Janet Jackson opened the show with a medley of some of the biggest hits from her long career - all tracks that appear on her new greatest-hits collection, also called “Number Ones.” Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson were the big winners at tonight’s American Music Awards ceremony, with the former picking up five awards, including Artist of the Year, Favorite Female Artist in the pop/rock and country categories, and Favorite Adult-Contemporary Artist which she accepted her awards live via satellite from London. Jackson was recognized in four categories, including Favorite Male Artist in the pop/rock and soul/R&B categories. Otherwise, the evening was pretty straight-forward, as singers and bands performed their latest chart-toppers Shakira, Mary J. Blige, Keith Urban, Whitney Houston, Eminem Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, The Black Eye Peas,and JLO made a comeback. Performances by Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert were among the musical highlights. Lady Gaga, started off by singing hit “Bad Romance,” she segued into “Speechless” by using her microphone stand to bust open a glass box with a piano inside. Lambert, not to be outdone, wore a silvery suit, with spikes on his left shoulder, to belt out the titular first single from his album “For Your Entertainment.” As can be expected, the performance — the last of the evening — was filled with plenty of writhing, hip swiveling and S&M costumes. The singer even planted an intense smooch on one of his keyboardists.
