Something's missing from the AMA's: Women

The 2017 American Music Awards will be announced this Sunday, Nov. 19, and the list of nominees for this year’s Artist of the Year honor is testosterone-heavy. And it’s certainly not because the ladies took the year off.

For the first time in the history of the American Music Awards, there are no female artists nominated for the top honor, Artist of the Year. None.

The nominees for Artist of the Year are Bruno Mars, The Chainsmokers, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Ed Sheeran. No disrespect to any of those dudes—they had fine years, even without breaking much new ground.

But how is it possible that not one of the women who spent the year kicking ass and shaping the country's musical landscape merited even a nod?

In 2017 – you know, the year after we had a female candidate for president, the year female-driven films lead the box office, the year #MeToo showed women will no longer be silent on assault and harassment, a year where companies like Uber are turning to women to help lead them as lawsuits pile up over toxic work environments – a one hundred percent male field of nominees is notable, and not in a good way.

It has never happened before, not since the 1996 inception of the award, and it’s, well, odd. Especially given the fantastic work put out by women this year.

Women held it down this year, representing all across the landscape and notching critical and/or commercial successes all year long:

• Katy Perry’s “Witness” debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and was promoted with a typically spectacular tour.
• Kesha’s “Rainbow,” her first album since 2012, was a meaningful return from personal and professional trauma and despair.
• Lana Del Rey’s nostalgic “Lust for Life” was lush and gloomy, and cemented Del Rey’s status as one of pop’s premiere storytellers.
• Lorde’s “Melodrama” was a gorgeous and wisdom-filled exit from her teen years that solidified her as a critical favorite.
• Even perennial AMA darling and top Artist of the Year awardee Taylor Swift was snubbed for “Reputation,” which is projected to be the year’s top-selling album, with a typical Swift-ian powerhouse slew of singles.

Nothing these talented women released deserved even a nod, according to the AMA's. Not Demi Lovato’s “Tell Me You Love Me,” nor Miley Cyrus’s “Younger Now.” Not R&B songstress SZA’s exquisite and breathlessly anticipated “CTRL.”

And looming over all the established pop stars is Cardi B, whose improbable breakout this year has been well documented. A virtual unknown outside of hip hop circles, Cardi didn’t so much as arrive as explode on the scene with the year’s biggest hip hop track. She would ride its strength to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually bump pop’s reigning queen, Taylor Swift, from the top spot in early October. Excluding her says that isn’t worth recognizing, which is madness.

The nominations are figured using “key fan interactions." This includes metrics from Billboard Magazine and Billboard.com and looks at album and digital song sales, radio airplay, streaming, social media activity, and touring. It’s not a completely straightforward rubric, though.

The AMA’s themselves could conceivably say “Hey, we’re just giving fans what they want.” But we really don’t know what goes into the special sauce. And it’s not like no women had big years, by those standards or any others.

Lots of other categories were noticeable for their testosterone levels. Fifteen categories, even excluding ones that are specifically male, had no women. Categories from Tour of the Year and Video of the Year to Favorite Artist-Alternative Rock and Favorite Song-Country, were lady-free.

Et tu, Favorite Artist-Adult Contemporary?

The show got its start in 1973, when the legendary Dick Clark created a show for ABC after it lost broadcast rights for the Grammys. If a middle-aged show created by the “World’s Oldest Teenager” can’t keep up with the world’s (albeit imperfect) march forward, is it still relevant?

Women's contributions every year can stand up to what men do, and there's no explanation that makes any sense for excluding them.