The 2008 AMA performances

The American music awards kicked off a couple of nights ago and the performance line up was pretty tight. All it was missing was Britney. But in a week we'll get more Britney than we can stomach, so it's all good! The AMA's was definitely ladies night as today's hottest chicks in pop all took to the stage to put on a show...some better than others. Check out the performances after the jump!

Christina Aguilera - "Greatest hits" medley

That whole performance was just 6 minutes of mess. I couldn't wait for it to end. Christina Aguilera's voice just annoys me, because she's constantly over singing and trying to turn every note into a 5 second riff, and go through every note in an octave during every song. She needs to tone it down. I don't know when she is ever going to learn. I say award shows put restrictions on how long a performer is allowed on stage. Aguilera's set should've ended after she murdered "Beautiful". She should've just kicked off the show with a hot performance of "Keeps gettin' better" and then left it at that.

Beyoncé - Single ladies (Put a ring on it)

Oh good God! Did B actually make a mistake!? Looks like she forgot to step back around the 1:13 mark. She almost downward marched straight into one of the dancers! She was actually supposed to step back towards the end. And I know this because I've seen the dance SO many times. It's scary how much of the choreography I actually know. And right about now I'll shut down requests for me to upload a video to YouTube of me wearing an aysemetrical leotard and doing the choreography.

Once again, B did good. I like "Single ladies (put a ring on it)" more and more each day. It's my guilty pleasure, along with ogling to her jiggling in the music video.

P!nk - Sober

Brilliant. "Sober" isn't a song I'm keen on. But regardless of how I feel about the song, I cannot dispute the fact that P!nk sounded amazing. The girl is a vocal powerhouse, something she still doesn't get enough credit for. I love her power and the raw raspiness her voice has. P!nk has been on her A-game with her performances as of late.

Mariah Carey - I stay in love

Miming Mimi (aka I'm that chick that mimes) needs to just put a fork in E=MC². She and Def Jam already done already messed up with that album by picking the absolute wrong singles at the wrong times. Home girl needs to forget about touring with the album and just put out the E=MC² super platinum Einstein edition with some hot bonus tracks to try and salvage the wreckage. Or better still, work on a new album. Her performance of "I stay in love" wasn't bad in terms of how she sounded. But "I stay in love" is not a hard song to sing and the jury is out on whether those last big notes were lip synced or not. They sounded eerily similar to the CD version. As usual, Mariah's stage prescence was non-existant. She didn't move ONCE during that whole performance except to adjust her earpiece.

Rihanna - Rehab

Garbage. It's a shame the eye patch was purely for show. I was hoping somebody had poked the bitch in her eye. That performance was whack. Once again the set, the dancers and on stage effects completely overshadowed her. Beyoncé hit the stage with nothing but her heels, two dancers and a ramp and home girl owned that shit. The Forehead needs to step her game up. Vocally she didn't sound that bad, but her stage presence needs serious work. She is not interesting to watch as a performer what-so-ever. The crowd looked as bored of The Forehead as I currently am. Hopefully this is the last single from Good girl gone bad. But it wouldn't surprise me if we got one more and if that single was "Breakin' dishes" after all this time. I'm just glad Beyoncé fever is drowning this bitch out.

Kanye West - Heartless

I loved the arrangements of this live version. The drums sounded like they were knocking even harder than on the album version and the strings on the chorus and horns on the bridge sounded great. I see Kanye still has a love of the orchestrated sound he fell in love with during Late registration. Simplicity seems to be the watch word for Kanye right now in regards to his music and his live performance and it's working for me. Great performance. I'm shocked T-Pain didn't make an appearance, given he co-wrote the song. There was a moment when I was expecting the swamp like creature to hit the stage and take on the chorus.

The AMA's was all about Beyoncé, P!nk and Kanye West for me. Their performances were the most stripped down and simplistic, but the most entertaining to watch because they performed great songs and owned their performances: showing why they run shit in their respective games.