The lady-driven American Music Awards performances everyone is still talking about
Did you happen to catch the American Music Awards last night? The show was hosted by go-to emcee Pitbull (because, reasons) and the winners were chosen by us, (the American people). Every honor was completely fan driven, which means the awards are kind of a big deal — and an awesome marker of what people are actually listening to and fangirling (and boying) over. Obviously groups like One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer took home big awards, but the show is so much more than awards and acceptance speeches. The AMAs are really all about the live performances. And last night, they MEGA delivered.
One group especially dominated the performances last night: the ladies of pop music. All of them. Out of the 18 live performances, 11 of them were rocked by the fierce females of today’s music world, from Taylor Swift, to Lorde, Charlie XCX and even J. Lo and Mary J. Blige! In short, it was awesome. Here are the AMA performances everyone is talking about today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRJ841yIWsA
Her performance at the AMAs had been hyped for the past week, and we all knew she was going to perform her latest single “Blank Space.” The performance did not disappoint. There was fire. There were guys hooked up to wires so Swiftie could push them away and they could fly through the air. There was a whole team of backup dancers dressed like the portraits in the “Blank Space” ex-boyfriend hallway. It’s probably just a small preview of what’s to come on her 1989 world tour.
Ariana Grande
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYBj56Wrx0g
“Problem” was one of the songs of the summer and it seems like it might just be the song of the fall, and even the winter. Ariana Grande performed “Problem” but with almost no accompaniment. Impressive. “Problem” then transitioned into a stripped down version of “Break Free” and now I want a whole CD of her just doing slow jazz versions of her pop songs. It all led up to her latest single, “Love Me Harder” which got its beat back, and got The Weekend in it, too.
Selena Gomez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNrGfVutX84
Was Gomez’s performance maaaaybe about Justin Bieber? Honestly, does it even matter? Not really. Either way, she KILLED her live performance of “The Heart Wants What It Wants.” It was just her in front of a giant video screen which gave her wings. It was incredibly emotional, she cried, Taylor Swift cried, maybe we cried, and she nailed it.
Lorde
Lorde is really awesome, plain and simple. She performed “Yellow Flicker Beat” from the Mockingjay soundtrack, which was awesome, plain and simple. She takes the age old rock idea of “head banging” to new levels with her performance and her wild (awesome) curly hair flying everywhere. And if you thought you were going to make it through the AMAs without Swift’s token audience dancing, she completely rocked out herself to Lorde’s performance like the awesome best friend she is.
Iggy Azalea & Charlie XCX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcV1h1s3QX0
Iggy started by standing behind a podium with an image of a cat on it, underneath a sign that said POWER and we all thought YES. When T.I. introduced her, he said “like it or not, women can rap,” again we all thought YES. Yes they can, and Iggy is showing us the way. I would have really enjoyed an entire segment with her recreating Clueless again, but this was pretty awesome.
That’s still only five of the 11 performances from last night. What female powered performance was your favorite?
[Images via.]
