female dancer on stage. She’s a fantastic dancer. Yet another reason I love him. His chick dancers aren’t just half-naked and jiggling. His performance has shades of old school musical with a touch of Morris Day & The Time. Jerome, get me my mirror!
8:48 – Kanye West wins his first AMA for best Rap/Hip-Hop Album. In his acceptance speech he talks about how he wakes up everyday and thinks about what boundaries to break and urges artists to get out there and be creative. He sums up by saying that people think computers should be smaller and faster but when people say they want to be Elvis, others think he’s nuts. “Well,” he says, “I want to be Elvis.” And then he walks off stage. Fantastic.
8:51 – Jesse McCartney (who wants you to tell your man you’re leavin’ never to come back again) introduces Leona Lewis who sings her new single. I love her giant cuff bracelet. I covet it. She’s got a good voice but I don’t think this does her voice justice.
9:00 – Jimmy Kimmel says that Elvis died on the toilet with half a bottle of pills in his system so maybe Kanye wants to rethink that statement.
9:01 – Billy Ray Cyrus introduces daughter Miley. Please tell him to shave that flavor savor off. It’s Miley’s birthday and her performance starts with a Miley analog being chased around by paparazzi. Surprisingly I like her song, which I assume is called “Fly On The Wall”. She’s got a lot of dancers. The stage blocking is really good but all that stuff she does on her knees kind of creeps me out. She needs to get off Hannah Montana before she turns 17.
9:04 – Brad Paisley wins Best Country Male, his first, instead of the Jack Johnson of Country, Kenny Chesney.
9:10 – Coldplay opens the show after a commercial. Chris Martin is jumping and twirling around like their music isn’t inherently boring. I’m sorry, I mean relaxing. That’s a lot of damn confetti. I bet the women (“My hair!”) and the cleaning crew are not happy. Also, at the end of their number Chris is rolling around in it like a 7-year-old in leaves. Is he high?
9:22 – Jimmy is in the audience sitting next to RZA and asks how many members of the Jonas Bros can the WuTang Clan name. The Answer: 0. But his daughter has their poster on the wall. Jimmy gives a hint: Nick, Joe and Ghostface Kevin.
9:23 – Terrence Howard intros Mariah Carey who’s getting a special award for having more number 1 hits than any artist in history or something like that. Craziness. Speaking of craziness, her husband Nick Cannon helps her down her starting platform and kisses her hand before leaving. He’s her Ashton. I find the song she’s singing to be boring.
9:29 – Country Female category is rough – Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Reba…but Taylor wins. Her first AMA and I’m very happy for her. I like her, she’s good people.
9:30 – Daughty presents Pop/Rock Female. They’re interesting, almost like a vaudeville act gone awry. Rihanna wins and once again carefully makes her way on stage…with some confetti stuck to her back.
9:37 – Kate Walsh, who’s short haircut is delish, gives us The Fray. I feel like I haven’t seen them in a long time.
9:41 – Jordan Sparks and Enrique Iglesias present together Rap/Hip-Hop Award. A kind of weird combo. Kanye wins again. He wants to give it to Lil Wayne for this year, though if it were last year he’d keep it.
9:43 – Ashley Tisdale presents the Breakthrough Artist award to the Jonas Bros. Not surprised in the least.
9:46 – Artist/producer The Dream comes out and says he wanted to choke the Jonas Bros. Wtf? Anyway, he’s there to introduced Beyonce doing “Single Ladies”, which he produced. Because she’s special, they change to a differnt camera type so it looks like film. Beyonce is straight jacking Tina Turner but at least she’s doing it well. It’s a good thing her rack isn’t that big or she’d be popping right out of her outfit. Instead of rocking an entire robotic hand, she’s got a robo-finger. If you’d seen her on Satruday Night Live a couple weeks ago, the performance is similar in terms of the breakdowns and whatnot.
9:56 – Akon (Bleh!!!!) and Julianne Hough present Soul/R&B Album. I can’t stand Akon. His songs offend me. Anyhoo, Alica Keys win…though I wish Mary J. Blige would’ve gotten it. She doesn’t get enough props.
9:58 – Demi Lovato presents the Jonas Bros. There’s something wrong with her to me. Watching them makes me miss Hanson. I’m sure I’m inviting the ire of the tween set (and some 20 and 30-somethings) but something about that middle Jonas weirds me out.
10:02 – Because apparently it’s Opposites Day, the Pussycat Dolls immediately follow with a medley of two songs. They’re wearing super shiny black trench coats for the first song, “I Hate This Part”. When it goes into “When I Grow Up”, the girls shed their raincoats get on their own personalized platforms, etched with their individual names (because the only one anyone knows is Nicole, by design I’m sure) and their very own stripper poles. I appreciate their honestly. F– the pretense. Oops, and Melody couldn’t get her jacket off. I know it was Melody thanks to the platforms. The stuff they’re doing on theose poles is pretty darn impressive. The breakdown for the song is different and features about 10 male backup dancers. Too bad we couldn’t see it thanks to the terrible camera cuts and angles.
10:12 – Jimmy introduces a surprise guest – Justin Timberlake. His hair looks rick-diculous and he bugs. He’s giving out the Award of Merit to Annie Lennox. Yay Annie Lennox! She’s made of awesome. Playing the piano, she sings “Why” which is one of the greatest songs ever. (Aside: A male artist named John Boutte did a cover of this which is fab and you should all check it out.)
10:21 – After two standing ovations, Annie finally gets her award. She makes a very gracious speech and says Dave Stewart deserves half of it.
10:28 – Natasha Beddingfield also gives us a medley. I wish her brother would put out another album…but I digress. She does “Unwritten” and “Pocketful of Sunshine”. She’s a good singer, I just don’t always dig her songs.
10:32 – Rihanna’s performance immediately follows. She’s wearing a studded eyepatch, a spikey, post-apocalyptic, Thunderdome outfit and is on a scaffolding like Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted”. She sings “Rehab” and loses the eyepatch before going down the stairs of the scaffolding to get to the stage.
10:39 – Motley Crue comes out to present Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group. Tommy Lee’s suit is mother f-ing shiny and there’s this long-haired guy in all black and a hat that’s giving me the jeebies. Daughtry wins (they were up against the Eagles and Coldplay and their tympanis).
10:42 – Kanye performs “Heartless” (with intro by Jimmy). He’s using the films-quality camera too. Instead of butt-jiggling, he has three posing, robotic-like dancers on stage. Not as interesting as most of his performance but at least the Vegas Strip like stage setting was visually stimulating.
10:47 – Sarah McLaughlan sings next. Opposites Day! She sings “Angel” since her greatest hits album is coming out. And oh! Pink appears suddenly to sing very pretty harmonies with her and take half of the second verse. Their voices match up well. Must…find…and download….
10:53 – Steven Tyler and Joe Perry present Artist of the Year. Joe’s jacket has a subtle skull on the back of it. Shenanigans with not being able to read the teleprompter. Chris Brown wins and he’s very surprised. He was up against Alicia Keys, The Eagles, Coldplay, and Lil Wayne so yeah…it could’ve gone a couple of ways. He’s at a loss for words which made his brief speech adorable.
10:56 – Alicia Keys ends the show with “Superwoman”. Not a big fan of the song but I appreciate the sentiment. Her first special guest on the song is Queen Latifah (she looks great). I haven’t seen her rap in what feels like 15 years. Feels good, though they took. She sings too. The other guest is Kathleen Battle who sings opera over it (in what may be Italian, can’t tell) as strings really come in, with Alicia singing underneath it. Awesome.
11:00 – C’est fine. Right before the credits, they show eight other winners of awards that were given out prior to the show. They couldn’t fit them in what with the 876 musical performances.
