Last night the 2008 American Music Awards were hosted by Jimmy Kimmel live on ABC. Throughout the night the AMA’s kept their tradition of having truly powerhouse performances and a clean mix of genres (which was noted by some artists) not found anywhere else.

Ordinary Joe here, and I’m going to give you the low down on the show. Firstly though, I must admit I didn’t catch it all (being ordinary in all, life has many requirements). So included are only those events that I witnessed.

American Music Award Recipients Included:
out Coldplay and the Eagles

Best Pop/Rock Group
Daughtry beat out Coldplay and the Eagles

Best Country Group
Rascal Flatts (2nd consecutive year winning this category)

Best Rap Album (Ironically introduced by Nickelback…lol)
Kanye West’s “Graduation” trumped Jay-Z’s “American Gangster” & Lil Wayne’s “Carter 3”

Favorite Country Male Artist
Brad Paisley

Best Pop/Rock Album
Alicia Keys “As I am”

Pop/Rock Female
Rihanna beats music queens Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey

Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Male
Kanye West won, but for the not so first time this year said rather, that Lil Wayne deserved his award (while fans took time to for vote him)

T-Mobile Breathrough Artist
The Jonas Brothers

Best Country Female
Taylor Swift

Best Soul/R&B Album
Alicia Keys “As I am”

Artist of the Year
Chris Brown surprisingly beat out Lil Wayne, Alicia Keys, Eagles, Coldplay. The win obviously took him by surprise suggesting he would have given it to Coldplay. He and girlfriend Rihanna are well on their way to becoming Pop Gods.

Annie Lennox, whom I know best for her vocals in “Sweet Dreams are Made of This”,
gave a touching performance. After 78 million records sold worldwide, and more recent humanitarian efforts, she received the American Music Award of Merit, the society’s highest honor.

Performers were:

Taylor Swift “White Horse”

The Fray “You found Me”

Pussycat Dolls

Jonas Brothers “Tonight”

Coldplay “Lovers in Japan”

Ne-yo with “Miss Independent” & “Closer” with lots of microphone moves and a crazy cool female dancer.

Leona Lewis “Better in Time”

Mariah Carey with “I Stay in Love With You”, performed in a sleek black dress and helped down a stage prop by husband Nick Cannon. MIMI was also congratulated on having the Most #1 hits and Spending the Most Weeks at #1, two positions formerly held by the king Elvis Presley himself.

Miley Cyrus almost takes the show with her performance of “Fly on the Wall”. Afterwards the new 16 year old moved to cutting her cake backstage.

Beyonce “Single Ladies”

Natasha Bedingfield Medley of “Soul Mate” & “Unwritten”

Rihanna “Rehab”

Kanye West “Heartless”: solid performance, with a Japanese techno style background

Sarah McLachlan “Arms of the Angels” ft. Pink whom also had a solo performance

Hey Ordinary Joe here, just letting you know that Kanye West has made the entire “808s and Heartbreak” album available for listening on Myspace Music, for a few days before its release.

The official track listing according to Myspace Music is as follows:
1. Say You Will
2. Welcome to Heartbreak ft. Kid Cudi
3. Heartless
4. Amazing ft. Young Jeezy
5. Love Lockdown
6. Paranoid ft. Mr. Hudson
7. Robocop
8. Street Lights
9. Bad News
10. See You in My Nightmares ft. Lil Wayne
11. Coldest Winter
12. Pinocchio Story (Freestyle live from Singapore)

At first full listen, the album is very good and Kanye West succeeds at using an 808 beat, and singing, for each song. He also includes the finished version of “Robocop” which was leaked weeks ago.

The Ordinary Joe Blog will review “808s and Heartbreak” after its official release on Monday 24th November.

Kanye West has also linked the songs to His Blog. You may go there to check it out also.

Related Articles:
Kanye Angry Robocop Was Leaked

MTV is calling Lil Wayne’s latest mixtape a “street massacre”. The Ordinary Joe Blog announced a few weeks ago that Rapper Weezy f. Baby would be dropping the third installment of his “Dedication” mixtape series, and releasing 20 extra songs for free on his website (let’s see if he keeps that promise).

The previous Dedication CD’s helped to propel Wayne to his current state of arguably dominating the rap industry.

The mixtape monster behind the release is DJ Drama, whom released the following statement. "I picked the 'Art of Storytelling 4' beat, You never heard nobody rip that 'Art of Storytelling' other than Outkast. People are scared of that. That's Andre 3000 on there. Weezy went in, he killed it. He did his thing. The 'Shootouts' beat by Soulja Boy is on there. Wayne did the V.I.C. 'Get Silly." One of my favorites he did was the old Lil Jon and Too Short track 'Couldn't Be a Better Player,' which Wayne retitled 'Di-- Pleaser'. Tip's 'Whatever You Like' is on there. 'Ain't I,' that beat is on there — it's more singing on this tape clearly than part one or part two. But that's where Wayne is right now, his zone."

Drama said that Dedication 3 would be out by Thursday this week. He also gave the mixtape’s tracklist below…

"Welcome Back"
"Dedication 3" (featuring Mack Mane, Willie the Kid and Gudda Gudda)
"What Else Is There to Do"
"Di-- Pleaser" (featuring Jae Millz)
"Ain't I" (featuring Jae Millz)
"You Love Me, You Hate Me"
"Bang Bang" (featuring Jae Millz and Gudda Gudda)
"The Other Side" (featuring La the Darkman, Jae Millz and Gudda Gudda)
"My Weezy" (featuring Shanell, Lil Twist and Tyga)
"A Dedication"
"She's a Ryder" (featuring Gudda Gudda)
"Still I Rise" (featuring Nicki Minaj)
"Magic" (featuring Gudda Gudda)
"Do's & Don'ts of Young Money"
"Whoever You Like" (featuring Jae Millz and Gudda Gudda)
"That Was Easy"
"Get Bizzy" (featuring Gudda Gudda)
"I Got That Gangsta" (featuring La the Darkman and Willie the Kid)
"A Message to the DJs"
"Stuntin'" (featuring Drake)
"Dedicated"
"Put on for the Game" (featuring Tyga and Gudda Gudda)
"Dedication 4????"

Related Articles:
Weezy's 20 Free Songs

It seems some fans really can’t wait to get Kanye West’s new album “808s and Heartbreak” because over the weekend a song from the album, “Robocop” was leaked to the net.

The song continues with the flavor the album is apparently sticking with, synthy sounds and West with “Cuz I ain wan’ no Robocop/ You movin’ like a Robocop/ When did you become a Robocop? No I don’ need no Robocop”

Kanye West addressed the leak himself on his blog stating, “I did not leak Robocop!!!... That's not even the finished version... I'm pretty upset about it but that's the way life is sometimes!”

He is very correct though. The leaking of albums has climbed to a new high this year, and it is only expected to get worse, artists will have to do a better job of protecting their work before release. Expect an update on this story from the Ordinary Joe Blog, when one arises.

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Love Lockdown Video

The “Carter III” has hands down proven itself to be the best selling album of 2008, with sales now at 2.5 million copies in the United States alone. However, Rapper Lil Wayne is still not satisfied and recently told MTV that he will be re-releasing the entire album with new songs.

As he told on his blog earlier this month, he has already begun work on the “Carter IV” and new mix tape to be called “Dedication 3”. At the 2008 BET Hip Hop Awards, hosted on Saturday October 18th, Weezy took home the awards for Lyricist of the Year, People’s Champ and MVP of the Year.

He is also once again an expectant father, announcing on stage at the awards “I've got a son about to be born in any day now, so shout out to him. Pray for me."