Pop Culture dictionary

American Music Awards

AMAs [ uh-mer-i-kuhn myoo-zik uh-wawrdz ]

What are the American Music Awards?

The American Music Awards (commonly abbreviated as the AMAs) is an annual US-based awards ceremony honoring musicians.

The awards presented at the ceremony are also called American Music Awards. 

The American Music Awards are known for determining winners through public voting by fans (in contrast to other industry awards, such as the Grammy Awards, in which votes are cast by organization members).

Winners are honored in many different genres and categories. Prominent awards include Artist of the Year, New Artist of the Year, Tour of the Year, and Collaboration of the Year. The ceremony often features musical performances by some of the nominated artists and others.

Related words

CMA Awards, MTV Video Music Awards

Where does American Music Awards come from?

The American Music Awards were founded by TV personality Dick Clark, known for hosting “American Bandstand,” a TV show program showcasing musical artists and performances. In 1973, the Grammys, often seen as the premier award show in the music industry, switched networks, moving its broadcast from ABC to CBS. In response, ABC hired Clark to create a rival music awards show, which became known as the American Music Awards. Over the years, the focus of the event has shifted toward musical performances by prominent artists.

Examples of American Music Awards

We will be at the American Music awards this weeks Smiling ✌🏼 gonna be playing you a song ✌🏼 xx
@Ashton5SOS, November 17, 2015
wait i know i'm late on this but both the selena and bts performances at the amas were really next level. i really really enjoyed watching them back
@charli_xcx, November 23, 2017
Shawn Mendes is quite the showstopper. The pop star, 22, returned to the stage during the 2020 American Music Awards on Sunday night to perform "Wonder," the lead single from his upcoming album of the same name.
Darlene Aderoju and Brianne Tracy, People, November 22, 2020
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Who uses American Music Awards?

Did you know … ?

  • The band Alabama won 23 American Music Awards, more than any other band or group.
  • Taylor Swift won Artist of the Year four times between 2009 and 2019, also winning Artist of the Decade in 2019.

What are other words used in discussion of the American Music Awards?

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Note

This is not meant to be a formal definition of American Music Awards like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of American Music Awards that will help our users expand their word mastery.