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The Guardian - UK

Entertainment

Maura Johnston

Taylor Swift takes top trophies at iHeartRadio Music awards 2016

Winner … Taylor Swift accepts album of the year for 1989 during the iHeartRadio Music awards. Photograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

American radio behemoth iHeart has had a rough go of it lately – it is looking to restructure its substantial debt as creditors come calling. But that didn’t stop the company, which owns more than 840 radio stations in the United States, from throwing its third annual awards ceremony on Sunday night, handing out trophies and primetime television exposure to pop’s biggest stars.

Taylor Swift was the night’s big winner, taking home four trophies including album of the year for 1989 and female artist of the year. While accepting the latter award, she talked about her decision to turn down the twang quotient on her 2014 album 1989, and how that choice came from heart-to-hearts with her closest pals. “Those decisions were made in my kitchen, with my girlfriends and the women in my life,” Swift said.

Justin Timberlake presented Swift with the best tour award for her 1989 tour, saying that she had “accomplished extraordinary things in arenas and stadiums all around our world” before reeling off her lengthy list of achievements, which included multiple entries in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Swift, while accepting the best tour award, thanked “Adam” – the birth name of her boyfriend Calvin Harris, who picked up the dance artist of the year trophy – for being “the most amazing person to come home to when the spotlight went out and the crowds were all gone.” She also thanked the many people in attendance who stopped by the 1989 tour’s stage, including best new artist Fetty Wap, triple threat winner Selena Gomez, and R&B song of the year honouree The Weeknd.

Innovators … Pharrell Williams with U2’s Bono and The Edge at the iHeartRadio Music awards

Pharrell Williams presented U2 with the innovator award for “redefining – no, actually, reinventing music and culture for decades.” U2 responded by turning the spotlight back: “I guess a band still using bass, guitar, and drums all those years after rock and roll was invented doesn’t sound so innovative,” said U2 frontman Bono, “but it turns out rock’n’roll has more to do with spirit than flesh … from where we stand, Pharrell Williams is the essence of rock’n’roll.” (Later, Bono and guitarist The Edge also noted that they were still the same band they’d been in their high school years – and that the future sounded, perhaps unsurprisingly, like “rock’n’roll.”)

The night also featured performances by some of pop’s brighter lights. Demi Lovato’s stripped-down take on her ballad Stone Cold received an assist from Brad Paisley, who showed off his formidable guitar skills alongside Lovato’s belting. (Lovato “sang her ass off, so there’s that,” said Timberlake). Fetty Wap, the big-voiced New Jersey-based MC whose full-bodied romanticism throws back to the days of Serge Gainsbourg’s Bonnie and Clyde and the Temptations, performed his boisterous track Again while surrounded by associates on bikes.

Chris Brown, strained through a medley of his recent hits, including the bleak Liquor and the sparse Wrist; he prefaced it with a quasi-apology for his sometimes-outspoken online persona while picking up the R&B artist of the year award. “As you all can see, I tend to not have a filter sometimes, and I go off on a lot of people, but the music stays the same, and the direction is positivity,” he said.

Justin Bieber threw back to his YouTube troubadour days with an unplugged performance of the slightly smarmy Love Yourself before launching into a dance-heavy take on Company. Bieber nabbed the dance song of the year award for his collaboration with Skrillex and Diplo Where Are Ü Now, and his fervent fanbase of Beliebers picked up the best fan army award, one of seven determined by online voting. Teen idols’ second acts were also ably represented by the disco-pop act DNCE, fronted by former Jonas Brother Joe, and the falsetto-heavy R&B turn taken by ex-One Direction member Zayn.

Justin Bieber at the iHeart Radio Music Awards — Justin Bieber at the iHeart Radio Music awards Photograph: Buchan/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

Pop radio has heavily rotated white hip-hop and R&B artists in recent months, and the iHeart awards showcased that trend. Vocal-fried starlet Meghan Trainor turned in a wooden performance of her R&B inspired single No, while G-Eazy, the latest white rapper to receive shine from the pop-industrial complex, offered up his blandly triumphant Me, Myself, & I. 2014 sensation Iggy Azalea meanwhile staked her claim on 2016 by closing out the show with a laboured performance of her bravado-heavy, melody-light new single Team.

While the ceremony was broadcast in the US on TBS, TNT, and truTV, Pitbull’s feisty performance of the Tequila-nodding party jam Fireball and Maroon 5’s oddly hollow take on the snarling Animals were simulcast from the NCAA March Madness Music festival, which took place this weekend in Houston. Although they didn’t perform at iHeart, March Madness also featured the hybridized hitmakers Twenty One Pilots, whose take on early-adulthood angst helped them take home the alternative rock artist and song of the year awards.