American Music Awards 2016: Justin Bieber closes show with ‘Sorry,’ ‘What Do You Mean,’ more

The American Music Awards has a history of bringing you memorable performances to close its show. To us, a major standout comes in the form of that dance-off between Psy and MC Hammer a couple of years back. (Remember when you thought that “Gangnam Style” was a big deal?)

Tonight, the show made a curious choice in picking Justin Bieber to perform the closing musical number. Why him? It probably has to do with him having just released an album, and also him being a frequent past recipient of AMAs in the past. He is probably not anywhere near the mega-star that he was at one point in his career, but he still has plenty of fans and that cannot be disputed.

One thing that we will give Bieber and the show credit for is the dramatic staging, which included a ton of rain and some elaborate dance moves to go along with it. The melody of songs included “What Do You Mean?” and a pretty full version of “Sorry,” which is his latest hit. We think that he did at least a decent job with the routine (we’re not a Bieber fan for the most part), but at the same time it may not be the “game-changer” that the show wanted to convince us that it was. Yes, we still have no idea what they chose to unleash that level of insane hyperbole on us at the very end of the show without any reasoning to it.

Ultimately, the biggest winner here will probably be Bieber based on record sales.

If you want some other news when it comes to the AMAs this year, head over here for some coverage of the winners, and also you can sign up now to get some other news on everything we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)