The winners have just recently been announced for the Billboard Music Awards. There are numerous reasons to defend the idea of award shows, and adversely, reasons to combat them. On the one hand, it highlights top media and gives it recognition it deserves for its artistry. On the other hand, it is a heavily fixed organization which sleights numerous pieces of art from getting an appropriate spotlight. The Billboard Music Awards is a slightly different set up, as its intention is to recognize the most popular music.
With this in mind, it can be argued certain artists simply don’t need any more awards, not because they do not deserve them, but because it is not fair to the world of music as a whole. It becomes redundant and unsurprising. Though the Billboard Music Awards highlight the mainstream’s top artists, categories such as “Top Male Artist” for instance, which are more broad, leave room to include some more creative choices. Artists like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber are not only expected to be nominated, but they are expected to win as well.
Here are three artists who could be argued to be able to go happily through the rest of the careers if they did not receive another medal or trophy.
Adele
It is impossible to ignore the unmatched talent of Adele’s vocal ability. As such an unstoppable force, almost having a cult following of fans, it’s easy to look at categories like “Top Female Artist” and have no surprise when Adele’s name is called. As stated previously, it is not that these awards are not deserved. But, it is difficult for the awards industry to keep viewers’ interests piqued when all of the results are so easily predicted, even by casual listeners of even a few of the artists nominated. Adele’s 2015 album 25 is an inarguable, ground-breaking sensation, but if one takes the stance of viewership and surprise, Adele has won so many awards it makes shows not worth watching.
One Direction
One Direction has released one album a year since 2011, keeping a constant marker of conversation. The fact they are going on tour for their most recent release Made in the A.M. helps their publicity. However, awards shows are giving the illusion, that if they keep producing music, they will keep getting recognized almost like a formality. There are numerous other duos and groups in the popular music industry who could have been nominated or even given the award over them. One Direction is simply the most impacting group outfit for pop music in the recent history, so the notion of them constantly getting nominated just because they are maintaining a media presence doesn’t seem ideal for the integrity of award shows.
The Weeknd
The Weeknd dominated the Billboard Music Awards, getting nominated 18 times and winning 8 trophies total. The first issue we face with The Weeknd is not only is it clear he was nominated too many times, but he was even nominated multiple times for the same category; it gives off the impression the board who wrote the finalist list didn’t even take care to look at all the music on their roster. The category for “Top R&B Song” had five nominations – three of which were from The Weeknd. If this isn’t an unfair advantage, it is hard to tell what is. It’s impossible to ignore the rising popularity of R&B, just as an example, and there were surely other songs worthy to be nominated. If the nominations were not satisfactory, his armful of trophies should be more than enough.
See the full list of winners here.
