LITTLE ROCK — If you just can’t get enough of those music awards shows, then ABC has you covered tonight.
The 40th Annual American Music Awards will air live from 7 to 10 p.m. from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.
Yes, 40th. Hard to believe. Dick Clark created the awards in 1973 to pay tribute to popular musicians from various genres. It also made for another TV special and boosted record sales.
The event honors artists in the categories of Pop/Rock, Country, Rap/Hip-Hop, Soul/ R&B, Alternative, Adult Contemporary, Latin and Contemporary Inspirational.
In addition, a new Electronic Dance Music category has been created. Nominees include David Guetta, Calvin Harris and Skrillex. I have no idea who those folks are.
For the sixth year, fans picked the winners by online voting. The nominees were selected from two sources - Big Champagne’s Ultimate Chart, and Mediabase.
According to ABC, “The Ultimate Chart is a ranked list of the most popular artists and songs based on a weighted combination of music sales, radio and TV broadcast, and Internet streaming and video viewing. It also incorporates additional online metrics, including activity on social networks.”
Sounds as convoluted as the BCS football ratings formula.
Mediabase monitors more than 1,800 radio stations in 180 markets and provides airplay and programming information to affiliate radio stations.
Leading this year’s individual nominations with four each are Nicki Minaj and Rihanna.
Following with three each are Drake, Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, One Direction and Usher. Scoring double nods are Carrie Underwood, Chris Brown, fun., Gotye, J.Cole, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Luke Bryan and Pitbull.
Up for the coveted Artist of the Year award are Bieber, Drake, Maroon 5, Perry and Rihanna.
As for New Artist of the Year, pick a favorite from J. Cole, Gotye (real name Wauter De Backer), Carly Rae Jepsen, English/Irish boy band One Direction, and the New York indie-pop band fun.
I vote for Jepsen. Her infectious “Call Me Maybe” from last year is still rattling around in my head.
And what’s an award show without performances? Among those scheduled to sing are Pink, Taylor Swift, Linkin Park and Christina Aguilera.
There are three hours to kill, so also look for performances by Bieber, Usher, No Doubt, Ke$ha and Stevie Wonder.
And, just in case you weren’t sick of him yet, Korean rapper Psy is scheduled to perform his “Gangnam Style” hit single.
Ken Burns special.
If awards shows aren’t your favorite and you prefer nation-crippling natural disasters, then PBS and Ken Burns has an offering.
Burns’ two-night, four hour The Dust Bowl premieres on AETN at 7 p.m. today and Monday and “chronicles the environmental catastrophe that destroyed the farmlands of the Great Plains, turned prairies into deserts and unleashed a pattern of massive, deadly dust storms in the 1930s - the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history.”
Burns tells PBS that the disaster “was a heartbreaking tragedy in the enormous scale of human suffering it caused, but perhaps the biggest tragedy is that it was preventable. If we show the same neglect to the limits of nature now as we did then, it is entirely possible that this could happen again.”
Narrated by Peter Coyote, the documentary features interviews with 26 survivors of those hard times. Filled with seldom-seen movie footage, previously unpublished photographs, the songs of Woody Guthrie and two women’s eloquent written accounts, the film provides a historical account of the 1930s on the southern Plains.
Still going strong.
I’ve written before that I fail to see the attraction of Fox’s Family Guy. It’s puerile, bordering on infantile, and is rife with crude sexual humor that is seldom funny.
And I enjoy a well-turned risque tale as much as the next guy.
And yet, the series, airing at 8 p.m. today, soldiers on. Last week marked the series’ 200th episode - a milestone reached by few animated programs.
We can blame/credit creator Seth MacFarlane, who owns Fox’s Sunday night programming with not only Family Guy, but American Dad! and The Cleveland Show.
Media watchdog outfits may howl, but MacFarlane is crying all the way to the bank. In fact, he was recently chosen to host the 85th annual Academy Awards in February.
Go figure.
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Style, Pages 54 on 11/18/2012