American Music Awards Highlights: The Good, The Bad And The Possibly Racist
The American Music Awards took place Sunday night and, surprise surprise, Taylor Swift cleaned out. Of course, Swift wasn’t the only one who walked off with too many statuettes to carry (artist of the year, pop/rock female artist, country artist and country album for Red) but this does continue her impressive winning streak. The full list of winners was written up by USA Today.
Head on over to our gallery for loads more AMA pictures.
Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake scored three (pop/rock male artist, R&B/soul male artist and R&B/soul album for The 20/20 Experience) while One Direction and the creative duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis went home with two awards each. There were lots of proud moments for lots of artists, but like any award show these days, the AMAs didn’t manage to go by without some controversy.
Read up on Katy Perry's (maybe) racially charged performance on the next page.
The highlight of the night has to be Katy Perry’s performance of Unconditionally. The elaborate performance got a controversial reception, with many accusing Perry of cultural appropriation. It’s easy to see where they got the idea – her Japanese-inspired performance lit a few sparks among writers like Vulture’s Jesse David Fox, as well as plenty of Twitter users.
Clad in a kimono, with cherry blossoms decorating her mic and rice paper partitions, Perry performed a rendition of her song, remixed to include a shamisen and other traditional Japanese instruments and the routine included plenty of kimonos, cherry blossoms, lanterns, red fans – there was no mistaking the message that being conveyed. Or was there? As usual with these things – instances like Miley Cyrus’ twerking, Selena Gomez’s bindi, Lily Allen’s Hard Out Here and so on and so on – the question of where to draw the line is incredibly muddled.
Culturally insensitive? Take a look for yourself.
On to a less controversial topic, Rihanna was honored with the first ever AMA Icon award. In a rather endearing twist, the award was presented to the Barbadian singer by her mother, Monica Braithwaite, who gave a speech before presenting her daughter with the award. "I know the journey in your career has not always been an easy one, but tonight I applaud you and admire you for being so strong and so positive and so humble and so focused," Braithwaite said, before kissing her daughter on the cheek and handing her the award.