One Direction Collect More Prizes Before Hiatus

One Direction have been named artist of the year at the American Music Awards where Celine Dion left some in tears with an emotional tribute to the victims of the Paris attacks.

The British band received the prize for the second time in a row, and also won the best pop/rock group.

"It's absolutely incredible to receive this award two years in a row. It's a testament to how incredible our fans are," Louis Tomlinson said.

Liam Payne added: "We can't believe we get to win awards like this and we are obviously going on a little break now to spend a little time with our families obviously we want to thank our families."

The foursome are due to take a hiatus from making music in March next year.

Key winners on the night included Taylor Swift, who lead nominations with six, won three awards but did not attend.

Nicki Minaj won two awards in the rap/hip hop categories, The Weeknd won two soul/R&B awards, Florida Georgia Line won two country music awards and country artist Sam Hunt was named best new artist.

Unlike the irreverent antics of MTV's Video Music Awards and the prestige of the Grammy Awards, the fan-voted AMAs offer up the year's most popular music acts, with a spotlight on performances.

Harrison Ford introduced five-piece a cappella group Pentatonix, who put their vocals to John Williams' iconic Star Wars score, along with a full orchestra on stage.

The performance comes ahead of the release next month of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Dion sang Edith Piaf's classic French ode Hymne à l'amour in memory of those lost in the terror attacks on Paris.

Actor-musician Jared Leto made a moving tribute to the 130 victims killed on 13 November, specifically the 89 who died at the Bataclan concert hall, where he said he and his band, 30 Seconds To Mars, had performed "a beautiful, peaceful" show earlier this year.

"Tonight we honour victims of the unimaginable violence that took place in Paris and around the world," he said. "France matters, Russia matters, Syria matters, Mali matters, the Middle East matters, the United States matters, the entire world matters and peace is possible."

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of her album Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette took to the stage to perform her hit You Oughta Know joined by Demi Lovato and Justin Bieber closed the show by performing a medley of his hits from his new album Purpose, including What Do You Mean? and Sorry under a deluge of pouring water.