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As we collectively process yesterday’s season finale of The White Lotus — What happened between Ethan and Daphne on Isola Bella? Will Greg still inherit Tonya’s money? Did Cameron ever get his suitcase? — the show’s theme song has gotten a house remix from Los Angeles-based producer Enamour.
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On the edit, which you can listen to here, Enamour artist adds layers of percussion and a house bounce to the already hypnotically strange original, “Renaissance (Main Title Theme).” The remix extends the track to six and half minutes, making good use of the source material’s spooky turkey gobble vocals.
The Enamour remix has gotten rinsed by Mikey Lion, who played it during a set last weekend in Los Angeles. Forthcoming Enamour releases are coming via Factory 93, Anjuadeep, Days Like Nights.
The original White Lotus season two theme was composed by Cristobal Tapia De Veer, a Chilean-born Canadian film and television composer, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist who’s also worked on the scores for Utopia, Black Mirror and the first season of White Lotus, the theme song for which was a variation on that for season two.
For the second season, Tapia De Veer beefed up the theme’s beat and added some primal urgency to the shrieking vocals, with this original serving as something of a dance track in and of itself.
In related news, White Lotus star Jennifer Coolidge took part in a conversation with Ariana Grande during which she credited the pop star for helping launch her recent career renaissance.
“I’m curious if you know that when people ask about how my life has changed … Yes, I got to do White Lotus, but I think it really started with you asking me to be in the ‘Thank U, Next”‘ video,” the actress told Grande as part of her Entertainment Weekly Entertainers of the Year cover story published today (Dec. 12).
“I mean, from there I got Promising Young Woman and this whole thing,” she continued. “You were sort of the instigator. I really believe that. I think if you hadn’t put me in ‘Thank U, Next’ and done that imitation, I don’t think I would be here where I am.”
Miley Cyrus has announced some of the guests who will ring in 2023 with her and Dolly Parton for NBC’s annual New Year’s Eve special.
Cyrus stopped by The Tonight Show this weekend to have a chat with Jimmy Fallon about the upcoming holiday show, revealing that Sia, Latto and Rae Sremmurd are among the other musical artists who will be joining the festivities.
“Sia is coming. She’s one of my favorite artists,” Cyrus told Fallon.
She continued, “We have Latto.”
And Cyrus rounded out the reveal to announce the news that “Rae Sremmurd, who are friends of mine,” will be appearing. Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party is set to air on NBC Dec. 31, live from Miami.
“As we get closer to the show, I want to start revealing who else we have. But the lineup is very me. It is curated in a way that makes no sense, but makes total sense,” Cyrus explained.
Speaking of the theme of change around the new year, Fallon then asked Cyrus to give him a hand with shaving off his beard — which she agreed to do, but warned, “I don’t know what you’re gonna look like.”
Watch her Tonight Show clips below.
Succession‘s Kieran Culkin and Only Murders in the Building‘s Selena Gomez popped into the latest episode of Saturday Night Live for a Father of the Bride reunion.
Steve Martin and Martin Short both hosted the Dec. 10 show, which saw the comedic duo reprise their iconic characters, George Banks and wedding planner Franck Eggelhoffer, respectively, in a bit that riffed on the film and franchise sequels.
Culkin returned as a grown Matty Banks, while SNL castmembers took the family’s other various roles, including Chloe Fineman impersonating Diane Keaton in her role of mother Nina Banks and Heidi Gardner as the titular bride Annie, originally played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley. Bowen Yang also starred in the sketch, appearing as Howard Weinstein, second-in-command to Short’s Eggelhoffer — a role originated by BD Wong.
Returning to 24 Maple Dr., the Banks family is gearing up for yet another wedding for Annie, who is now 52 in Father of the Bride: Part 8. The imagined sequel follows Annie “three decades and seven divorces later,” as she opens her heart to the potential of marriage yet again.
In typical fashion, Martin’s George is dragging his feet, though this time it might be easier to understand why. “Annie, what makes you think I can afford another Nancy Meyers-style wedding?” he gasped. “I’m financially drained!”
“But daddy, I’m your little girl,” Gardner’s Annie whines before Martin snaps back, “You’re 52! Your mom started driving Lyft to pay for your last wedding.”
It’s quickly revealed that a shrimp tower and performances by Nicki Minaj were included in previous weddings, ceremonies orchestrated by none other than Yang’s Weinstein and Short’s Eggelhoffer, who is still using his signature and unintelligible accent.
“That’s right, Martin Short is back as the beloved wedding planner Franck doing an accent that I think is still OK,” the sketch’s voiceover says. “Let’s all agree it’s still OK.”
Culkin and Gomez make their appearances soon after, with the Succession star’s voiceover introduction hilariously acknowledging that audiences likely forgot the actor was in the film, but that it’s OK. “Did you forget that Kieran Culkin is in this movie? So did we, and so did he. But he was, and now he’s on Succession, so good for him.”
Gomez, who crashed Martin and Short’s monologue earlier in the night, ultimately makes an appearance as Annie’s wedding performer. “How much is she gonna cost me,” Martin asks before Gomez casually responds “$1.8 million easy.”
But it’s a price Martin’s George is willing to pay for his “little girl — my menopausal little girl,” he joked.
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
The SHOWTIME mini-series George & Tammy, based on the lives of country music legends George Jones and Tammy Wynette, premiered on Sunday (Dec. 4) with 3.3 million Live+Same Day linear viewers across Showtime, Paramount Network and CMT, with SHOWTIME calling the series the most-watched premiere in its nearly 50-year history.
The series, starring Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon, chronicles the lives of one of country music’s most well-known couples. Though Jones and Wynette were wed for only six years (1969-1975), they are inextricably linked in the canon of country music, known for both their own solo hits, as well as a string of hit duets including “We’re Gonna Hold On,” “(We’re Not) The Jet Set,” “Golden Ring” and “Two Story House.” The series unfurls the both the tumultuous and romantic aspects of their relationship, with the first episode, “The Race Is On,” centering on Wynette’s whirlwind romance with Jones while still married to songwriter Don Chapel.
“George & Tammy made history as the most watched SHOWTIME premiere ever, thanks to the mesmerizing performances of Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon,” said Chris McCarthy, president/CEO of Showtime & Paramount Media Networks, via a statement. “The riveting and complicated tale of the king and queen of county music is a testament to the creative firepower of Abe Sylvia and our incredible partners at Freckle Films and 101 Studios, led by David Glasser.”
The series is based on the book The Three of Us: Growing Up with Tammy and George, which was written by the couple’s daughter Georgette Jones, who is also a singer-songwriter (Wynette also had three children with former husband Euple Byrd). Future episodes will air exclusively on SHOWTIME on-air, on demand and streaming.
Bob McGrath, the Sing Along With Mitch tenor who portrayed the friendly music teacher Bob Johnson for more than four decades as an original castmember on Sesame Street, has died. He was 90.
“Hello Facebook friends, the McGrath family has some sad news to share,” McGrath’s family posted on his Facebook page Sunday (Dec. 4). “Our father Bob McGrath passed away today. He died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family.”
Born on a farm in Illinois, McGrath was one of the four non-Muppet castmembers when Sesame Street debuted on public television stations of Nov. 10, 1969.
With no acting experience, producers always told him to be himself. Over the years, he sang dozens of the show’s signature tunes, including “Sing, Sing a Song” and “The People in Your Neighborhood,” and shared many a scene with Oscar, the grouchy Muppet voiced by Caroll Spinney.
McGrath and Oscar “were sort of like The Odd Couple,” he told Karen Herman during a 2004 conversation for the TV Academy Foundation website The Interviews. “Oscar was always having a rotten day, and I’m ‘Mr. Nice Guy.’”
He remained with the legendary kids show until it was announced in July 2016 that he would not return for its 47th season, though he continued to represent Sesame Street at public events.
“It took me about two minutes before realizing that I wanted to do this show more than anything else I could ever think of,” he said in 2015. “I was so overwhelmed by the brilliance of … Jim and [fellow Muppeteer] Frank Oz and everything else that was going on.”
McGrath and Loretta Long (as nurse Susan Robinson), Matt Robinson (her husband, science teacher Gordon) and Will Lee (candy store owner Mr. Hooper) taped five one-hour pilots that were shown to hundreds of kids across the U.S., and they went on to shoot 130 one-hour episodes during Sesame Street‘s first season.
“We knew we were on to something good almost from the get-go,” he said.
One of five kids, Robert Emmett McGrath (named for an Irish patriot) was born on June 13, 1932, on a farm between the towns of Ottawa and Grand Ridge. His mother, Flora, was a pianist who could play by ear, and when he was 5, he began performing in local theaters. At 9, he won a talent contest at an NBC radio station in Chicago.
McGrath had his own local radio show while he attended Marquette High School, and as a voice major at the University of Michigan School of Music, he became the first freshman soloist of the glee club.
After graduation in 1954, he was attached to the Seventh Army Symphony in Stuttgart, Germany, during his two-year stint in the service. Then, while working on his master’s degree in voice at the Manhattan School of Music, he was hired to teach music appreciation and theory to youngsters at the St. David’s School.
For the next two years, McGrath sang Gregorian chants at funerals; recorded with Igor Stravinsky; performed in the chorus for Leonard Bernstein, Robert Shaw and Fred Waring; did jingles for commercials; and sang on such TV shows as the Hallmark Hall of Fame and The Bell Telephone Hour.
In 1961, McGrath joined the new series Sing Along With Mitch in the 25-man chorus. The NBC program was headlined by Mitch Miller, a classical oboe player and top Columbia Records A&R executive who conducted an orchestra and chorus performing old-time songs. Viewers were presented with lyrics at the bottom of the TV screen so they could sing along, which made for a “great family experience,” McGrath noted.
Two years into the show, McGrath sang “Mother Machree” for a St. Patrick’s Day telecast and was promoted to featured male soloist at double his salary. (Leslie Uggams, who started on the show when she was 17, was a featured female soloist.)
After Sing Along With Mitch concluded its four-year run in 1964, Miller and company performed at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas and then on a 30-date tour of Japan, where the program had aired on NHK television.
“We had four and five thousand teenagers at every concert,” McGrath recalled. “We were quite amazed — why are these teenagers listening to all these old songs? They watched the show because they were very anxious to learn English; we sang clearly, and the [lyrics were on the screen].”
When he sang in Japanese, he was greeted with chants of “Bobu! Bobu!” and learned that there were McGrath fan clubs all over the country.
After the tour ended, he returned to open the Latin Quarter and Copacabana nightclubs in Tokyo and would come back often during the next three years for concerts, albums, commercials and TV shows. He even performed at a small private dinner for Japan prime minister Eisaku Sato.
In the U.S., “voices like mine are not really in season,” he told The New York Times in 1967. “But [in Japan], they say an Irish tenor is just right for sentimental Japanese songs.”
McGrath said he couldn’t “pretend to speak Japanese” but studied song lyrics “phonetically and then with the meaning matched to the words.”
In 1965, he performed “Danny Boy” in Japanese on The Tonight Show — that went over big in his concerts — and later appeared on the game shows To Tell the Truth and I’ve Got a Secret.
McGrath said that his two favorite moments on Sesame Street were the 1978 episode “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” that riffed on The Gift of the Magi and a poignant 1983 segment that addressed the death of Lee’s Mr. Hooper. (Lee, with whom McGrath had shared a dressing room, had died in December 1982 of a heart attack while the show was on hiatus.)
“On recording day, we rehearsed everything for several hours, totally dry with no emotion, just saying the words,” he recalled. “When it was time to go to tape, we filmed with full, raw emotions, which were very difficult to contain. We were barely able to keep it together, with tears in our eyes, because we were really reliving Will’s wonderful life on Sesame Street for all of those years.”
“When we finished filming, [writer-director] Jon Stone wanted to redo one little section. We got about two minutes into the segment before Jon told us to forget it. We couldn’t take it, we were all just breaking up. So what you see in the episode is the first and only take of that whole show.”
The sweater-loving McGrath also appeared in Sesame Street specials as well as in the films Follow That Bird (1985) and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (1999); wrote several children’s books, including 1996’s Uh Oh! Gotta Go! (about potty training) and 2006’s Oops! Excuse Me Please! (about manners); released albums like 2000’s Sing Along With Bob and 2006’s Sing Me a Story; and performed with symphony orchestras all over the country.
He also hosted the annual CTV telethon Telemiracle, which benefits people with special needs in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, every year but one from 1977 until 2015.
Survivors include his wife, Ann, whom he married in 1958 — she was a nursery school teacher at St. David’s when they met — three daughters and two sons, and eight grandchildren.
In his TV Academy Foundation interview, he talked about the “fame” that Sesame Street brought him.
“I had a little boy in a store one time and he grabbed my hand, I thought he had mistaken me for his father,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Hi,’ he said, ‘Hi.’ I said, ‘Do you know my name?’ He said, ‘Yeah, Bob.’ I said, ‘Do you know where I live?’ He said, ‘Sesame Street.’ … I said, ‘Do you know any of my other friends on Sesame Street? He said, ‘Oh, the number seven.’ I figure, I’m right up there with the numerals.”
He also described his “all-time favorite letter” that came to the show: “This parent wrote in and said their little 4- or 5-year-old girl had come running into their room waking them up one morning startled and said, ‘Mommy! Daddy! My pillow!’ And they said, ‘What is it?’ And she said, ‘It’s a rectangle!’ It was the discovery of her life.”
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell and orange soda reunited for the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live in a sketch that sees Keke Palmer and the two comedians caught in a soapy love triangle storyline with a pregnancy twist.
Thompson and Mitchell, who became teen stars thanks to their work on All That and later their beloved titular roles in the 1996 Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan and Kel, appeared on the Dec. 3 episode as part of a sketch reimaging the show decades after it went off the air. Dubbed Kenan and Kelly, SNL host Keke Palmer is the one who pitched the faux series, which offers an aged-up dramatic spin on the comedic shenanigans the original kids show was known for.
The sketch opens with Palmer selling Thompson on the reboot that will see her replace Kel as “Kelly” in the title card. That’s right before the SNL cast member reveals that what he thought was going to be a “Jordan Peele-produced streaming series” was nothing of the sort.
“I had already sold the show before I even met Kenan,” Palmer hilariously reveals in a confessional. “I told the producers we wrote it together.”
Returning to the original series’ ridiculous antics, Palmer puts her own spin on the world of the popular ’90s sitcom — including swapping out Kel’s famous catchphrase “Aw, here it goes!” with “Oh, here comes the bus!” But she also adds darker, more dramatically soapy elements, including a store shooting and pregnancy storyline.
“Keke was gunning for an Emmy Award so she wanted gritty, dramatic moments in it,” Thompson says in his own confessional. “I thought, ‘That won’t work.’ And I was right.”
After Palmer — who incorporated her newly announced pregnancy into her character’s storyline — delivers over-the-top monologues about being pregnant with Thompson’s child and having a distraught, fatherless childhood, Kel seemingly arrives to reunite with his old screen partner but is overcome by his love for orange soda.
“Well, we just started and I think we have a tone issue, but people seem excited about it, I guess,” Thomspon remarks before fellow SNL cast member Devon Walker offers a spot-on impression of Mitchell’s character — braided wig and all.
The skit ends on a dramatic and comedic high note, with Kel getting shot while attempting to stop a store robbery and Palmer revealing the baby is actually his, not Kenan’s.
“The show is not good, but Jordan Peele called us,” Thomspon says before Mitchell adds, “He wants us to do a sequel to Nope.”
The reunion is the latest from the former onscreen duo, who also reunited at this year’s Emmys, appeared onstage at the 2019 NHL awards together and starred in a Good Burger skit on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2015.
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Ahead of the premiere of Saturday Night Live season 48, the late night comedy show lost eight of its castmembers, the biggest cast overhaul in a generation.
At the end of season 47 in May, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney and Pete Davidson signed off of the sketch series for the last time. Their departures were followed by Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseñor and Aristotle Athari in the summer and, finally, Chris Redd in September.
A few weeks before season 48 premiered in October, SNL shored up its ensemble with four new castmembers, who would join the show as featured players for the 2022-23 season: Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker.
According to standout Bowen Yang, having the new castmembers around has been “so seamless.”
“They’re just such a burst of fresh energy and also something familiar in terms of how quickly they’ve become part of it,” Yang told The Hollywood Reporter. “I look around, and I see Marcello, I see Michael, I see Devon, I see Molly, and I’m like, ‘Oh, these are my new friends.’ I feel they’ve been here forever.” He added that they’ve each also had great moments in the first few shows of the season.
Kenan Thompson echoed that sentiment, explaining that by the second half of the season, the four of them will already have a great deal of experience. “It’s a lot, and I’m glad that they have each other to kind of come into the storm with,” he told THR. “They’ve been navigating pretty good together.”
Mikey Day, who’s been on SNL since 2013, thinks the new castmembers are “really cool” but admitted it has been an adjustment, sharing that it’s different but also exciting.
“I definitely miss my friends and seeing them every week, but all our new castmembers are really cool,” Day told THR. “[It] feels like you bond very quickly on that show. In the summer, you’re like, ‘We’re gonna have new kids. Will it be the same?’ But then, a few days in, you’re like, ‘Oh OK, it’s this show again.’ So you know, it’s fun. Every season, you just keep going. You just get in the grind of it, and everything kind of starts to feel like the show.”
As for the new members, joining SNL has been an emotional experience in which they’ve already learned a lot. Walker noted that probably once a week he gets “misty” thinking about the fact that he made it onto the show. He’s also been given a helpful piece of advice, which is that there’s always another episode, so it’s not worth taking anything to heart.
“The words I’ve been living by are to be patient and to work,” Hernandez told THR. “And I love Kenan and Colin [Jost] for being there and being the veterans that talk to you and give you good advice. So yeah, I’m grateful.”
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Fox’s The Masked Singer just wrapped its eighth season, so Billboard is going back through every winning artist who unmasked themselves for the grand reveal.
Hosted by Nick Cannon, the singing competition series premiered on Fox in 2019 as a way for celebrity contestants to perform anonymously in head-to-toe costumes while clues about their real identity are given throughout the competition before they’re unmasked one by one.
Judges-turned-detectives Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke have used clue after clue to get closer to uncovering who’s hiding behind each mask, but the final reveals always leave their jaws on the floor.
Below is a complete list of which mystery musician unmasked themselves to reveal the winner at the end of each season.
‘Tis the season for Saturday Night Live‘s December shows, and the iconic comedy series announced its official lineup of hosts and performers for the next three episodes on Tuesday (Nov. 29).
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As previously announced, the December schedule will kick off with SZA as musical guest and Keke Palmer as host on Dec. 3. “Can’t believe this is happening lmao . I plan on acting a f—ing fool . See you soon New York,” SZA shared on her Instagram account on Nov. 13 following the announcement.
The week after, on Dec. 10, Only Murders in the Building co-stars Steve Martin and Martin Short will co-host, as Brandi Carlile takes the stage as musical guest. The performance will mark her second time on the SNL stage, but this time, she’s fresh off seven Grammy nominations for her latest album, In These Silent Days.
“The greatest @nbcsnl of the year! I would fly to New York City just to witness this from the audience. But instead, I get to sing my songs on my favorite show,” Carlile tweeted about her upcoming appearance alongside the two comedy legends.
To wrap up 2022, Elvis star Austin Butler will make his Saturday Night Live debut as host on Dec. 17, with Yeah Yeah Yeahs joining him as the performing act. The band is nominated for two Grammys following the release of their new album Cool It Down.
Saturday Night Live airs every Saturday live on NBC at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT. For those without cable, the broadcast will also stream on Peacock, which you can sign up for at the link here. Having a Peacock account also gives fans access to previous SNL episodes as well.
It’s fitting that Jesse Collins is showrunner of the 50th iteration of the American Music Awards – which is set to air live from the Microsoft Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles this Sunday, because he just may be the most in-demand producer of music awards shows, and music on television in general, since Dick Clark, who created the AMAs in 1973.
His 2022 credits as executive producer include the Super Bowl halftime show starring a bevy of hip-hop stars (for which he won his first Emmy Award), the Grammys (for which he was Emmy-nominated), the BET Awards and the BET Hip-Hop Awards. And right after the AMAs is the Soul Train Awards, followed in early 2023 by the Golden Globes, the Grammys and the Super Bowl halftime show starring Rihanna.
Just days before the AMAs, Collins was feeling pretty confident. He has a strong host in Wayne Brady, a broadly popular Icon Award recipient in Lionel Richie, and a show that has a little something for everybody. The show will have tributes to Richie and Olivia Newton-John — both past AMAs hosts and artists whose AMAs totals are in double digits — as well as performances by new stars Dove Cameron and GloRilla. The Richie tribute is centered on a medley of his songs performed by Stevie Wonder, 72, and Charlie Puth, 30. That’s the kind of range the AMAs look for.
Looking at your bookings, you seem to have something for everybody.
Listen, it’s the American Music Awards. Like the nation, this is supposed to be the melting pot of music where everybody comes together under one tent and celebrates excellence in all genres. We just try to do our best to give you the full tapestry of music. You want to get your new stars. You want to get your up-and-comers. You want to get your big stars like P!nk and Carrie Underwood. You just want to make sure that everybody’s getting a little piece of everything, and that to me is what the AMAs are all about.
That was always Dick Clark’s philosophy.
Let’s say you’re not that familiar with what the new pop or R&B or hip-hop or country acts are. You can watch the AMAs and you can learn about them. You can find out who is going to be your next big star. So maybe you walk in saying, “I’m not really a fan of a certain genre,” but then you see an artist in that genre and suddenly you’re a fan.
Since this is the 50th AMAs, you’re going to have a recurring element where artists speak to their musical inspirations. What form will that take?
We’re trying to spread it out throughout the show and make it organic. So it could be in presenter copy or our host Wayne [Brady]. Perhaps winners will do it. There are some ways that we’re doing it musically. We’re just trying to spread it out throughout the show so you get that story in different incarnations.
How did you decide on Wayne Brady as a host?
I [have] worked with Wayne a lot over the years. He’s just one of the most versatile people I know. First of all, he’s an amazing host, but then he also is an incredible singer, rapper, dancer, improv performer. He’s incredibly funny, so when you’re doing a show like this you want to get a host that has so many skill sets that no matter what you throw at him, he can succeed.
How did you decide on Lionel as your Icon Award recipient?
Lionel has a long history with the AMAs. He has hosted, he’s performed, he’s won [18] awards [counting this one]. That’s been in the works for a long time. I have to credit Mark Shimmel, one of our producers, who has a long relationship with Lionel. [Mark has] been on the AMAs with Larry [Klein] for many years. Last year we knew that we wanted for the 50th show to honor Lionel Richie.
Dick Clark died in 2012, which was the same year you founded your company [Jesse Collins Entertainment]. Did you ever meet him?
No, I never met him. I just grew up watching him on TV. Obviously, I was a big fan of everything that he created. Unfortunately, I never got to meet him.
Was he a particular role model or inspiration?
Listen, I grew up watching American Bandstand and Soul Train – so both him and [Soul Train creator] Don Cornelius were heroes of mine. So, to find myself in this awards show business is incredible. I never thought I’d be producing this show.
Has [longtime dick clark productions executive] Larry [Klein] filled you in on Dick Clark stories?
Larry has been a great mentor throughout this whole process, even before I got on this show. Larry is the gold standard of variety producers. He has great stories. All the things he’s been through with this show, it’s pretty incredible.
Do you ever say “What would Dick do?” or “What would he think of what we’re doing to his baby?”
Larry sometimes will say, “If Dick was here, this is what he would want this show to be. This is what he would do in this moment.” And Barry Adelman as well. He’s one of our producers. He was with Dick for many years and knew Dick from the AMAs, the Globes and all the shows. Those guys definitely make sure that the spirit of Dick Clark lives on.
This is the second AMAs you’ve worked on. You’ve also been on the Grammy team for a number of years. Back in the day, it wouldn’t have been possible to work on both shows. They were highly competitive with each other.
Fortunately, the shows are not on the same day, so people don’t have to choose. The AMAs and the Grammys are both awards shows, but their histories are different, their legacies are different and today the shows are different – and I think that helps each one. They have different points-of-view, definitely different personalities. It’s like picking between your kids.
One reason the shows were so competitive back then is they often aired just a month apart – sometimes just two weeks apart. Now, they’re a few months apart.
When Pierre [Cossette, longtime executive producer of the Grammys] and Dick were going back-and-forth about these shows, music had a longer run. You had the one song that was the song that an artist sang on TV and that performance was coveted. Now, music cycles are much faster. Music comes out at a higher frequency. So, someone can come on the AMAs and have an unbelievable performance and then go on the Grammys and do something completely different and shock the world again. I think that’s part of the reason that the attitudes have changed between the shows.
Last year’s AMAs was the most social telecast of 2021 with 46.5 million interactions. What do you attribute that to?
First of all, our host [last year], Cardi B, is one of the most electrifying people on social media. She really knows how to ignite that base. Between that and BTS and all of the other performances, and the way we designed the show, we were really able to take advantage of what social media can do for you in an awards show environment.
With all the shows you work on, you must have an amazing team supporting you in your company.
Dionne Harmon is not only president of the company, she’s right here leading the charge on the AMAs. The show would definitely not come together without her. Jeannae Rouzan-Clay is a great producer as well. Between the three of us, it allows us to really try to make the best show possible. [All three are credited as executive producers on the AMAs, as is Larry Klein. In addition, Collins is showrunner.]
Have you announced all of the performers?
We have not announced them all. We still have a couple of surprises.
Most of the acts that you have announced fall into the broad genres that were always the backbone of the show – pop/rock, soul/R&B and country. Now, in addition, you also have hip-hop (GloRilla and Lil Baby) and Latin (Anitta). So, I think Dick is up there looking down and saying ‘you’re keeping it going.’
I hope so. With all of those genres that you mentioned, that music can be heard anywhere in America today. So, the show is living up to the title that he gave it.
This conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.