Press

08.12.2009 - Los Angeles, California

Sennheiser at the American Music Awards

The American Music Awards telecast traditionally focuses more on the performances than the prizes, and this year’s show, broadcast on ABC from the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, November 22, was no exception. Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson may have won the night’s major awards, but it was Sennheiser artists Shakira, Alicia Keys, the Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Eminem, 50 Cent and Nelly Furtado who dominated the stage. The Black Eyed Peas also picked up a pair of awards during the night, for Favorite Band, Duo or Group in both the Pop/Rock and Soul/R&B categories. American Music Awards nominees are determined by radio airplay and retail sales, and the winners are decided by the online votes of members of the public.
 

Rihanna electrifies the American Music Awards with her first performance in ten months singing two new songs from her brand new album, Rated R “Wait Your Turn” and “Hard” using a Sennheiser SKM 5200 wireless handheld microphone with the dynamic MD 5235 capsule.

According to monitor engineer Mike Parker of ATK Audiotek, the production provider for the show, sixteen channels of Sennheiser wireless personal monitors were available, eight G2 channels on the A stage and eight channels of EK 3256 on the B stage, with sixteen Sennheiser IEM receiver packs also at each location. “J-Lo, Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Carrie Underwood, Black Eyed Peas, Janet Jackson, Shakira, Adam Lambert, Mary J. Blige, Keith Urban – everyone used Sennheiser,” he reports. “There were no other wireless ears there. And the only artist who didn’t use any ears that I know of was Whitney Houston.” Shakira, wielding a Sennheiser SKM 3072 wireless handheld transmitter combined with an ME 3005e super-cardioid condenser capsule performed her recent hit, “Give It Up To Me,” with a stage full of dancers. Alicia Keys, at the piano alongside Jay-Z for their “Empire State Of Mind” duet then, returning later in the show, crooning her new single, “Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart,” favored the SKM 5200 with a Neumann KK 105 capsule. Rihanna previewed two songs – “Wait Your Turn” and “Hard” – from her brand-new album, Rated R, using her long-time favorite combination of the SKM 5200 topped with the dynamic MD 5235 capsule.

During the last twelve months it was almost impossible to turn on the radio and not hear the Black Eyed Peas, and the L.A.-based four-piece offered up a medley of two of their ubiquitous hits, “Meet Me Halfway” and “Boom Boom Pow,” using SennheiserSKM 935 G2 wireless vocal mics. The SKM 935 G2 made another appearance near the end of the show when Nelly Furtado used the RF mic for her guest vocal on a performance of Timbaland’s “Morning After Dark,” which also featured SoShy.
  

Custom Sennheiser microphones were also in abundance. Jennifer Lopez fronted a crew of dancers dressed as boxers for a rendition of her ode to expensive footwear, “Louboutins,” with her custom gold-finish SKM 2000 wireless handheld outfitted with the MMD 935 capsule. Eminem took to the stage with guest 50 Cent for “Crack A Bottle” from Eminem’s latest album, Relapse, with both rappers sporting custom chrome SKM 5200 handhelds (previously featured throughout the eighth season of “American Idol”) outfitted with MD 5235 capsules, which offer frequency-dependent directivity.
 

SKM 5200 handhelds with Neumann KK 105 capsules were additionally on hand for the numerous presenters on the show, who included film actors Samuel L. Jackson, Nicole Kidman and Christian Slater, plus artists from a variety of musical genres, including Reba McEntire, Snoop Dogg and Melissa Etheridge.
 

Viewers tuned in to the broadcast in record numbers. ABC officials reported that an audience of 14.2 million watched the awards show, two million more than last year and the largest audience since 2002.
 
The Sennheiser Group, with its headquarters in Wedemark near Hanover, Germany, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of microphones, headphones and wireless transmission systems. The family-owned company, which was established in 1945, recorded sales of over €385 million in 2008. Sennheiser employs more than 2,100 people worldwide, around 55% of whom are in Germany. Sennheiser has manufacturing plants in Germany, Ireland and the USA, and is represented worldwide by subsidiaries in France, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark (Nordic), Russia, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Japan, China, Canada, Mexico and the USA, as well as by long-term trading partners in many other countries. Also part of the Sennheiser Group are Georg Neumann GmbH, Berlin (studio microphones), and the joint venture Sennheiser Communications A/S (headsets for PCs, offices and call centres).

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You can find all the latest information on Sennheiser by visiting our website at www.sennheiser.com, or by contacting:
 

Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG
Press & PR • Edelgard Marquardt
Am Labor 1 • 30900 Wedemark • Germany
Tel.  +49 (51 30) 600 - 329
Fax +49 (51 30) 600 - 295
edelgard.marquardt@sennheiser.com