HypeGirls

No surprises here: Adele leads the pack in nominations for the 2012 Billboard Awards. She’s received nominations in 18 categories, including Top Artist, Top Female Artist and Top Billboard 200 Artist.

One of Adele’s contenders, Rihanna, is no stranger to a pile of nominations herself. This year she weighs in at 13 nominations including Top Artist. Katy Perry and Lady Gaga will also compete for the Top Artist spot.

Now let’s hear it for the boys: Lil Wayne is in the elite Top Artist nominee group, while LMFAO and Bruno Mars are up for Top Hot 100 Artist. One of Bruno’s top collaborative partners of the year, Bad Meets Evil (Royce da 5’9′ and Eminem), is up for Best New Artist along with Foster The People, Scotty McCreery, Big Sean and Wiz Khalifa. Top Rock Artist nominees include Foo Fighters, The Black Keys and Mumford and Sons.

The Young Money crew dominates the Top Rap Artist category, with Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne and Drake all being considered for the award. For a full list of nominations, click here.

The nominations and awards are tallied according to Billboard’s chart rankings. These rankings are based on  album sales and downloads, track downloads, radio airplay and touring as well as streaming and interactions on popular online social media music outlets. Statistics for this year’s awards are gathered from March 1, 2011 through February 29, 2012 and cover a number of genres including R&B, Latin, Rock and Alternative.

During the awards show expect performances from Justin Bieber, Carrie Underwood and others.  The show airs live May 20, 8/7c on ABC.