If the Billboard Music Awards are any indication, Mary J. Blige should sail through the Grammys in February. These are not the popularity awards, but the actual tallies — you know, sales and money and airplay and the things that really matter.

Blige won NINE Billboard Awards yesterday in Vegas, but somehow Carrie Underwood’s Some Hearts won Album of the Year. I’m simply trying to figure out how you win every award but the big one.

As far as critics go, neither would typically be hailed for producing the best album of the year, but it was a strange, singles-oriented 2006 that let the ladies slip past the soft alt-rock bands and puppy Chris Brown, who is one day going to walk away from one of those shows with nine of his own awards.