Names and faces
■ Cardi B, who has won five American Music Awards and performed on the telecast, is taking the next step by hosting the show. The rapper behind such hits as “Bodak Yellow” and “Money” has been tapped to host the fan-voted awards show airing from Los Angeles on ABC on Nov. 21. “We are immensely excited to have the dynamic Cardi B bring her infectious energy to the American Music Awards as a first-time host,” said executive producer Jesse Collins in a statement Tuesday. Now 29, Cardi B performed “I Like It” at the AMAs in 2018 with J Balvin and Bad Bunny and also made history during her last AMAs appearance, becoming the first female rapper to win Favorite HipHop Song twice. Olivia Rodrigo, in the first year she’s eligible, is the leading nominee this time with seven, including artist of the year and new artist of the year. Five-time winner The Weeknd has six nominations, going up against Rodrigo in the artist of the year category along with BTS, Ariana Grande, Drake and Taylor Swift. Reggaeton star Bad Bunny, R&B newcomer Giveon and Doja Cat each have five nominations. In the new artist of the year category, Rodrigo joins Giveon, 24KGoldn, Masked Wolf and The Kid LAROI. Swift, who currently holds the record for the most awarded artist in AMA history, could further extend her streak. She is nominated for three awards total, including favorite pop album for “evermore.”
■ Aimee Mann said the songs on her new album didn’t struggle to get out of her head but rather seemed to tumble out at a speed that shocked even her. “There was just a sense of urgency, and I’m not really sure why it was. There was like a literal fever. There were songs that I wrote in a day, which is not at all my thing,” she said. “Once I start really concentrating on it, it just kind of became my whole life for a while.” The effort became “Queens of the Summer Hotel,” 15 songs created for a still-to-happen stage adaptation of the novel “Girl, Interrupted,” Susannah Kaysen’s memoir about her psychiatric hospitalization in the late 1960s. The bestselling book, published in 1993, contains vivid portraits of fellow patients and helped push the discussion about how America treats mental illness. The album comes out Nov. 5 via Mann’s SuperEgo Records. While the show’s path to the stage is still up in the air, the songs it inspired have Mann’s signature sardonic humor, wry lyrics, moody melodies and powerful emotional resonance. How they get used on stage doesn’t seem to bother the 61-year-old songwriter. “I don’t know what it will look like. It may just be more like a play with some music. That’s kind of up to them, but because I’d had so many songs, I was like, ‘Well, now I feel like I have to record them.’”