Watercooler: The 2013 Billboard Music Awards- The Good, Bad, and Ugly

A topic that many of you will be discussing while huddled around the water cooler in the office today is the 2013 Billboard Music Awards. Last night, social media was abuzz surrounding a popular award show that once again missed the mark when it comes to being entertaining.

After having some time to gather my thoughts about the show, I must say this—while I appreciate that Billboard is the music bible as it relates to music and digital audio sales, it truly has no clue when it comes to recognizing true artists and talent.

But before I go in, let’s discuss what was GOOD about the 2013 Billboard Music Awards:

The Good:

The 2013 Billboard Music Awards recognized two legends who have been in the game for a long time, and rightfully so. Both Prince and Madonna were given awards for their successes in music and for us 80’s pop culture historians, we are thankful. Today’s music is mostly fluff and circumstance, but it’s still good to know that artists with longevity get their praise due.

Bruno Mars had one of the best performances of the night when he got down to his latest single Treasure. I love when artists perform like and with soul. He hit it out the park and started the show off well. The rest was all downhill from there.

Now onto the negative (since there was plenty of it).

The Bad:

Most of the evening’s performances were subpar at best. Chris Brown, who performed his recent hit Fine China, sang live, but should’ve opted for microphone miming. He often times was off key and sounded just plain horrible. This is someone who we know can sing live, because we’ve heard him do so well before. Perhaps his fast lifestyle and penchant for cigarettes and other “inhalants” is causing his voice to not be as good as it was before. In any event, Chris, please stop smoking!

Selena Gomez performed her latest single, Come and Get It, and it was a snoozefest. She has no stage presence whatsoever and seemed to be counting her steps while performing. I expected more of her to say the least.

The host of the night, Tracy Morgan, also was a little unfunny. I wasn’t feeling him at all.

The Ugly:

Miguel, who performed his hit Adorn, decided once again to be a little “extra” and stage-dived into a crowd of people, actually landing on some girl’s face and neck (actually, upon closer inspection, it looks like two women were hit). It looked quite painful and unfortunate. This is not the first time Miguel has encountered some trouble while performing. Earlier this year, footage was released of him falling off the stage while singing, you guessed it, Adorn. Seems like he really gets into the song. Miguel, you are much to good of an artist—do better!

Also, the powers that be at Billboard decided to put Psy’s Gangham Style up in two rap categories. Psy is hardly a rap artist, so this disturbed me a bit. Billboard needs to put artists in their proper categories.

And the awkward moment when Justin Bieber won the “Viewers Choice” award of the night and got pelted with boos was—yeah. That was pretty ugly; add to it that he looked like he was on the verge of a meltdown made it uncomfortable to watch.

That’s pretty much all she wrote for the 2013 Billboard Awards. Was it worth the watch? I guess. But next year, I would like to see real artists perform LIVE (without injuring someone).

What did you think about this year’s Billboard Awards? What were some of your highs and lows?

For a list of the winners, visit the Billboard Music Awards 2013 website.

 Photo credit: Getty Images