Billboard Music Awards: These 5 New Award Categories Are New for 2022
The Billboard Music Awards take place tonight live from Las Vegas, NV. This year’s ceremony features a stacked list of music’s biggest performers, including Ed Sheeran, Silk Sonic, and Megan Thee Stallion. The Weeknd leads nominations with 17. In 2022 the Billboard Music Awards (BBMAs) added five new categories.
Billboard added 5 new categories to this year’s award ceremony
For 2022, Billboard added five new categories. This brings the total number of award categories to 62. The show aims to award the highest performing artists from country to hip hop. They added four new categories to celebrate global chart success and one for viral success this year.
New Billboard Music Award categories:
- Billboard Global 200 Artist
- Top Billboard Global Excl. US Artist
- Top Billboard Global 200 Song
- Top Billboard Global Excl. US Song
- Top Viral Song
The nominees for Top Viral Song represent songs that were big on TikTok. The nominees are “Kiss Me More” by Doja Cat featuring SZA, “abcdefu” by Gayle, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals, “Astronaut in The Ocean” by Masked Wolf, and “Fancy Like” by Walker Hayes.
Billboard Global 200 Song finalists include Dua Lipa “Levitating,” Ed Sheeran “Bad Habits,” Olivia Rodrigo “good 4 u,” The Kid LAROI & Justin Bieber “Stay,” and The Weeknd & Ariana Grande “Save Your Tears.”
The Weeknd leads all nominations with 17
The Weeknd is nominated in four of the five new categories, only missing out on Top Viral Song. The “Save Your Tears” singer is up for 13 other awards, including Top Artist, Top Male Artist, Top Hot 100 Artist, and Top R&B Artist. The Weeknd currently holds 19 BBMAs, including last year’s Top Artist Award.
Doja Cat has 14 nominations this year for her song “Kiss me More” and album Planet Her. Three artists trail behind with 13 nominations each – Justin Bieber, Olivia Rodrigo, and Kanye “Ye” West. Rodrigo could have a big night with nominations in Top Artist and Best New Artist.
The current record holder for most BBMA wins in history, Drake hopes to add more trophies to his collection tonight. The 29-time winner is nominated for 11 awards at the 2022 BBMAs. However, Taylor Swift is nominated for seven and only trails behind Drake by four trophies for most all-time BBMAs wins.
How to watch the 2022 Billboard Music Awards
The 2022 Billboard Music Awards will air live from Las Vegas, NV at 8 pm ET/ 5 pm PT. Viewers can tune in to NBC or stream the ceremony live on Peacock. The show will be held at the MGM Grand Garden Theater, the same location that welcomed the Grammys this year.
Sean “Diddy” Combs is hosting and executive producing the show. He lobbied for artists like Travis Scott and Morgan Wallen to perform. He told Billboard “One of the things I’m doing directly is uncanceling the canceled. That’s breaking news because people haven’t been about uncanceling. But canceling is a trend that needs to stop.”
Last-minute tickets are available through Ticketmaster.
