The 2017 American Music Awards will take place on Sunday, Nov. 19 on ABC. The AMAs are one of the biggest music award shows of the year and are streamed by viewers in over 160 countries around the world. This year, however, a lot of fans are left upset: announced on Oct. 12, the nominations are vastly male-dominated. In fact, the big categories, such as Artist of the Year, Video of the Year, and Tour of the Year, don’t have a single female nominee.
In fact, outside of actual female categories, there are only four female nominees. (Halsey received two nominations for her “Closer” collaboration with The Chainsmokers, making five nominations between these four women.)
Claiming eight in total, Bruno Mars is up for the most nominations, along with Kendrick Lamar, Drake and The Weeknd trailing closely behind. There is no doubt that these guys have had hits this year, but 2017 has been a successful year for many women as well, and the internet has been voicing their opinions.
Halsey performed on Good Morning America on Oct. 12, partly in celebration for the AMA nominations announcement. While on the show, she was grateful to have received her nominations for “Closer,” and also mentioned how successful hew new album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, has been since its release back in June.
However, shortly after the nominations were announced and the show ended, Halsey came to Twitter, saying, “Really honored to have received an @AMAs nomination but really disappointed to hear near exclusively male names… such a missed opportunity.” She continued on, “so many incredible female artists have released this year. Hoping the coming award shows give them the credit that is due to them.”
Halsey is right: many female artists have released successful music this year. Some of the ladies who have been dominating the charts over the summer are Cardi B with “Bodak Yellow,” Miley Cyrus with “Malibu,” Demi Lovato with “Sorry Not Sorry,” and Selena Gomez with several new singles: “It Ain’t Me,” “Bad Liar” and “Fetish.”
While a lot of big names, like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift (until recently), have been pretty low-key this year, many other female artists have been bursting at the scene, including Kesha. This year, Kesha has made an extraordinary comeback with her brand new single “Praying,” and her following album Rainbow. There’s no doubt that she deserves some recognition for this work, especially considering her ongoing lawsuit against Dr. Luke, in which she claims he gave her very little creative control over her own work and sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions during the time that they worked together.
While there isn’t much that we can do about the nominations at this point in time, the AMAs are fan-voted, meaning it’s up to the internet to decide who will take home awards on Nov. 19. This means that the fans make up a huge part of the show, and if they express their feelings, hopefully more of the female artists that have been successful this year will be recognized for their hard work, as they deserve.