Reviewed by: Becky Collins
Venue: MGM GRAND IN LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Date: 12.8.2004 8 p.m. (EST) Fox 5

2004 BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS

    Remember the good ol' 80's when music awards were filled with awesome performances and music from artists that were incredible in every way?  I remember begging my parents to let me stay up till practically midnight, even though it was a school night just to finish the show. I can still remember Guns N' Roses getting up to receive their award piss ass drunk.  Those were the days of music. I hate to say this, but that's not how the award shows are now.

    I watched the 2004 Billboard music awards from start to finish without even scanning the channels during commercials and to be quite honest with you, after this review, I will have forgotten all but 4 moments of the show!  The show opened with Usher performing "Bad Girl" off of his latest release Confessions.  This is a great song, but not to perform, especially as an opener to an award show.  It's not a song to get the audience moving.  I don't know about you, but when I think of Usher, I think of dance moves.  I was rather disappointed with his performance.  There was hardly any dancing and when he did dance, it was Michael Jackson written all over it.  I mean Michael Jackson from the Thriller days.  Don't get me wrong, Usher can move, but it wasn't the Usher I'm used to on that stage. 

    The show was hosted by Ryan Seacrest.  Let's just be nice and say, Ryan should just stick with American Idol.  I understand there is a script that you read, but he's completely scripted.  No adlibs, no expressions, just Ryan Seacrest reading the teleprompter. 

    Tonight was the first appearance from Britney Spears since her marriage.  She was the first presenter and received the Billboard Music Award for Dance Singles for the year. She presented Kanye West with Billboard Music Award for New R&B/Hip Hop Artist of the year, New Male Artist of the year, and R&B/Hip Hop Producer of the year.

    Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie introduced Green Day who is nominated for 7 Grammy's and to be quite honest, seeing their performance of their new hit, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" from their latest release, American Idiot, I honestly don't understand why.  To say I was not thrilled with their performance is an understatement.

    I had mentioned that there were 4 highlights to this show and one of them was when Tara Reid introduced MOTLEY CRUE!  Do those guys ever age?  I know Vince has been up and down in several different ways, but I swore that was the Vince Neil that I used to have hanging on my bedroom walls back in 1983.  Tommy Lee!  The man has not changed one bit.  They all looked just about the same as they did 20 some years ago. When you think about all the drugs and booze they drank, let's just say...I'm pretty impressed!  One of the funny moments of the night, was when Vince was showing his age by not being able to read the teleprompter without his glasses and asked Tara Reid for help, who also was unable to succeed in reading.  Tommy Lee to the rescue.  Nikki Sixx with sunglasses read his piece and then Mick Mars came to the mic with "Excuse me while I whip this out" to announce the Billboard digital artist of the year award which went to Maroon 5.

    Li'l Jon was a winner earlier in the program for Billboards independent artist of the year and presented Ashlee Simpson with Billboards new female artist of the year.  She was rather cute with her acceptance speech and seemed absolutely overjoyed with her win.

    Three Days Grace introduced Nick Lachey and Gloria Estefan who presented Alicia Keys with Billboards 2004 female artist of the year award.  Before Alicia accepted her award, she performed "Karma" from her sophomore album, The Diary of Alicia Keys.  Alicia is a very talented artist, however, what happened to the incredible performances that award shows used to have?  No doubt in my mind, Alicia has the voice of an angel, but her performance is nothing to write home about.  No stage show, no dancing, just her and a microphone with a few background singers.  I think she may have had dancers, but apparently they were nothing to talk about, because I can't even remember if they were definitely there.

    Earth, Wind & Fire presented the artist achievement award to Destiny's Child.  Duran Duran introduced Gwen Stefani who performed "What You Waiting For" with  "Rich Girl" in the middle to end with "What You Waiting For" off her debut solo album, Love, Angel, Music, Baby.  This is the second highlight of the show.  First of all, she had a stage setting.  I give her extra points for being able to stand in those heels let alone perform in them.  Everything from her stage presence, her voice to her attire was amazing.  The performance reminded me of how the performances used to be on award shows.  Outstanding!  The "make" or "break" me performances.  Gwen was absolutely phenomenal.  The two songs flowed very well together and it completely went with her interpretation of the songs with the stage setting. 

    Fantasia from American Idol took home Billboards biggest selling pop singer and biggest selling R&B/Hip Hop singer of the year awards.  She then introduced Nelly.  Nelly performed "N Dey Say" from his latest release Suit.  I've always enjoyed Nelly.  He is one rap artist from this decade that I have respect for.  Just about all his music isn't violent and he's not afraid to rap in ballads or to perform with pop artists, such as N'Sync and Justin Timberlake.  He even joins Tim McGraw with the song, "Over and Over" from his latest release.  That's what I call a true artist.  One that doesn't get stuck in a genre and is willing to take some risks no matter how out there it is.  I mean, c'mon would you ever think there would be a day that a Country artist joins a Rap artist?  I sure didn't.  It works and that's all that matters.  Nelly's performance was amazing.  With the war and all this "hate" going around, "N Dey Say" was a rather touching song to perform on the award show and Nelly definitely pulled it off to make that the third highlight of the show. 

    Billboards new country artist of the year and female country artist of the year went to Gretchen Wilson who was up against some tough competition with Shania Twain, Martina McBride, and Sara Evans. 

    Alter Bridge introduced Evanescence who I have to admit, I was not impressed with.  Amy has an incredible voice, no doubt about that, but the performance lacked a lot.  She didn't seem quite into it and possibly it was technical difficulties, I don't know, but it was definitely lacking "oomph"!

    Outkast took home 5 Billboard awards including group artist of the year.  Quincy Jones presented Stevie Wonder with the Century Award.  Mary J. Blige, Destiny's Child and Diana Ross performed individually 3 songs in tribute to Stevie Wonder.  I was rather impressed with each of their performances.  I must admit, I gave extra points to Diana Ross for the fact of her age and she's a Diva!  Mary J and Destiny's Child have never been a let down with any performance and tonight proved that as well.  I wouldn't call it outstanding, but it definitely was not bad.  Will I talk about it next week...probably not. 

    Stevie Wonder hit the stage and went directly into song with "Higher Ground" instead of giving his thank you speech.  After about 2 or 3 verses, he said "Sorry, I got to do this." He continued to sing and stopped again to say, "Can I do it?" Apparently he got the permission and finished the song which was the final highlight!

    The last award of the evening was for Billboards artist of the year.  Nominees were Alicia Keys, Maroon 5, Usher and Outkast.  Usher took home this award along with 10 very deserved others for the night.  Li'l Jon jumped up on stage right after Usher, for a reason that is beyond me along with JD who Usher thanked in his speech.  I found his speech to be very educated and short and sweet.  His closing line, "2004 was beautiful for me. 2005 there's more in store" remained in my head for some odd reason.  The show ran 15 minutes over the 10:00 p.m. scheduled time. 

    I haven't watched award shows in quite some time and now I know exactly why, the performances lack majorly.  I was impressed to see how the speeches were short, but it didn't seem like they covered much music considering it was a music award show.  I think they need to pull out those old award shows and take a look at how it was and rearrange their show plan for 2005.  Award shows are supposed to get better and leave you with things to remember decades later and this show did not do that, except for maybe the whole reunion of Motley Crue!