Best, worst moments from the Billboard Music Awards
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Taylor Swift with her awards for: Top Artist, Billboard Chart Achievement Award, Top Female Artist, Top Hot 100 Artist, Top Digital Songs Artist, Top Streaming Song (Video) for "Shake it Off" and Top Billboard 200 Album for "1989." Photo: Reuters
“Mad Men”? Whatever. On Sunday night, the 2015 Billboard Awards made for priority viewing for pop music fans.
The ceremony in Las Vegas (hosted by Chrissy Teigen and Ludacris) included performances from Iggy Azalea and Britney Spears, Kanye West, Fall Out Boy, Mariah Carey and many more.
But not all the stars delivered on their promise.
Here’s our roundup of best and worst performances:
Best
Taylor Swift
The star-studded video to “Bad Blood” was impressive enough. But it deflected attention from the fact that the Kendrick Lamar remix cranks up the bombast levels on what is otherwise a weak spot from the “1989” album. Clearly, Taylor’s commitment to change is ongoing.
Nick Jonas
The sexification of Nick Jonas continues and this time, he donned his best rock star threads to deliver a slick, electro version of his smash “Jealous.” It was part Daft Punk, part the Killers, but not much Jonas Brothers — and that’s just the ratio he wants.
Simple Minds
Thirty years on, and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” can still get a room singing along like few other ‘80s pop songs.
Hozier
The Irishman’s signature track “Take Me to Church” is almost two years old and yet, it hasn’t lost an ounce of its drama and beauty. One of those rare songs that seems overkill-proof.
Tidal Commercial
It might not bring paying customers to Jay Z’s music streaming service in droves, but props to whoever picked out Coldcut’s “Seven Minutes of Madness” remix of Eric B & Rakim’s “Paid in Full” to soundtrack Tidal’s commercial. A rarely heard religious text in the history of hip-hop remixes.
Worst
Van Halen
The one-time glam-rockers looked like a bunch of dudes touring the Midwestern sports bar circuit, singer David Lee Roth was playing the full creepy uncle routine, and “Panama” sounded like a croaky, wheezy rock ‘n’ roll relic. The minor victory is that they were, at least, able to stop bitching at each other just long enough to get through the performance.
Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth
One of 2015’s great injustices is that Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars did not set a new record for the longest-running No. 1 single of all time with “Uptown Funk.” The salt in the wound is that Khalifa & Co. replaced it with the sappy nonsense that is “See You Again.”
Iggy Azalea and Britney Spears
There is no kind of choreography, no combination of day-glo colors, and no amount of roller-skating backup dancers that can cover up the fact that “Pretty Girls” is a really terrible song.
Mariah Carey
Oh, Mariah. Dear, dear Mariah. Our one and only Mariah. What happened to you?
Kanye West
Yeezy delivered his usual fire (this time, literally) for fierce versions of “All Day/Black Skinhead,” but ABC’s censors dipped the sound so that most of it was inaudible, thus completely ruining the segment. They obviously didn’t ask Kanye nicely enough to adhere to FCC regulations on profanity.
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