After a three-year pause, the American Music Awards returned on Memorial Day, May 26, 2025, marking the show’s 51st edition. Aside from the brief appearance in 2024 for the 50th anniversary, it was put on hold due to their expired broadcasting rights. Held at the BleauLive Theatre at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, the ceremony was hosted by Latin American singer Jennifer Lopez. Unfortunately, with all the excitement and suspense that was built up leading to the event, some incidents caused it to fall short of creating expectations.
Despite the AMAs being a fan-voted awards show that works to celebrate the most popular music in the United States, this year it seemed more like a hangout. Typically, at an award show, viewers might see A-listers, or the highest-ranked and most influential people, not just influencers.
Many of the major celebrities, like Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, and Beyoncé, were not in attendance, although they had a significant number of nominations. In addition, a promised live performance by Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, but in-person audience members realized it wasn’t really live. This speculation of a pre-recorded tape brought controversy to the show, creating a disconnect.
Jennifer Lopez kicked off the show with a 23-song medley of some of the trending songs of this year. Many fans were upset that this particular award ceremony left out most of the awards. Out of 37 categories that fans voted on, only eight were revealed during the event. Popular genres like Album of the Year and Song of the Year were skipped, not giving winning artists the recognition they deserved.
Those who did get awards like The Weeknd, Gracie Abrams, and Eminem accepted them via pre-recorded videos, stripping the show away from the excitement of seeing artists live. Fans on the social media platform, TikTok, made jokes that the AMAs were so unimportant that The Weeknd did not even bother cleaning his camera, causing his acceptance video to be blurry and very low quality.
Social media quickly heightened the situation and highlighted details that viewers likely missed. Swifties noticed that when announcing nominations for Artist of the Year, the crowd went silent when her name was called. In-person viewers claimed that the room was full of loud cheers, while those watching on TV heard pure silence. “I did not realize that the cheers were muted until I saw other fans on TikTok talking about it. Honestly, it makes no sense why the AMAs would do something like that,” junior Anoosh Sarkisian said.
For an award show that prides itself on honoring fans and their voices, the 2025 AMAs were out of touch. The meaningful celebration was noticeably absent, and the show’s direction was questionable. With the continuous growth of award shows like The Grammys or The Billboard Music Awards, the AMAs might fall back into irrelevance if they don’t keep up.
