The artist’s responsibility met the demands of celebrity at Sunday’s American Music Awards, where half the assembled talent was eager to comment on a new political reality and the other half was eager to promote new product before beating a path to their chauffeured SUVs.
The latter feeling was to be expected, of course, at the last major awards show before the beginning of the busy holiday shopping season.
But as the highest-profile ceremony since this month’s earthquake of a presidential election, the AMAs — broadcast live on ABC from the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles — also offered an irresistible platform to any celebrity who’d spent the previous week and a half itching to say something about Donald Trump.
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The most vivid commentary regarding the controversial president-elect came from Green Day, the veteran Bay Area punk band that performed its song “Bang Bang.” The lead single from the group’s politically inspired “Revolution Radio” album, it’s already a pretty heated number, with words that seek to get inside the head of a mass shooter.
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Singer Adam Levine of Maroon 5, left, and rapper Kendrick Lamar perform onstage during the 2016 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California.
(Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
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Jenny McCarthy, left, and Donnie Wahlberg introduce a performance.
(Matt Sayles / Invision / Associated Press)
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Ariana Grande accepts the award for artist of the year at the American Music Awards.
(Matt Sayles / Invision / Associated Press)
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Brian Kelley, left, and Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line accept the award for favorite country duo/group at the American Music Awards.
(Matt Sayles / Associated Press)
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Tyka Nelson accepts the award for top soundtrack for “Purple Rain” on behalf of her brother Prince at the American Music Awards.
(Matt Sayles / Invision / Associated Press)
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Hailee Steinfeld, left, and Blake Jenner present the award for Favorite Female Artist Pop/Rock.
(Matt Sayles / Invision / Associated Press)
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Selena Gomez accepts the award for Favorite Female Artist Pop/Rock at the American Music Awards.
(Matt Sayles / Associated Press)
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Co-host Gigi Hadid passes by singer Rachel Platten and actress Bella Thorne who are walking onstage during the 2016 American Music Awards.
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Lady Gaga performs onstage during the 2016 American Music Awards.
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Ariana Grande, second from left, and Nicki Minaj, third from right, perform “Side to Side” at the American Music Awards.
(Matt Sayles / Associated Press)
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Nicki Minaj performs during the 2016 American Music Awards.
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Rapper August Alsina.
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DJ Khaled.
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Heidi Klum, left, and Rebecca Romijn present the award for top soundtrack at the American Music Awards.
(Matt Sayles / Invision / Associated Press)
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Robert Downey Jr. speaks onstage during the 2016 American Music Awards.
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Sting accepts the Award of Merit.
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Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun present the award for favorite artist - rap/hip-hop.
(Matt Sayles / Invision / Associated Press)
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Lauren Jauregui, from left, Ally Brooke, Camila Cabello, Dinah Jane, Normani Kordei, of Fifth Harmony, and Ty Dolla Sign accept the award for collaboration of the year for “Work From Home.”
(Matt Sayles / Associated Press)
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Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day performs during Sunday’s American Music Awards. (Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
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Singer John Legend performs during the 2016 American Music Awards.
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The Weeknd performs at the AMAs on Sunday in Los Angeles.
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Tyka Nelson accepts the award for top soundtrack for “Purple Rain” on behalf of her brother Prince at the American Music Awards.
(Matt Sayles / Invision / Associated Press)
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Alex Pall, left, and Drew Taggart of the Chainsmokers accept award for favorite EDM artist.
(Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
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Miss America 2017 Savvy Shields is flanked by Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard, left, and Brian Kelley.
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Tyler Joseph of Twenty One Pilots.
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Josh Dun, left, and Tyler Joseph of Twenty One Pilots.
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Fifth Harmon’s Lauren Jauregui, Camila Cabello, Dinah Jane Hansen, Normani Kordei and Ally Brooke.
(Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
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James Bay accompanies himself during a performance at the American Music Awards on Sunday.
(Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
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Internet personality Gigi Gorgeous, left, and singer Bebe Rexha prepare to present an award.
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Actress Teyana Taylor and Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals hit a home run with their stage antics at the 2016 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater.
(Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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Travis Barker.
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Drew Taggart of the Chainsmokers, left, and Halsey perform during the 2016 American Music Awards.
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Halsey performs at the AMAs.
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Actresses Octavia Spencer, left, and Taraji P. Henson and singer Janelle Monáe announce an award onstage.
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Josh Dun, left, and Tyler Joseph of Twenty One Pilots accept the award for favorite pop/rock band/duo/group.
(Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
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Bruno Mars, center, performs during the 2016 American Music Awards.
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Drake accepts the award for favorite rap/hip-hop album for “Views.”
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Co-hosts Gigi Hadid and Jay Pharoah get the show started.
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Here, though, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong added a fist-pumping chant to the middle of the tune: “No Trump! / No KKK! / No fascist USA!”
Time will tell whether Trump responds to the provocation the way he did over the weekend to mockery on “Saturday Night Live” and a call-out from the cast of Broadway’s “Hamilton.”
But even if the protest fell on deaf (or merely sympathetic) ears, it was a thrill to see this choreographed back-slapping event — generally the least consequential of the major awards shows — ruptured by what felt like real, unfiltered anger.
Idina Menzel invoked the “Hamilton” dust-up in her presentation of one of the night’s awards, counting herself among the “unsafe, scary theater people” unlikely to be invited to Trump’s inauguration.
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And Sting, who turned up to accept a lifetime achievement award, appeared to refer to Trump’s proposed immigration policies when he identified America’s “spirit of inclusion” as the quality that made it the greatest country in the world. (Other big winners of the fan-voted contest included Ariana Grande, Zayn and Drake.)
John Legend performs “Love Me Now.”
(Kevin Winter / Getty Images )
John Legend took a similarly warm-and-fuzzy approach in his performance of “Love Me Now,” which he introduced by saying, “Let’s celebrate love tonight.”
Yet the show’s typically harmless co-hosts — model Gigi Hadid and comedian Jay Pharaoh — went sharper, cracking jokes about the Electoral College, Melania Trump’s plagiarism and the president-elect’s inability to “tell what color” Bruno Mars was.
“So I can’t deport him,” Pharaoh said as he impersonated Trump.
Mars himself opened the show with one of the evening’s most appealing bits of good-times escapism. Performing his shameless retro-R&B hit “24K Magic,” the singer paused the song for a Michael Jackson-ish dance break that made clear how completely he’d digested the last half-century of pop music.
Bruno Mars, center, performs “24K Magic.”
(Matt Sayles / Invision / Associated Press )
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The Weeknd was strong too, albeit in a very different way, singing his song “Starboy” from inside a kind of ice tunnel. You want chilly digital soul music about the nightmare of romance in the Instagram era? This edgy Canadian heartthrob is your (bogey)man.
And then there were the twentysomething weirdos of Twenty One Pilots, perhaps the year’s most improbable breakout act, doing a medley of their hard-to-classify emo-rap songs “Heathens” and “Stressed Out” (the success of which brought them to the stage to collect two awards).
Wearing filmy black masks that concealed their faces, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun might’ve been registering their discontent with Trump and his thoughts on torture.
But then again, these Top 40 misfits — proud representatives of the swing state of Ohio — might simply have been having a bad hair day.
