TV Reviews : ‘Billboard Awards’ Show: No Surprises

The “1991 Billboard Music Awards” show, taped locally last week and airing at 8 tonight on Fox (on KTTV Channel 11 and XETV Channel 6), serves as a possible preview of what the main Grammy telecast might be like next year without all those pesky jazz and classical performers. It features some of the top performers in pop running through their usual live routines and picking up suspenseless trophies for having outsold all other acts in their field. And it’s a snoozer.

Given that sales are being celebrated, we get some sweeping acceptance speeches like Mariah Carey’s--picking up her No. 1 artist of the year award--profusely thanking “everyone behind the counters in the record stores, everyone in retail selling my record, being there for me “ (as opposed to going out for a smoke and not minding the store, we suppose).

No surprises among the performances: Rapper LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” sounds terrific with a big, live band--just as it did in an identical version on the MTV Awards four months ago. Queensryche and C+C Music Factory have likewise been overexposed.

Though hiring Paul Shaffer as host was a great idea on paper, he’s as irritatingly non-ironic as a cheerleading emcee here as he is hilarious as a late-night foil, literally shouting his hoarse way through each one of his unctuous introductions (not to mention slogans like “It’s the show with the winners you pick!”). Please, Paul, tell us you don’t want to be Arsenio Hall when you grow up.