So last night at some thing on the telly, a lady with a light-up rib-cage bopped about on stage and then sat down a piano. Oh what's that? The piano was on fire? Pianos sometimes do that! Later, a young man wearing eyeliner decided it would be a good idea to jam his tongue down the mouth of one of the other people hired to accompany him. Perhaps that other person was hired to house the boy's tongue in his mouth in addition to banging away on the keyboard. What with the recession, we can't afford to be fussy and demand jobs that honor our "dignity." This young man, at various points during his performance, also had the mouths of men pressed up against his groin. I think it was supposed to be sexy. Then again, some people may accidentally find this to be sexy. Whatever. Ultimately, between Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert, the American Music Awards had foils to what was otherwise a total night devoted to getting the red states off and then sticking around long enough to make mundane pillow talk.

There really is no other way to spin the upset Taylor Swift pulled over Beyoncé and Lady Gaga in Favorite Female Artist, Pop. Her rivals still remain equal parts chart darlings as they are critical favorites. They eventually fused together and threw the globe off its axis with the force of their combined pop genius. So while a victory by Beyoncé or Gaga would've been convincing, an upset by Swift, the most sterile thing to happen to pop (now that we're counting her as a cross-over!) since Max Martin, smacks of pandering to the easily-offended. A probably exchange between the AMAs and unintended pop consumers: "Oh darling! I know. That kooky lady and that glittery guy are going to sing, so just like plug your ears and shut your eyes during their bits. By the way, this totally boring and forgettable girl won an award over that kooky lady and some Amazon who dared encourage women to put off marriage. See, I still love you. See?"

Fundamentally, Swift's a bland upstart who got lucky, made good use of her luck, and through it all, remained innocuous, never quite doing anything to risk the ire of uppity parents like Lambert did last night. We could get into how Swift technically hasn't even had a single to successfully scrape into pop's Top 40 and inspire a variety of brain-bending adaptations of her single. Or that her girl-and-a-guitar shtick make her seem community theater when Gaga brings Broadway-style theatrics with shameless verve.

Sad that in this excellent year for pop, with some of the genre's new wave of icons, the AMAs decide to preemptively play the part of apologists. They singled out the most non-offensive performer as a way of appeasing the same parents who are no doubt calling their state legislators about how Adam Lambert terrorized their children or Lady Gaga encouraged alcoholism. Then again, this was the same awards show where some broad stumbled as she tried to wail on about expensive shoes. The music didn't die, it's been dead, this was a long overdue burial, blah blah blah, oh, what's that? The Fame Monster is out today? Why didn't you say so! Performances from her and that shrieky gay-or-not bloke are below.