Billboard Awards full of fun, rumors

Lisa Ferguson

Tuesday, Dec. 9, 1997 | 10:35 a.m.

Artist of the year? Song of the year? The biggest selling single of all time?

Who cares?

The real buzz in the press room at last night's Billboard Music Awards: Where in the world was Hanson?

Rumors of the teenage heartthrobs' appearance -- or lack thereof -- at the eighth annual awards show, broadcast from the MGM Grand hotel-casino, began festering like a bad case of acne just before show time.

Had the trio really been arrested at the airport for underage gambling? The truth was anyone's guess.

The excuse that had youngest "MMMBop" brother, Zac, suddenly falling ill (allegedly with the chicken pox), however, was the only one confirmed by "Suddenly Susan" co-star Kathy Griffin, who was to have presented the Modern Rock Track of the Year award with the blonde-tressed boys from Tulsa to winners Sublime. (Danish band Aqua filled in.)

"I get a call this morning," Griffin said backstage, "(saying), 'You're not presenting with Hanson. The little one's sick.' They're all little ones! I was like, 'Which one?"'

The real question is, does that mean Mrs. Hanson has to send an absence note along with her sons to the next award show?

Also making media waves was Toni Braxton, who garnered no less than three of the triangle-shaped trophies -- not to mention the unofficial award for most ogled celebrity of the evening, for her way-too-much-cleavage-revealing, form-fitted cream gown.

Actress Maureen McCormick (a k a Marcia Brady of "Brady Bunch" fame) came in a close second.

Now we know why Jan was always so jealous: "You look like you haven't aged one bit," a reporter called out backstage, to which McCormick -- who presented the Country Artist of the Year award and entertained press queries alongside Monkees frontman Davy Jones (who could forget that wacky episode with the two of them?) -- replied: "Who are you talking to?"

Blame it on "good genes," she said.

"Tight jeans are good, too," added Jones.

Had there been a "Most Humble Performer of the Year" award, it most certainly would have gone to Kirk Franklin.

Who?

"I know you have no idea who we are," said Franklin, who was featured on the highest ranking gospel album in history, "God's Property featuring Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation," which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top R & B Albums chart.

Comprised of, in Franklin's words, "ex-drug dealers, ex-gang members, single parents (and) dropouts," the group represents "a whole bunch of nobodys from Generation X and we thank God for the opportunity to try to touch some lives."

Just maybe not last night. "Trust me, this is Spice Girls night, I know," he said.

Speaking of the saucy girls from across the pond, they took the opportunity before the press to plug their upcoming movie, "Spice World."

Will it be a "Hard Day's Night" for the '90s? "No, I think it's just Spice Girls basically," said "Scary Spice," Melanie Brown.

As Buffy the Vampire Slayer would say, could you vague that up a bit?

"It's a British comedy," chimed in "Sporty Spice," Melanie Chisholm.

That helps.

Providing the evening's social commentary was 18-year-old Swedish singing sensation Robyn, who apparently felt that a fluffy awards show was the perfect place to air her concerns about America's social system.

"I have a very mixed relationship (with America)," said the petite blonde. "I love it and I hate it. It's very different from where I come from.

"It's easy to work (in the United States); people are professional, things move fast," she said. "It's a big country and gives you a lot of choices, but I still think it's very segregated. I think there's a lot of things that are very unfair."

Robyn's rhetoric went on to include subjects such as immigration, race relations, education and medical costs.

Who knows: Maybe she'll have the solution for world peace in time for next year's show.