Maybe Dick Clark's Finally Getting Old

Well, well, well, once again we have just seen the annual spectacle known as the American Music Awards come and go, Dick Clark's ultimate contribution to the music industry (after all, one can only watch so many Bandstand reruns). An award that is decided by the buying public, although the same could be said of the Billboard Music Awards, the Blockbuster awards, and all of the other B-grade awards that have popped up in recent memory. Bob and Tom may be right, we may soon need a cable channel that shows nothing but awards shows in order to catch up. But, I digress, on with the show...

First, the co-hosts for the evening: I dare say that when I heard they would be Sean "P. Diddy but I shall still call him Puffay" Combs and Jenny McCarthy, my first reaction was, "You mean Richard Hatch wasn't available? How about Kato Kaelin?" I was very afraid that this was going to be the "your 15 minutes of fame are up" club, but they turned in a decent job. I did kinda wonder about Puffay's apparent quest to wear every major sports team's uniform in one night (rumor has it he was told that if the show ran long, he didn't have to wear the Twins or Expos... those two could be "contracted".) And we could have done without him thanking God for getting acquitted for the whole nightclub-shooting thing. As for Jenny, she was a little too perky for my taste. Ya know, maybe she should've gone for the Regis co-host deal, at least then she'd have steady employment right now.

Early on, we were treated by an appearance by Backstreet Boy-turned-criminal Nick Carter (no, I'm not gloating over this one). Although he kept his ad-lib remarks to a minimum, his opening line should have been "I'm happy to be here, because I'm glad to not be in a Florida jail cell taking it in the rear from some big dude named Bubba... yet." Speaking of criminal behavior, how old was Master P when he "created" Lil' Romeo? 15? 13? Those two aren't exactly an advertisement for lowering teen pregnancy rates.

Could Lifehouse have possibly squirmed any more when they had to introduce Britney? "We had one of the biggest hits of the year, and THIS is what we get for it?" Oh, and we were once again reminded that Ms. Spears won Best New Artist in 2000, which still stands as the only major award she has ever won (zero MTV awards, zero Grammys, zero AMAs since then, and no way in hell will she ever get an Oscar).

Meanwhile, there were the hose-jobs. First of all, 'N Sync should NEVER win an award over the Dave Matthews Band or U2. And Limp Bizkit over Staind for best alternative band? And I'm confused... without Fred there, I couldn't tell it was actually Limp Bizkit. Are you sure Linkin Park didn't win the award? After all, they're both THE SAME BAND!!!

Speaking of look-alikes, I didn't even recognize Alicia Keys the first time she went up to present. Maybe I'm just used to the corn-rows, but I thought Dick Clark had brought back Donna Summer to present an award cuz she was on American Bandstand so many times. And if you put up a picture of Lenny Kravitz side-by-side with a picture of Macy Gray, would you be able to tell the difference?

Kid Rock actually did something entertaining, and it was the portion of his performance that he wasn't in. It started with a mannequin with a guitar in an easy chair while a tape machine played him doing his new song. After a minute of this, then it went back to the usual annoying Kid Rock performance.

And we were treated to something I really didn't need to see at the top of the show... DICK CLARK IN A DRESS!!!

The thing that got the most attention this year, of course, had nothing to do with the actual show and more with the dicey relationship between the Clarkies and the Grammys. The Grammys supposedly threatened to boot Michael Jackson off their broadcast if he performed on the AMAs. Dick Clark responded with a lawsuit, and the Grammys turned the tables on Mr. Bandstand by getting CBS to put a repeat of the Michael Jackson anniversary concert up against the AMAs broadcast (if you don't think there was a connection, you're nuts). So, Jacko gets some sort of pointless Artist of the Century award for his trouble, and all that does is take away from the Award of Merit Garth Brooks got. While I'm not much of a fan of country music, you gotta admit Garth is one hell of an entertainer and he loves what he does. However, may I please make one suggestion to him: enough of the "I'm going to retire" BS every time you put out an album.

I just wonder if Dick Clark is finally losing touch with the current and hot in music and TV. Although the hosts could qualify for the aforementioned "your 15 minutes of fame are up" club, there were several others in the show that had that status too. Most notably, Christina Applegate introducing Cher, I mean that's the ultimate "you are so over" combination. Luther Vandross winning best R&B male? Has he even had a hit song since the 80s? And CARROT TOP as a presenter? Now maybe it might be because of the whole "you perform on the AMAs, you can't be on the Grammys" thing, but there certainly seemed to be a lack of A-list people as the night wore on. Something for Dick to work on for next year, although as that will be the 30th anniversary AMAs, it will probably be nothing short of a retro-fest. Retro is not a bad thing, bad retro is, especially bad retro of just a couple years ago. I think the Grammys should drop its whole policy, especially because when we finally get to the Grammys a month and a half from now, is anyone going to remember what happened this week at the AMAs? I think not.