Editor’s note: What a night! The live blog has ended, but you can relive every spiky shoulderpadded moment of this year’s AMAs by clicking PLAY in the widget below (careful, West Coasters, spoilers abound!). Want more AMA coverage? Check back in a few hours to see photo galleries of the night’s best and worst performances and red carpet fashions.

One doesn’t so much watch the American Music Awards to see who wins. Instead, we watch to drown our sorrows in the vast spectacle of everything that’s hot in popular music coming together on one giant light-up stage, reminding us that life is in fact worth living, so long as we are moving our hips like yeah. (Our thoughts are with you and your touring family, Miley. xoxo)

Janet Jackson will be opening the show and, most likely, picking up several of her late brother’s awards over the course of the night (he’s up for five Stabby Trophies of Death™). Adam Lambert, who many people seem to enjoy, will be closing things out (for your entertainment). And we’re here for the duration, blogging on it all live, in conjunction with our pals at PeopleStyleWatch.com.

Your live blog hosts: Michele Romero and Chad Schlegel of EW and Melissa Liebling-Goldberg of PeopleStyleWatch.com are riffing on the telecast, and they’ll be joined by Whitney Pastorek of EW from backstage at the Nokia Theater in L.A. It’s so on; let’s go!

(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Adam Lambert talks ‘For Your Entertainment’ at AMA rehearsals
Exclusive Q&A with Adam Lambert on OUT Magazine scandal: ‘Not every gay man is the same gay man.’
Beyonce & Gaga, ‘Video Phone’ official clip: When divas attack