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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After all, we thought the Black Eyed Peas were contractually obliged to always win all of the American Music Awards, lest America wants to feel their wrath. But clearly that isn't the case – the 2007 American Music Awards took place yesterday with American Idol contestants Chris Daughtry and Carrie Underwood dominating the prizes. Why? Because it was the first time that the American public had been allowed to choose the winners, that's why – so we suppose we should just count our blessings that the Chocolate Rain bloke and the sodding Hamburglar didn't win everything instead.

In Britain we have The Brits – a chance to celebrate the best in British music while laughing at how funny Joss Stone's voice sounds these days – but in America they have the Grammys. And the People's Choice Awards. And the American Music Awards. And the MTV VMAs. And the Billboard Music Awards. And the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony. But for the purposes of the next couple of minutes, let's all pretend really hard that the American Music Awards are the important ones.

That's because – barring the award ceremony we just had in our head just now where we were the only nominees and we still didn't manage to win anything – the American Music Awards took place most recently. And this wasn't any old American Music Awards show, because this year marked the very first time that the American public got to pick the winners. And, on the basis that the public are generally stupid and wrong about everything, that meant that this year's American Music Awards would be the stupidest and wrongest ever – an idea reinforced by having Jimmy Kimmel as the host.

And the result of this changing in voting procedure meant that the American Music Awards winners this year couldn't have been further removed from the winners of last year. At the 2006 American Music Awards, for example, the big winners were the Black Eyed Peas and Kelly Clarkson from American Idol. This year, however, the bulk of the American Music Awards went to Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas and Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry from American Idol. Completely different.

Carrie Underwood, the woman who – let's not forget – is primarily famous for being a sexy vegetarian, walked off with the Best Country Female Artist, Best Country Album and T-Mobile Text-In Awards, while Chris Daughtry's band Daughtry won Best Rock Album, Best Breakthrough Artist and Best Adult Contemporary, even though by and large they sound useless.

Other winners at last night's American Music Awards went to Justin Timberlake, Akon, Rihannah, Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez and, if you ever needed proof of the American Music Awards' complete lack of credibility, Nickelback. And if any of this news has affected your day in the slightest, you probably only have yourself to blame.