Adding a little spice

      So there was Wayne Newton on stage at the Billboard Music Awards, chatting with Busta Rhymes, getting ready to introduce Metallica tuning up a few feet away.
      If nothing else, the teens screaming for all the acts from the upper decks of the MGM Grand Garden arena suggested that pop music, in its broadest definition, is more inclusive than radio formats or Billboard magazine's own specialty charts.
      The eighth annual record industry promotion and fashion parade disguised as an awards show came to Las Vegas for the second year in a row on Monday. The MGM became ground zero for celebrities, paparazzi, music industry executives and ordinary Las Vegans, who rearranged their weekday schedules to be among the 9,800 people in the live audience.
      While pop trio Hanson was a no-show, and Elton John appeared only by closed-circuit monitors, celebrity-watchers saw performances by Garth Brooks, the Spice Girls and God's Property featuring Kirk Franklin.
      (Fox publicist Joe Earley cited illness as the reason for Hanson's cancellation. Neither he nor an airport spokesman could confirm a report broadcast on at least one local radio station that one of the young singers was shooed away from a slot machine at McCarran International Airport.)
      The awards are a straight-up proposition, determining No. 1 artists and songs not by fickle voters, but by record sales and radio airplay. Major winners included LeAnn Rimes with four awards, including artist of the year, Elton John with three awards for his "Candle in the Wind" tribute to Princess Diana, and the Spice Girls for album of the year. Brooks received the artist achievement award.
      The 5 p.m. event, televised live on the East Coast on the Fox Network, brought together acts that normally don't appear together -- except when those with similar last names bump together on the charts. Say, rapper Busta Rhymes and teen country queen LeAnn Rimes.
      "I asked my mom (who Rimes was) the other day, especially when she entered at No. 2. on the Billboard chart the first week and I was No. 3. We was so back to back I thought we was joined at the hip," Rhymes told reporters in the press room. When asked of the possibility of a duet, he replied, "Music is limitless."
      The other Rimes did not rule out the possibility of working with Rhymes either. "You might see it one day," she told reporters. "I met him tonight. He's the coolest guy."
      The awards had their serious side, too, including a moving speech by the mother of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G., and sharp words by "Candle in the Wind" lyricist Bernie Taupin for "the ugly head of cynicism that speaks for the shallow and ignorant."
      The show mainly stuck to its business of show and sell. The sponsoring magazine was seldom mentioned. But backstage, Brooks explained the magazine's clout in getting him to show up:
      "I think country music and Garth Brooks owe what's happened to me (to) Billboard SoundScan (a charting system based on retail sales reports)," Brooks said. The new reporting system debuted when the singer released his breakthrough album, "No Fences," and "I think you saw the country music audience was bigger than we all thought," he said.
      Brooks explained later why he walked across the stage to embrace surprise presenter Trisha Yearwood. The two are supposed to record together in Nashville today. "Since I wasn't there, I was expecting Miss Yearwood to take care of business for us as a duet team," he said. And when he couldn't reach her, "I left her extremely nasty messages for the last three days."
      "I walked out and saw her standing there and ... felt bad and thought it was cool that she did that for me because I left some pretty bad messages."
      With the exception of R&B singer Usher's underwear, the live audience saw little more than those watching the delayed broadcast at home. The MGM audience became viewers themselves when the show cut to a segment featuring Aerosmith performing poolside at the Hard Rock Hotel.