Among the Grammies and the ARIA Awards, the iHeartRadio Music Awards holds a special place in music awards season. It has all the glitz and glamour of the others, but with an added bonus of feel-good awards where no one can really lose. This year, Taylor Swift dominated in the awards section and managed to melt our hearts along the way.
Swift lost to Adele’s “Hello” for the ‘Best Song’ award, but any signs of weakness were quickly squashed when she took out the awards for ‘Female Artist of the Year,’ ‘Album of the Year,’ (1989) ‘Best Tour,’ (1989) and ‘Most Meme-able Moment’ (Blank Space music video, “Crazy Girl” with running mascara). In her thank you speech for the ‘Best Tour’ award, Swift made all present swoon when she thanked boyfriend Calvin Harris, who picked up the award for ‘Dance Artist of the Year,‘ by his real name.
“I had the most amazing person to come home to when the spotlight went out and the crowds were all gone, so I want to thank my boyfriend Adam,”
Surprisingly, Swift wasn’t the only artist to go home with an award. Justin Bieber was awarded ‘Male Artist of the Year,’ Drake took home the award for ‘Hip Hop Song of the Year’ with “Hotline Bling,” the Foo Fighters took out ‘Rock Artist of the Year’ and Maroon 5 were awarded ‘Best Duo/Group of the Year.’
On top of these, we had the feel-good awards to round the evening off nicely. One, the ‘Most Meme-able Moment’ we know was taken by Taylor Swift for her incredibly convincing act as a crazy girlfriend in her “Blank Space” music video. Next, we had the ‘Triple Threat’ award for the very talented artist who can do three things very well. This year the award went to Selena Gomez for the three talents of singing, dancing and acting. Finally, the awards took the chance to give back to the fans, naming the ‘Best Fan Army,’ which this year went to the ‘Beliebers’.
Along with the awards were several performances, including by Maroon 5, Chris Brown, Meghan Trainor and Justin Bieber.
All in all, the iHeartRadio Music Awards embodied all the best things about the music industry – rewarding genuine talent, having fun, and ‘Tay Tay’ Taylor Swift.