The show felt unusually topical in other moments, too.
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But the inference was clear enough that we should probably have a moment of silence for all the trolling Clarkson will take for saying, “I’m so sick of moments of silence.” It wasn’t altogether clear whether she was using her introductory speech to actually advocate for gun control her call for “action” was vague enough, either by network design or her own impromptu nervousness, that Ollie North could just as easily have applauded it as David Hogg. But first-time host Clarkson did a pretty good job of it, too, in her own tearful and apparently unrehearsed way, at the beginning of the show. It was a happy/sad serendipity that Mendes’ “Youth” had already been slotted for the show, since the ephemerality-celebrating Billboard show is less likely than, say, the Grammys to have a veteran of gravitas on hand to address a sober national moment.
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But watching her counterpart throw stacks of fake cash into the crowd while yelling “Video coming soon!” was such a gag-reflex-inducer that it maybe took longer than it might’ve to unclench our tear ducts when the other Khal(i/e)d came on to appeal to our better angels a few minutes later. This number was immediately preceded in the lineup by DJ Khaled joining Jennifer Lopez for “Dinero,” a tribute to greed and superficiality that seems especially tone-deaf for the moment, but would have had you searching for some kind of saving irony even under the most carefree of circumstances. “This soul of mine will never break / As long as I wake up today / You can’t take my youth away,” sang Mendes, who never could have guessed when the segment was planned that by Sunday night the Parkland kids would already seem like elder statesmen, ready to counsel the survivors of an even more recent massacre. Khalid wore a shirt bearing the legend “Protect Our Guns,” with the last word crossed out and replaced by “Children,” making explicit a sentiment that had been hinted at by host Kelly Clarkson at the top of the show.
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Just in case anyone was still prone at this late stage to confusing Khalid with DJ Khaled, the 2018 Billboard Music Awards telecast came along to make sure that never, ever happens again - directly juxtaposing performances by the two stars that alternately represented pop’s noblest and most ignoble impulses.ĭeep into a show that had already acknowledged Friday’s mass killings in Texas, Khalid and Shawn Mendes were joined on the latter’s new song, “Youth,” by the show choir from Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, Texas.