Alicia Keys, The Eagles and Coldplay were leading the pack of nominees when the American Music Awards for 2008 were announced on Tuesday October 14.

Keys received five nominations to lead the field. The Eagles and Coldplay were right behind Keys with four each. All three of the top nominees are in contention for Artist of the Year as well as Lil Wayne and Chris Brown.

There are several categories for award nominations, including Pop/Rock, Hip-Hop/Rap, Latin, Alternative, R&B/Soul, Adult Contemporary, Country and Contemporary Inspirational. This year’s nominations were announced by Jimmy Kimmel, comedian, during a Beverly Hills press conference. The awards will be handed out during a live broadcast on November 23 in Los Angeles at Nokia Theatre.

Nominations for the AMA awards are based on compiled sales data from Nielsen SoundScan and Radio & Records, a trade magazine of the music industry. This will be the second year in a row that an online vote from the general public will determine the winners. In years before that, the winners were selected on the basis of a national sampling consisting of approximately 20,000 people.

Votes for the awards are being collected until November 7.