Beech Tree News Network

Sunday night, May 20, the Billboard Music Awards began with a performance by LMFAO.  Not often am I embarrassed by a music group, but this is one exception.  I seriously couldn’t even look at the screen during their performance. Afterwards, hosts Modern Family’s Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen welcomed us and had some hilarious skits.  They actually did those skits throughout the show, which was great. 

The first award (which I honestly didn’t know existed) was for Social Artist.  This is not how well one interacts with their peers. No, this is about internet popularity.  Julianne Hough got through technical difficulties to give the award to Justin Beiber.  Julie Bowen announced that, just an hour before the show, a legend was lost with the passing of Bee Gee Robin Gibb. 

Lisa Marie Presley presented Katie Perry with the Billboard Spotlight Award. The only other artist to receive this award was the late Michael Jackson.  Natasha Bedingfield paid tribute to the late Donna Summer, who had just passed days earlier.  Too bad ABC saw fit to go to commercial right in the middle of Natasha’s performance of “Last Dance”. That’s weak sauce, ABC. I had a feeling the Whitney Houston tribute would be shown more respect and given more time.  Sadly, I was correct.

Jason Derulo, looking very much like Kanye West, presented the Hot 100 award to LMFAO.  This was getting painful to watch, just so you know.  It got better soon, as Luke Bryan introduced Carrie Underwood to perform “Blown Away”.  Monica and Eric Benet presented Chris Brown with the award for R&B Artist of the Year. He celebrated by poorly lip-synching his latest song.  He was called out for it by major artists on twitter, Pink and Joe Jonas, to name a few.  It was bad, actually.  If you choose to do that, at least know your song well enough to fake sing.

Katy Perry performed her new single “Wide Awake”, which sounded like another “now I know better” song directed at Russell Brand.  That’s two of hers like that, by my count.  We then went into the Whitney Houston tribute, which was introduced by Whoopi Goldberg.  She introduced John Legend who sang, in full, “Greatest Love Of All”.  Jordan Sparks followed with “I Will Always Love You”.  It should be noted that the Whitney tribute lasted long and was given more respect than the Donna Summer tribute.  I found that disrespectful to the family and legacy of Donna Summer.  I feel as though the ones who paved the way, such as Summer, and Robin Gibb for that matter, aren’t given near as much respect as the newer artists.  Alright, didn’t mean to go off on a rant.  The Millennium Award was posthumously given to Houston.

Cee Lo Green performed a very inspirational song called “Fight To Win” complete with a dancing amputee soldier.  Green then went into one of my favorite parts of the night, an impromptu performance of the Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right”, in tribute to the late Adam Yaught, who lost his battle with cancer weeks ago.  This show could not have closed more perfectly than they did with Alicia Keys honoring Stevie Wonder with the Icon Award.  After the presentation, Stevie sang a bit of “Overjoyed” and “Higher Ground”.

Hello, my name is Andy Sullivan. I received my bachelor’s degree in business from Mid-Continent University in May 2009. I began writing for Beech Tree News in July 2009.  I enjoy playing guitar, the occasional Wii game, writing, and listening to music. I write a sports blog that can be found at http://www.tumblr.com/blog/sports-news-and-views.   If you have a comment, feel free to leave it in the space below.