Billboard Music Awards 2013: Bruno Mars opens, Tracy Morgan skewers Taylor Swift

Every year, the Billboard Music Awards likes to start things off with some sort of crazy event that gets everyone talking, whether it be a Britney Spears duet with Rihanna, or some sort of memorable monologue from a comedian hired to host the big show on ABC.

For the 2013 show, it was a little bit of both. Bruno Mars had the honor of opening the show with his trademark crazy-high energy, and a nice reminder that there are still artists in this industry who enjoy performing with a live band. (A personal favorite is the dancing trombone player, who we could watch just get on with his bad self with no one else even around.)

Following that, Tracy Morgan did come up to present some of his opening shtick, which was basically just him being Tracy Jordan from “30 Rock,” since the real Tracy Morgan would never be allowed to host this show in a million years. He told a few jokes about Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez, namely that he would never date either one of them because they would write a song about him forgetting to open up a car door.

There is a certain strategy that we don’t quite get when it comes to Billboard and these awards: Why are they booking big comedians for a family-oriented music show? It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, given that “edgy” is never the sort of word we would use to describe them. They’d really probably be better off with a host like Ryan Seacrest or LL Cool J, who will keep the show lively without trying too many jokes.

In case you didn’t catch some of the nominations for the show a little earlier on in the day, all you have to do is hit up the story over here.

Photo: NBC