Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson Are Big Winners at the 2009 American Music Awards

November 23rd, 2009 6:33 AM by uv
Filed under Music | Viewed 241 times.

Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson (glamourvanity.com / mtv.com)

American Music Awards 2009 is yet another big night for two stars, Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift.

Jackson made history by posthumously winning four American Music Awards on Sunday night, but the country princess Taylor Swift overshadowed the late King of Pop by winning five awards including artist of the year.

Jackson had been expected to enjoy a clean sweep, but the 19-year-old Swift took the show’s top award, giving Jackson his only loss of the night, and giving her five trophies in all.

She accepted her awards live via satellite from backstage at London’s Wembley Arena, where she will perform a concert on Monday. In her acceptance speech, Swift said, “Music has never been ultimately about competition. To even be mentioned in a category with Michael Jackson, who we will miss and love forever, is an unimaginable honor.”

Swift was also named favorite female pop/rock and country artist and favorite adult-contemporary artist. Her 2008 album, Fearless, won favorite country album. While Jackson was named favorite male artist in the pop/rock and soul/R&B categories. His 2003 hits collection, Number Ones, was named favorite album in both those categories.

Jackson’s trophies were accepted by his brother Jermaine, who paid tribute to his late brother by wearing glittery white glove. He thanked “Allah for blessing my entire family” and named each of his brothers and sisters. Jermaine said, the message of Michael is more important than any award. “The message that Michael had will live on forever,” he said. “He saw good in everyone and he wanted everyone to do good. He always started with love.”

The Black Eyed Peas, voted favorite pop/rock band, energized the crowd when they performed two of the year’s most popular hits: I Got A Feeling and Boom Boom Pow. Jay-Z won favorite male artist and favorite album in the rap/hip-hop categories. Janet Jackson opened the show with a medley of some of the biggest hits from her long career — all tracks that appear on her new greatest-hits collection, also called Number Ones.

Among the show’s other winners were Green Day, Beyonce and Gloriana, who took home the Breakthrough Artist award over the heavily favored Lady Gaga.