As 2020 enters its final months, it’s only a matter of time before the award season starts up again. But in a year of chaos, delayed albums, canceled tours, delayed movies, canceled movies, streaming services, and a near-dead movie theater industry, the main problem facing this award season is scarcity.

With the Oscars being pushed back from Feb. 28 to Apr. 25 and calls for the event to be canceled, the Emmys going virtual, and the Governor’s ball being canceled, 2020 does not look like a good year for these award shows.
But, the American Music Awards, or AMA’s, will still be going on Nov.22 at 7:00 on ABC.

There will be no audience in attendance due to COVID-19 fears, but the largest popular-vote based awards show in the world will be broadcasting live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

The AMA’s are a popular-vote based awards show, meaning that the winner is chosen by the people instead of a committee or academy.

Billboard charts, which counts album streams, downloads, purchases, and overall fan interaction is in charge of nominating the candidates, and these factors, as well as chart placement, are all taken greatly into account.

The award show is meant to highlight the mainstream music and popular musical trends of the previous year, as well as give Americans to pick their favorite musicians.

Lots of musicians across the popular music landscape will be performing at the AMAs, including rapper Lil Baby, who will perform his hit “Emotionally Scarred” live for the first time.

Artist Megan Thee Stallion will be debuting a brand new song at the event. Artists such as pop star Shawn Mendez, K-pop group BTS, Reggaeton artist Bad Bunny, and singer Dua Lipa will also be performing.

The categories this year are all returning, including the coveted and most closely watched award of the night, Artist of the Year.

The 2020 Artist of the Year nominees includes pop superstars Justin Beiber and Taylor Swift, rapper Roddy Ricch, and RnB heavyweights Post Malone and The Weeknd.

Another important category to watch is the best new artist category.

This year’s nominees include chart-topping rappers DaBaby, Lil Baby, and Megan Thee Stallion.

This category features well established, heavy hitters, as well as left field, viral tik tok stars like pop singer and internet troll Doja Cat, as well as Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi, who’s songs, Say So and Someone You Love respectively got huge on the app.

Songs like Dababy and Roddy Ricch’s “Rockstar,”and Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallions ‘W.A.P’, are up for the Collaboration of the Year award, along with Megan’s internet smash hit “Savage Remix”featuring Beyonce.
Tracks such as Lewis Capaldi’s “Someone You Love,” Dua Lipa’s “Don’t start Now,” Post Malones “Circles” Roddy Ricchs “The Box,” as well as The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” are all up for the favorite pop/rock song award (which is essentially the ‘song of the year’ category at the AMA’s, as the set of songs that have been nominated here pull from much more than just rock and pop music).

Lil Uzi’s ‘Eternal Atake’, Lil Babys ‘My Turn’, and Roddy Ricchs ‘Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial’ are the only albums in contention for the favorite hip hop/rap album, really proving the musical drought we have gone under this year.

This trend of fewer and weaker categories is sadly one that continues through a lot of the categories at the AMA’s this year.

Fields such as best Latin album, favorite Alternative Rock artist, favorite EDM artist, as well as countless others are all filled scantly, with some artists being pretty far reached, such as Lady Gaga in the EDM category.

If this is a trend that continues for the rest of the awards season, we are going to see an extremely boring and predictable set of nominees and winners.

Most of the categories at the AMA’s are barely filled, holding three nominees.

Oftentimes, the categories are horrible at representing its nominees, and the nominees feel like placeholders put there to meet a quota, a trend that isn’t received well by viewers

But how do Annandale students feel about awards shows in general?

“I like award shows,” junior Liza Chichester said. “I might not always agree with their picks or their winners, but it’s really interesting to see how other people process the whole thing. Seeing who won or who’s nominated can be a great way to get into different, great artists and movies you might have never heard of otherwise.”

Other students like award shows for different reasons.

“I think it’s really fun to watch them with friends,” junior Connor Lilli said. “Guessing the winners as the show goes on and treating it like a game is really fun to do with a good crowd. The performances are also usually really fun.”

Some students, however, aren’t so keen on these events.

“Awards shows simply never interested me I guess,” junior Kayla Carrion Cortes said. “Why would I want to watch a three-hour-long ceremony where the whole point is to tell me what I should think. The performances can be cool, but the whole thing is a little too self-glorifying for me.”

“I think award shows are pretty boring,” sophomore JP Fitzgerald said. “Award shows try to make something super subjective into an objective answer. I just think they’re kind of scummy. They exist solely to use other people’s work to profit. I wouldn’t even mind if the shows themselves were entertaining, but instead, they are all full of people in a room accepting awards, giving boring speeches, and gutless performances. Not my thing.”

AHS Students aren’t the only people split on award shows. Records show a gradual decrease in ratings for these events, including an 11% decline in viewership of the Emmys this year. Although numbers are dropping, 6.1 million people still tuned in to the event.

Despite dropping numbers, COVID concerns, and a shortage of projects to talk about or nominate, it still seems like we are going to get an award season this year.