The American Music Awards – like the Grammys, but more likely to make you lose total faith in humanity – always surprise.

And last night they surprised. The two biggest winners at last night’s AMAs were Taylor Swift (who wasn’t there) and Michael Jackson (who hasn’t released an album of new material since 2001) (and was nominated for a Greatest Hits album that’s over six years old) (and who is quite conclusively dead).

That wasn’t the surprise, though. No, the big surprise was that Black Eyed Peas won the prize for Best Pop Group. Honestly, what’s wrong with these people? Don’t they have ears?

Oh good. It’s the American Music Awards. You know what this means, don’t you? It means that awards season is here. Soon we’ll be up to our necks in 150 different types of award shows, all doling out meaningless baubles to films that nobody watched, music that nobody paid for and TV shows that people only put on because they’re afraid of silence. Joy.

And if the American Music Awards are any indication, the theme of this year’s award season is going to be Let’s Give Loads Of Stuff To Michael Jackson. Last night at the AMAs, Michael Jackson won Best Soul Artist, Best Pop Male, Best Pop Album and Best Soul Album, even though he didn’t release anything within the allotted time period for nominations. Or within any of the last eight allotted time periods for nominations, in fact. People reports:

“It’s not just about the winnings, the awards,” his brother Jermaine said in an acceptance speech. “It’s mainly the message. The message Michael had will live on forever. He saw good in everyone. … Start with love and let’s love each other.” Sister Janet Jackson got a standing ovation when she opened the show with a choreographed-heavy medley of her hits.

Jermaine Jackson is right – the continued love for Michael Jackson isn’t about winning the awards. It’s about being nominated for the awards, because that way Jermaine Jackson gets to spend his evenings somewhere warm where there’s free food. It’s going to be a cold winter, and he’ll need to stock up before people start forgetting about his brother.

It’s no surprise that Michael Jackson won so many American Music Awards – he was nominated for several of them, after all – but we’re praying that this doesn’t start a trend. Sure, a handful of AMAs are one thing, but nobody wants the Oscars to follow suit and award Moonwalker the Best Picture trophy, do they? Nobody wants the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe to go to Michael Jackson for his role in The Wiz, do they? Nobody wants Michael Jackson to win a retroactive British Comedy Award for that time he hilariously dangled his baby from a balcony, do they? What? They do? Weird.

But just because Michael Jackson won so many prizes, it doesn’t mean that the American Music Awards only honour washed-up shells of their former selves out of nothing more than a mixture of guilt and nostalgia, even though the acts are thoroughly undeserving of them, does it? Just take a look at who won the AMA Artist Of The Year award last night.

It was Whitney Houston. OK, you may have a point.

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Honestly, Michael Jackson should have popped his clogs a few years ago – it’s done wonders for his career.

Take The AMAs. The 2009 American Music Award nominations have just been announced and Michael Jackson is up for five awards, including Best Artist (even though he’s dead and hasn’t released any new albums for eight years) and Best Album (for a Greatest Hits collection that came out six full years ago).

Why has Michael Jackson been nominated so many times? Simple – it’s because he’s dead and dead people can’t make acceptance speeches. Basically it’s all a big ploy to ruin Kanye West’s fun.

This is just a hunch, but we’re expecting the big winner at the 2010 Brit Awards to be Stephen Gately’s nine-year-old cover version of Bright Eyes from Watership Down. Because if the just-announced American Music Award nominations are anything to go by, handing out awards to dead singers regardless of when they last actually recorded anything seems to be the hot new thing.

Michael Jackson, the dead popstar whose last underwhelming album was released in 2001, has been nominated for five awards – Best Artist, Best Male Artist, Best Album, Best R&B Male Artist and Best R&B Album. The album in question, by the way, is Number Ones. From 2003. Even when you factor grief into the decision to nominate him so many times, it still doesn’t make a great deal of sense.

Especially because Michael Jackson has released new music this year, which would have been legitimately eligible for nomination. It’s just a shame that the American Music Awards organisers failed to initiate new categories entitled Best Halfhearted And Truncated Rip-Off Of A Song From Grand Theft Auto and Best Cover Version Of An 18-Year-Old Puerto Rican Song That Nobody Had Ever Heard Of Until Yesterday, because Michael Jackson would have bloody well walked those.

Somewhat inevitably, news of all these Michael Jackson nominations have been met with bemusement from all corners, not least the LA Times:

Regardless of retail impact, a 2009 award show should be restricted to albums actually recorded within its recent history. At last check, Jackson has already won plenty of American Music Award trophies for the songs on “Number Ones,” including an artist of the century accolade in 2002. A segment or two honoring Jackson would have been a better way to recognise the King of Pop’s contributions to music.

Actually, you know what? Screw it. Based on unit sales and radio play, Michael Jackson probably does deserve all of these nominations. And let’s not forget the most important thing here – if Michael Jackson doesn’t get nominated then he can’t win, and if he doesn’t win then Jermaine Jackson can’t make an acceptance speech by proxy where he insinuates that he had a greater hand in the making of his brother’s hit records than he actually did. Won’t anyone think of Jermaine here? Jesus.

And anyway, surely the American Music Award voters are smart enough to realise that the basis for Michael Jackson’s nominations are flawed, and that maybe acts who have made legitimately eligible albums of new material would be more deserving of the awards. What’s that? The American Music Awards are voted for by the public?

Oh bugger.

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We’re talking, of course, about Alvin And The Chipmunks. In a career spanning five decades, Alvin And The Chipmunks have seen it all – the highs represented by any of their six Grammy wins, the lows by that bit in their movie where one of them actually eats a turd – but now their comeback has been well and truly sealed with an American Music Award for Best Soundtrack.

You have to hand it to the American Music Awards, really – it gave an award to a fictional novelty group made of poo-chomping rodents and still came out looking more credible than the MTV VMAs. But that’s probably what you get when you don’t give Britney Spears the Album Of The Year award just because she happens to have some hair and isn’t dribbling.

If an artist wants proof that their achievements have been appreciated by their peers and paymasters, recognition by the American Music Awards is the thing to aim for. Serious, well-respected and industry-minded, the AMAs are just like The Brits, only they’re American so they don’t feel guilt-obliged to keep nominating Lemar for stuff.

The difference between the AMAs and the MTV VMAs are vast. Firstly, the AMAs don’t rely on the cheap, tawdry sensationalist gimmicks of the MTV VMAs. Secondly, the AMAs think that the soundtrack to Alvin And The Chipmunks was really bloody cool.

That’s right – the Alvin And The Chipmunks movie soundtrack, featuring stirring anthems like Funkytown, Get Munk’d and, well, this – is officially better than any other soundtrack released in the last year. And rightly so – our sincere congratulations go out to Alvin and The Chipmunks. This victory is well deserved, especially so soon after the career low that was Little Alvin And The Mini-Munks, the Heaven’s Gate of low-budget rodent puppetry movies.

However, Alvin And The Chipmunks weren’t the only winners at the AMAs last night – infant Michael Jackson impersonator Chris Brown managed to win AMAs for artist of the year, male pop/rock artist and male soul/R&B artist, while Linkin Park, Enrique Iglesias and Annie Lennox also inexplicably won awards.

Oh, and Kanye West was unfortunately unable to continue his amazing streak of not winning awards and then throwing a tantrum about it because he actually won an AMA for male rap/hip-hop artist. So it’s a testament to Kanye’s ingenuity that he ended up throwing a tantrum because Lil’ Wayne didn’t win it instead. People reports:

“I want to give this award to Wayne,” he said. “If it was last year it would have been my award.”  It was West’s second trophy of the night, following his win for rap/hip-hop album, for Graduation. “It’s our responsibility as musicians to push music to the point it was in the ’60s and ’70s,” he said. “I want to be Elvis.”

But, for all this confusing talk about pushing music to the point where everything sounds like Freddie And The Dreamers, we shouldn’t forget that last night’s AMAs really belonged to Alvin And The Chipmunks. Hopefully this win will be the start of something huge for the group. And by that we mean a heartbreaking cover version of One Sweet Day featuring The Crazy Frog. Make it happen, chipmunks.

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