Eminem, Lady Gaga Set to Perform at American Music Awards

November 22nd's American Music Awards are shaping up to be 2009's hot ticket. Eminem and Lady Gaga were just added to the lineup of all-star performers at the event, which will air live from Los Angeles' Nokia Theatre at 8 p.m. on ABC.

The 37th annual show is determining its winners list based on online votes for the third time, and nominees include Taylor Swift (who leads the pack with six nominations), Michael Jackson and Eminem, who each scored five nods apiece. Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, the Black Eyed Peas, Jennifer Lopez and Adam Lambert are also scheduled to perform. Lambert's fellow American Idol alums Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry and Kelly Clarkson will all take the stage, as well.

Look back at Lady Gaga's wildest outfits.

Lady Gaga's most recent awards show performance at the '09 MTV Video Music Awards saw her hanging from the ceiling in a mock death scene complete with fake blood and and eerie, glassy stare. The singer's re-release, The Fame Monster will hit stores two days after her AMAs performance. Eminem will be coming off his recent set at New Orleans' Voodoo Festival, which was one of his only live appearances of the year supporting his latest LP, Relapse.

Check out photos of Eminem onstage at the Voodoo Music Experience.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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