LOS ANGELES - R&B SINGER Chris Brown swept the American Music Awards on Sunday, winning three prizes including artist of the year.

He overshadowed Alicia Keys, who led the field with five nominations, and ended up with a pair of statuettes. She was considered the favorite for artist of the year, the ceremony's final award.

Brown was clearly shocked when his name was announced. He said he would have given the award to British rock band Coldplay, which was nominated for four awards, but went home empty-handed.

The 19-year-old star was also named favourite male artist in both the soul/R&B and pop/rock categories. His girlfriend, Rihanna, won those categories for the women.

Keys' awards were for her chart-topping disc, As I Am, which was named favorite album in the soul/R&B and pop/rock categories.

Other multiple winners included outspoken rapper Kanye West, who has never been afraid to express his dismay when he is overlooked at awards shows.

He won the first two American Music Awards of his career, but said he would give one of them away to fellow nominee, Lil Wayne.

'If it was last year, this would have been my award,' he said of the favorite male rap/hip-hop category. 'This year, it's Wayne's award. We'll see what happens next year.'

Earlier, he won for the statuette for favorite rap/hip-hop album with Graduation. West challenged musicians of all genres to push each other, and to reclaim the spirit of artists like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. In his case, he declared, 'I wanna be Elvis!'

But host Jimmy Kimmel retorted a little later, 'Elvis died on the toilet with half a jelly donut in his mouth, so you might want to rethink that one.'

For the second year, winners were determined by online voting. They used to be decided by a poll of 20,000 music buyers, but producers decided to make the event more inclusive in the wake of slumping ratings.

The move seemed to work, with last year's show attracting 11.8 million viewers, up from 10.9 million the year before.

The performance-heavy event spanned the generations, from Disney starlet Miley Cyrus, who turned 16 on Sunday, to former Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox.

The Scottish rocker received a lifetime achievement award and said, 'I never thought that I would live to see the day that I would be 53 years' old standing on the stage.' -- REUTERS