2014 American Music Awards Winners: Taylor Swift Sparkles As One Direction Bags Most Awards
The American Music Awards on Sunday saw the stars walking the red carpet in dazzling gowns and thrilling the audience with their performances. The event saw boy band One Direction winning three awards and Australian artist Iggy Azalea winning two.
The show was all about performances from major stars who explored a lot of themes. However, the most elaborate performance of the night was the opening by Taylor Swift when she performed "Blank Space." Loaded with theatrics, the performance saw Swift come on stage with a number of men dressed in tuxedos. She then had dinner with her love interest at a table complete with chandeliers.
With this performance, she recreated the atmosphere and theme from the music video of "Blank Space." It resulted in critics and viewers alike labelling it as one of the "best" shows of the night.
Among the other standout acts was Jennifer Lopez who performed her song "Booty" along with Iggy Azalea. CNN noted that it was the "mic drop" performance of the night.
Lorde, who performed her song "Yellow Flicker Beat" which is in the "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1" soundtrack, also received rave reviews from the press and was a big favorite among the audience. Selena Gomez's performance of her single "The Heart Wants What it Wants" and Fergie's "L.A. Love" were also rated as good.
With the good came the bad. Rolling Stone said One Direction's performance of "Night Changes" was corny as they stood very still among a field which looked straight out of a farmer's backyard. Lil Wayne's performance and Magic! & Wyclef Jean also got a lot of flak from reviewers.
In spite of their lackluster performance, One Direction managed to walk away with most of the awards. Among the many awards she received, Taylor Swift was also handed the Dick Clark Award for Excellence, which was presented to her by Diana Ross.
