American ‘Michael’ Awards: More Advertising Than Art

It was fitting that Diet Coke launched its high-powered George Michael ad campaign on the American Music Awards telecast.

The annual pop special itself is simply one long--very l-o-n-g--commercial.

When pop stars (including Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood) weren’t seen hawking beer in conventional commercials during Monday’s three-hour event, they were on stage hyping themselves.

Unlike next month’s Grammy Awards ceremony, where the emphasis is on artistic achievement, the American Music Awards is simply an excuse for a television program. No sin in that, but it does make performers look a bit silly when they shed tears and repeatedly thank God for their trophies.

The “awards” are based on results of a national popularity poll conducted among approximately 20,000 music fans--which helps explain how Whitney Houston could defeat Tracy Chapman for recordings in 1988 and how the “Dirty Dancing” sound track could defeat anything.

If Dick Clark Productions gave out the pyramid-shaped trophies at a private dinner, they would be lucky to have enough stars on hand to generate one good trade publication publicity photo.

Because the awards are handed out on prime-time television, however, artists scurry for seats. The lure: 60 seconds or so for the winners at the podium.

If that exposure isn’t enticing enough, superstars can look forward to special awards and--crucially--extra time.

Two special awards and 16 minutes of exposure were enough to lure the normally reclusive Michael Jackson to the Shrine Auditorium stage, where another superstar, comedian Eddie Murphy, obediently narrated a gushing mini-documentary of Jackson’s recent “Bad” tour.

It’s not as if Jackson had to fight to get the 16 minutes and the awards. The show’s producers would have given him 26 minutes because it’s a coup having Jackson involved at all.

Even Murphy, whose persona is based on his ultra-confident manner, seemed intimidated by Jackson’s transcendent fame.

When the pop star stepped to the microphone to accept the awards, he discovered the stand was too low. After trying to bend over awkwardly to reach the microphone, the unnerved Jackson stepped back and asked Murphy to adjust the stand for him.

Murphy moved forward like an eager stage hand before remembering that he, too, is a star and that it wasn’t his job to fix the microphone stand.

In Murphy’s only spontaneous--and funny--remark, he quipped, “(Michael) said, ‘Eddie pull it up,’ like I was working for him . . . and I started to do it, too, ‘Yes Michael.’ ”

Though Willie Nelson also received a special award (and 9 minutes of TV time), the evening’s co-star was the other Michael--George Michael.

Ironically, Jackson’s 16-minute salute served in the end to further enhance the status of his pop rival from Great Britain.

The much ballyhooed Diet Coke commercial didn’t have much fizz: scenes of a matador preparing for battle juxtaposed against scenes of pop star Michael getting ready to face his fans on stage.

But the English pop star’s victories in three American Music Awards categories (most popular R&B; album, male R&B; singer and male pop/rock singer) did leave their mark.

Because Michael Jackson was also nominated in the two latter categories, the message for millions of viewers was that George Michael--despite all the excitement of the 16 minutes of “Bad” tour footage”--was the more popular record-maker in 1988.

Equally impressive was the graceful way the young Englishman handled himself at the podium.

Though his “Faith” album has sold more than 6 million copies in the United States alone, Michael is still struggling to win credibility as an artist--a goal made more difficult by his former membership in the lightweight British pop duo Wham!

Michael may be reading more into the awards than the voting decrees, but there was a disarming sense of genuine humility in his remarks each time he accepted an award.

“I’d just like to say that a couple of years back when I split the (duo), I knew I had a tough job ahead of me . . . and I thought that maybe people weren’t going to give me much of a chance,” he said in his final visit to the podium.

“So, I’d just like to thank everybody . . . for giving me that chance and letting me prove myself.”

If the head-to-head competition between the two Michaels produced a true moment of drama in an evening of unabashed self-promotion, most of the telecast was as flat as the Diet Coke spot.

With the array of stars on stage (from country’s Randy Travis to rap’s D.J. Jazzy Jeff), one certainly got a look at the range of commercial pop music these days. But it was surface rather than substance.

Except for Guns N’ Roses’ defiant rendition of “Patience,” the live performances (ranging from Rick Astley and Sade to the Miami Sound Machine and K.T. Oslin) were uneventful, and the evening’s co-hosts (Kenny Rogers, Anita Baker, Rod Stewart and Debbie Gibson) were uninspired.

Maybe next year the producers ought to acknowledge the program’s TV-show foundation and invite Oprah, Phil and Geraldo to co-host. That’d probably boost ratings--and those three certainly know the realities of television self-promotion.