How to judge Kelly Clarkson’s first time hosting an awards show?
Consider that the singer brought a touch of suspense — and a deep well of feeling — to an annual production whose predictable data-based prizes include one for the year’s top-selling album.
Welcoming viewers to Sunday’s Billboard Music Awards, broadcast live on NBC from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Clarkson stood before the cameras in a stark cold open and admitted, “This is gonna be so hard.”
The former “American Idol” champ had been asked to lead a moment of silence, she said, for the victims of last week’s high school shooting near Houston. Yet as a native Texan and a mother of four, she explained that such an idea didn’t sit right with her — that moments of silence are no longer sufficient when “once again … we’re grieving for more kids” who died for “no reason at all.”
Fighting back tears, Clarkson instead proposed “a moment of change,” and whether or not she’d run her comments by the show’s organizers ahead of time, the display felt startlingly unrehearsed.
It was an expression of raw humanity in an environment that historically has suppressed them.
And it wasn’t the only one Sunday.
Accepting the award for top Hot 100 song, Luis Fonsi (of “Despacito” fame) thanked listeners for embracing a tune sung mostly in Spanish, then dedicated the trophy to immigrants and dreamers and “all those who get made fun of when you speak with an accent.”
The usually dopey Chainsmokers used their time onstage (after being named top dance/electronic artist) to speak movingly about the inspiration they’d taken from the Swedish producer Avicii, who died last month.
Then there was Janet Jackson, this year’s winner of Billboard’s lifetime-achievement Icon Award. After performing a medley of several of her hits, Jackson began her acceptance speech by saying she believes that, despite all our challenges, “we live at a glorious moment in history.”
“It’s a moment when, at long last, women have made it clear that we will no longer be controlled, manipulated or abused,” she said. “I stand with those women and with those men equally outraged by discrimination — who support us in heart and mind.”
As Clarkson had suggested, silence wasn’t the thing here.
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Host Kelly Clarkson, center, and members of En Vogue and Salt-N-Pepa close out the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday.
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Sandra Jacqueline Denton, also known as Pepa, left, DJ Spinderella, background, and Cheryl Renee James, also known as Salt, bring the ‘90s back.
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Tyra Banks walks out to present the top artist award at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. (Ed Sheeran won.)
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Host Kelly Clarkson puts on earmuffs as she introduces a performance by BTS to the delight of screaming fans.
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The South Korean boy band BTS performs “Fake Love” at the Billboard Music Awards.
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BTS performs onstage during the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.
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Icon Award winner Janet Jackson performs a medley.
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Bruno Mars kneels to present the Icon Award to Janet Jackson.
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Macklemore, left, and Kesha share the stage at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.
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Pharrell Williams and Camila Cabello perform together.
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Camila Cabello performs with backup dancers.
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Zedd, left, and Maren Morris share the stage in Las Vegas.
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Khalid and Shawn Mendes perform their song “Youth.”
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Members of the choir from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., join Khalid and Shawn Mendes for the end of “Youth” as a plea to end gun violence. Fourteen people were shot to death at the Florida high school in February, and two days before the Billboard awards, 10 were killed in a Texas high school shooting.
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DJ Khaled performs “Dinero,” with Jennifer Lopez in the background.
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Jennifer Lopez commands the stage.
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Jennifer Lopez performs.
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Rapper Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris onstage.
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Recording artist Post Malone accepts the top rap song award for “Rockstar” from rapper T.I. onstage during the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.
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Derek Hough, left, Jenna Dewan and Ne-Yo during the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.
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John Legend performs onstage during the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
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Actors Chrissy Metz and Justin Hartley during the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
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Musical group BTS accepts an award during the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
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Christina Aguilera, left, and Demi Lovato perform during the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.
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Christina Aguilera, left, and Demi Lovato perform “Fall In Line” at the Billboard Music Awards.
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Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift arrives for the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
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Jennifer Lopez on the red carpet for the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.
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Icon award recipient Janet Jackson arrives for the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
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Singer Nick Jonas attends the 2018 Billboard Music Awards 2018 at the MGM Grand Resort International.
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Recording artist Luis Fonsi and model Agueda Lopez attend the 2018 Billboard Music Awards 2018 at the MGM Grand Resort International in Las Vegas.
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Musical group BTS attends the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
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Boy band BTS attends the 2018 Billboard Music Awards 2018 at the MGM Grand Resort International in Las Vegas.
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Shawn Mendes arrives at the Billboard Music Awards.
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Dua Lipa arrives at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
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Radio host Sway Calloway arrives at the Billboard Music Awards.
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Frankie Grande, TV host and brother of Ariana, arrives at the Billboard Music Awards.
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Jenna Dewan arrives at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
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Christina Aguilera attends the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena Las Vegas.
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Kelly Clarkson at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
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Khalid greets fans while attending the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
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Recording artists Rhona Bennett, Terry Ellis and Cindy Herron of the musical group En Vogue attend the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.
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DJ Khaled arrives at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
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Recording artists Michael Trewartha, Zedd, Maren Morris and Kyle Trewartha of the group Grey attend the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.
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Ne-Yo arrives at the Billboard Music Awards.
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Prince Jackson arrives at the Billboard Music Awards.
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Camila Cabello, fresh from opening for Taylor Swift in Pasadena attends the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
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BTS fans wait outside the red carpet before the start of the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
(Jordan Strauss / Invision) Similarly vivid emotions came through in Sunday’s performances, which in another surprise were generally stronger than Billboard’s typically lifeless awards-show norm — one perverse effect of a culture in which we’re constantly weighing the consequences of mass murder.
Kicking off the three-hour program after Clarkson’s call to action, Ariana Grande was tender but resolute in “No More Tears Left to Cry,” her comeback single following the 2017 terrorist bombing that killed 22 people as fans were leaving her concert in Manchester, England.
Shawn Mendes and Khalid invited members of a choir from Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — where 17 people died in a shooting in February — to join them for their duet “Youth,” in which they sing, “You can’t take my youth away.” The result was as stirring as it was simple.
And you had to admire the blend of grit and sensuality in Jackson’s “Nasty,” which seemed to be pushing back against years of narrow thinking about what a middle-aged woman should be doing with her body. (Other winners beyond Jackson included Ed Sheeran, named top artist; Khalid, who took top new artist; and Taylor Swift, whose triple-platinum “Reputation” was recognized — duh — as top-selling album.)
Not everything worked as well as those highlights.
Christina Aguilera and Demi Lovato were two leather-lunged singers in search of a song in their tuneless “Fall in Line,” while John Legend’s corny “A Good Night” made him look like he’d gotten lost on his way to a gig at somebody’s wedding.
There were painful showings as well by two talented women unfortunately paired with useless dudes: first Jennifer Lopez, whose rendition of “Dinero” started with DJ Khaled watching Shia LaBeouf in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” then Kesha, who joined Macklemore for a “Good Old Days” that just made you long for a time before they met.
The show ended with another concession to nostalgia in the form of Salt-N-Pepa, the trailblazing hip-hop trio that performed a medley of its hits from the late ’80s and early ’90s, including “Push It,” “Shoop” and “Let’s Talk About Sex.”
But if the finale seemed to strike a throwback note out of step with the Billboard Awards’ otherwise timely vibe, the picture changed once En Vogue joined Salt-N-Pepa for a sharp and knowing take on their classic “Whatta Man.”
The lyrics may have been celebrating “a mighty, mighty good man.” But the performance was enacting the proud female energy that Jackson so strikingly described as the spirit of right now.
mikael.wood@latimes.com
Twitter: @mikaelwood
