AMA Music Awards: Taylor Swift tops Michael Jackson; Adam Lambert, Lady Gaga go off

The American Music Awards gave talented singer Taylor Swift another massive round of fan voted awards to take home this year, as the country pop star took home honors for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist, Favorite Country Album (for Fearless), Favorite Female Pop/Rock Artist, and Favorite Country Female Artist.

This is Taylor Swift winning for Female Pop/Rock Artist:



But what was shocking was that Taylor Swift beat the otherwordly legend that is the late Michael Jackson for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist. But even with that Michael Jackson took home awards for Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist, Favorite Pop/Rock Album (for Number Ones), Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B Album.

But the news of Swift beating Jackson caused controversy on Twitter, with a large number of tweets of protest like this one:

FeeshaD I can't believe Taylor Swift beat out Lady Gaga & MJ @ the AMA's! People have gotten so lame. less than a minute ago from mobile web

But then there are a lot of repeated tweets in anticipation of the 2010 Grammy Awards, like this one:

_Julia13 just voted "TAYLOR SWIFT" on "WHO WILL MOST LIKELY WIN A GRAMMY 2010????" vote too ➔ http://bit.ly/6MER36 3 minutes ago from POLLpigeon

Regardless of the tweet, it's clear that 20-year old Taylor Swift is having a year that one could only dream about. And all Swift had to do was sing, oh, and surround herself with the right publicist. But for some, creating nutty moments at the AMA gave their publicity hacks easy work: Adam Lambert and Lady GaGa.

Adam Lambert decided he was going to let is loins get the best of him and do some sexually provacative things during his singing number that really he could have done it without. I'm not going to give those actions video airplay.

Lady GaGa's bottle breaking spell during her number was less controversial but still questionable - and the piano was on fire, too!

It's as if the show producers decided to conspire with the performers to create as many Internet-viral-producing moments as possible just to keep us talking about the AMAs long after the show is over.

That strategy is very much like what I believe was done for the halftime show at Super Bowl 38 in Houston, when Justin Timberlake took off Janet Jackson's bra. It proved the impact of the Super Bowl on American culture because it was the pop event conversation for all the rest of 2004 and just at the time when the NFL was renegotiating its television contract.

To me, that was no accident, just as the AMA events of Sunday night were no accident. Both actions were created for the media and both actions worked to generate buzz. Look for more of this approach in the future and perhaps at The Grammys.