Originally published at Nylon

Billboard’s annual Women in Music Awards are meant to bring women in the music industry together, instead of doing what the Internet loves to do and pit them against one another. The result is always a memorable night, full of inspiration. Seeing our favorite ladies get the honors they rightly deserve is always a treat, but this year’s ceremony was extra touching, as Billboard honored new loves and pop culture mainstays.

Missy Elliott was honored with the Innovator Award after bumping back on to the scene with both a Super Bowl performance and a new single. In a touching speech, Elliott not only detailed her own struggles and successes, but thanked the performers who helped pave the way for her: “I want to thank all those women who came before me, and I don’t know if y’all know how important that is to me because they kicked down the door for me to be able to walk through.”

Both Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez also accepted awards, the Rulebreaker Award and the Charttopper Award, respectively. While Gomez gave a short and sweet speech on the transformative period in her life that resulted in Revival, Lovato talked a little bit more about her history of being a rule breaker: “Another thing that reminded me of the Rulebreaker award is when I was in the first grade, this boy named Antonio Wallace, he came up to me and he said ‘girls suck!’ and I was all hyped up on Spice World and stuff, so I punched him in the face and I said ‘girl power!’ Needless to say, [I’ve] kinda always been a rule breaker, even since the first grade.”

However, the icon of the night proved to be Lady Gaga, as she accepted her Woman of the Year Award from her mother. Before a harrowing performance of her latest single, “Til it Happens to You,” Gaga sat behind her piano and offered a simple, heartwarming piece of advice: “If you work really hard you can just do anything.”

Lady Gaga’s always been an awe-inspiring live performer, but this one is extraordinary. Watch the full video of Gaga accepting her award and performing below.

Adele on YouTube, Adele on the Facebook news feed, Adele on top of Google searches, Adele on TV, Adele trending on Twitter, and Adele sells out tour. It’s Adele EVERYWHERE. Is Adele’s presence becoming overbearing? It doesn’t matter, she isn’t going anywhere, for at least a while.

As we speak, Adele is nearing 6 million copies of her latest ’25’. Miraculously, the album is selling near a million a week. Not the singles, but the entire album. No doubt, Adele will top the Forbes rich list in 2016. This a season that Adele will always remember. The season that Adele ruled the world.

The UK songstress has another smash on her hands with the latest concert special “Live from New York City” which garnered 11 million viewers. It saw the biggest audience for any pop star special in over a decade. The Eagles and Cher were the last artists to drive that magnitude of viewership. Adele’s demographic was in the 18-49 age group. Being only 27, and topping the young musicians rich list, Adele has accomplished a lot in a quick short years.

Lionel Richie admits he called his lawyers after hearing Adele’s ‘Hello‘.

He told The Sun: ‘You can’t use my word without my acknowledgement, thank you very much. I have been trying to figure out, from a legal point of view, can you own a word?

‘So far all the lawyers have told me, “No”. I’ve tried . . . but the association is fabulous!’

He said: ‘We will meet. When she’s on tour I’ll catch her backstage.’

Some people are willing to pay big money for instruments used by celebrities. In this case, the Colts Owner payed big cash for The Beatles drum kit played by the one & only Ringo Starr. A well known Beatles fan, Jim Irsay has spent millions of dollars buying a John Lennon guitar as well as other instruments. The Beatles who are noted with having the most #1 songs have impacted a generation like no other. Their music & instruments live on!