The 2016 American Music Awards are tomorrow night. It is
estimated that millions of viewers will tune in to see who wins big.
Now in its 44th year, the AMAs honor the year’s
biggest and brightest artists in the popular music game. Fans got to vote on
the winners over the course of the last month-and-a-half for who they would
like to take home a trophy.
Vinyl Bay 777, your new favorite Long Island record shop,
wants you to know a little more about this year’s AMAs before the show airs. In
order to give you a better look at the award show, we have gathered seven
interesting facts about this year’s categories, performers, artists and
potential winners.
1.
The AMAs were started to rival the Grammys: When
the Grammy Awards left ABC in 1973, the network wanted a music award show of
its own, so they came up with the American Music Awards. The main difference
between the two awards is that the AMAs are voted on by the fans.
2.
The nominees are determined by record sales:
This makes things interesting because it means that the nominees are not limited
by how old an album is or how many albums an artist dropped during the year. For
example, in the race for this year’s Top Soundtrack award is Prince’s ‘Purple
Rain,’ released in 1984, which re-charted after Prince’s death earlier this
year. Also notable is Drake’s double nomination for Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop album.
3.
Rock music continues to be underrepresented: It’s
been a downward trend for a while, but rock music has been terribly
underrepresented at award shows for years now. The only category that honors
the genre today is Top Alternative Rock Artist, which was started in 1995 to
properly honor all the rock music coming out at the time. Now it just separates
the genre more from the pop and R&B that has become popular. The one beacon
at this year’s show is that there will be performances by rock bands Green Day
and Twenty One Pilots.
4.
There is a Latin American Music Awards: If it
looks like Latin music is seriously underrepresented at this year’s ceremony
too, it’s because it has already been honored with its own award show. Started
in 2015, the Latin American Music Awards gives Spanish-language music its due.
The 2016 ceremony took place on October 6.
5.
Sting is getting a Merit Award: For his “contributions
to the music industry,” Sting will be getting the American Music Award of Merit
at tomorrow’s ceremony. He will be the first artist in eight years to get the
award. Sting will also be performing a medley of his hits, as well as a song
from his new album, ‘57th & 9th.’
6.
Rihanna is the most nominated artist this year:
She is up for seven awards, including Artist of the Year. If she won all of
them, it would tie her with Garth Brooks for fourth-most AMA wins ever. She
already has nine wins under her belt.
7.
You can still vote for Top New Artist: While the
voting for all other categories ended on Thursday, the one award you can still
have a say in is Best New Artist. Voting
for that award goes on until just before the winner is announced.
The 2016 American Music Awards airs Sunday night, November
20 at 8PM on ABC. Are you excited for any of the performances? Let us know in
the comments!
Find music from all of the nominees and performers at Vinyl
Bay 777 and online at vinylbay777.com. The best and largest new record shop on
Long Island, Vinyl Bay 777 has thousands of new and used titles to choose from
on vinyl, CD and cassette. The store is conveniently located just off the LIE
and Northern State and is now open every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment