Justin Timberlake to the Rescue!
Okay, I know I caught your attention with the headline, so allow me to explain. Having written a particularly pessimistic entry yesterday about how we cannot believe anything we hear or see anymore, my spirits needed a boost, and frankly, this blog needed an entry like I did during the good old days when all I ranted about was how dumb pop culture was. Sure enough, last night was the MTV Video Music Awards, a treasure trove of opportunity if ever there was one. How can I not respond to what I saw? If you know me, you know that would be like not breathing. There was also the fact that this show was a "one-time only" thing (as they kept mentioning throughout the show), so they could get the biggest audience possible; however, long-time VMA viewers like myself are so used to the idea that they'll replay the thing 30-some-odd times that I'm sure most of you who intended to watch the show last night missed it. Therefore, I need to tell you what you missed...
Particularly, how can I not join the chorus of entertainment reporters who are responding en masse to the "spectacle" that was Britney Spears' opening performance? All I have to say is that time and events really do change your perception of a person. Whereas a performance like this 6-7 years ago would have been quite hot and, well, typical of her and the trend of pop music, last night I found it... repulsive. Like I needed to be hosed off after watching the thing just to get the filth off. She looks like a divorced mother of 2, like someone who should just stay in Vegas and do a lounge show cuz it's the only way she should get a gig now. Times have changed and so have we, and so has she, but she obviously doesn't realize it.
From here we went to Sarah Silverman doing a monologue, which would have been better served if she was actually the host of the VMAs. Alas, the VMAs have followed the trend of other awards shows by choosing to go sans host. The VMAs NEED a host. The host has always been one of the best parts of the show... and Sarah Silverman would have made a terrific host. Of course, there was the issue of the audience not being the typical Sarah Silverman audience. When you fill a room full of celebrities (nice touch with having them seated at tables, by the way, like in a Vegas lounge), these celebrities are "too nice" to laugh about their fellow celebrities... it's just bad PR, don'tcha know... unless you're Kid Rock or Tommy Lee but we'll get to them later... As such, Sarah did her usual routine, slamming celebrities left and right, and the audience reaction was muted to the point that you thought she was bombing even though she wasn't. If this was her typical audience, there would have been howls of laughter.
The first award given out was perhaps the dumbest idea for an award MTV has ever come up with. I can just see the meeting now: "Hey, let's give an award out to the most annoying song of the year! Only we'll call it the 'Monster Single Award'!" Yeah, I see right through that. And as it was for the most annoying song of the year, naturally Li'l Mama was nominated, but more people think "Umbrella" by Rihanna was the most annoying song of the year, so that won. She wound up winning Video of the Year as well, so she at least has an award to be proud of, rather than only being able to brag that she had the most annoying song of the year as judged by MTV.
From here, the show started to play out like a typical VMA show... in other words, with as little recognition of rock as possible. See, MTV believes that rock died when "Headbangers Ball" went off the air a decade or so ago, and it never came back. Now I know we saw the Foo Fighters perform, but really, the fact that they kept cutting to all these parties that were going on (of which the Foos were one) just made it seem like it was almost a bit rather than an actual performance. That being said... they did some very cool live "mash-ups" of sorts. The guy from Gnarls Barkley singing "Darling Nikki" instead of Dave Grohl was outstanding, and later Serge from System of a Down sang with the Foos as well. Later, Rihanna did "Shut Up and Drive", backed by Fall Out Boy... but that was at Fall Out Boy's party, not on stage. I frankly found it all too confusing. In my advancing age, I can't handle getting bounced from someone on stage to someone's party to someone performing with Mark Ronson and his horn section.
Speaking of a performance that actually did take place on the stage, Chris Brown's was really good. It started with someone dropping a quarter into a slot for a "puppet dance show", and the curtains opened up, and there was Chris Brown as Charlie Chaplin, of all people. The only problem I had with that is... does anyone in MTV's target audience even KNOW who Charlie Chaplin was? If not, shame on them, but I enjoyed it, and you gotta love anyone who has the guts to follow that with a spot-on recreation of Michael Jackson's "Motown 25" performance, if only for 30 seconds.
We thankfully were spared the endless plugs of past years' shows, as only Jamie Foxx did the annoying "yell out the name and release date of your album/movie every 10 seconds" routine, but Justin Timberlake ("the "Quadruple Threat" himself, as MTV crowned him) made perhaps the most salient point of the evening about how MTV does things. He finished his acceptance speech by pleading with MTV to show more videos and fewer dumb reality shows, something we ALL have been wanting for years. Then, as if to prove Mr. Timberlake's point, MTV cut to a promo for some new reality show that apparently stars a Maxim cover model and a houseful of lesbians (no, I am not kidding). Brilliant guy, Justin Timberlake, and you never thought you'd see me say THAT, did you?
As I've said in the past, the real (though unintentional) purpose of a VMAs show is to create a time capsule to feature many of the celebrities and artists of the moment who cease to be popular about 2 weeks after the show airs. For example, this year, we have Miss Teen South Carolina, she of the "Americans can't find their own country on a map because a lot of Americans don't have maps" comment. MTV trotted her out there to say... well, to be honest, I don't know what the hell she was plugging because frankly, she made more sense during the Miss Teen USA pageant. Scripted ditziness just doesn't work as well as real honest-to-god ditziness, apparently, like, such as.
Along those lines, you had Seth Rogen and friend plugging the "Best New Artist" award not in terms of who was going to win, but who was going to lose, because just like the Grammys, for every Puddle of Mudd, B2K, Kid Rock, or Papa Roach who doesn't win the Best New Artist, there's a Macy Gray, Natalie Imbruglia, or Jesus Jones who does win. Actually, the VMA Best New Artist is usually a better predictor of longevity than its Grammy counterpart. For example, the winners from 2001-2005: Alicia Keys, Avril Lavigne, 50 Cent, Maroon 5, and The Killers. Although in this year's case, I think Lily Allen and Carrie Underwood are likely to have longer careers than Gym Class Heroes. Eventually, they're gonna run out of obscure 1980s hits to recycle... Puffy did... or is that Puffy Diddy?
Speaking of Diddy, he did come up with one of the most memorable lines of the evening... right after the aforementioned Kid Rock walked up to his fellow former Mr. Pamela Anderson, the aforementioned Tommy Lee, and decked him. Kid got cited for assault for his troubles, and Diddy closed the show by using it as a perfect opportunity to proclaim, "Stop the violence in rock!" I for one appreciate the delicious irony...
...and then MTV replayed the "one time only" show... speaking of irony...
Particularly, how can I not join the chorus of entertainment reporters who are responding en masse to the "spectacle" that was Britney Spears' opening performance? All I have to say is that time and events really do change your perception of a person. Whereas a performance like this 6-7 years ago would have been quite hot and, well, typical of her and the trend of pop music, last night I found it... repulsive. Like I needed to be hosed off after watching the thing just to get the filth off. She looks like a divorced mother of 2, like someone who should just stay in Vegas and do a lounge show cuz it's the only way she should get a gig now. Times have changed and so have we, and so has she, but she obviously doesn't realize it.
From here we went to Sarah Silverman doing a monologue, which would have been better served if she was actually the host of the VMAs. Alas, the VMAs have followed the trend of other awards shows by choosing to go sans host. The VMAs NEED a host. The host has always been one of the best parts of the show... and Sarah Silverman would have made a terrific host. Of course, there was the issue of the audience not being the typical Sarah Silverman audience. When you fill a room full of celebrities (nice touch with having them seated at tables, by the way, like in a Vegas lounge), these celebrities are "too nice" to laugh about their fellow celebrities... it's just bad PR, don'tcha know... unless you're Kid Rock or Tommy Lee but we'll get to them later... As such, Sarah did her usual routine, slamming celebrities left and right, and the audience reaction was muted to the point that you thought she was bombing even though she wasn't. If this was her typical audience, there would have been howls of laughter.
The first award given out was perhaps the dumbest idea for an award MTV has ever come up with. I can just see the meeting now: "Hey, let's give an award out to the most annoying song of the year! Only we'll call it the 'Monster Single Award'!" Yeah, I see right through that. And as it was for the most annoying song of the year, naturally Li'l Mama was nominated, but more people think "Umbrella" by Rihanna was the most annoying song of the year, so that won. She wound up winning Video of the Year as well, so she at least has an award to be proud of, rather than only being able to brag that she had the most annoying song of the year as judged by MTV.
From here, the show started to play out like a typical VMA show... in other words, with as little recognition of rock as possible. See, MTV believes that rock died when "Headbangers Ball" went off the air a decade or so ago, and it never came back. Now I know we saw the Foo Fighters perform, but really, the fact that they kept cutting to all these parties that were going on (of which the Foos were one) just made it seem like it was almost a bit rather than an actual performance. That being said... they did some very cool live "mash-ups" of sorts. The guy from Gnarls Barkley singing "Darling Nikki" instead of Dave Grohl was outstanding, and later Serge from System of a Down sang with the Foos as well. Later, Rihanna did "Shut Up and Drive", backed by Fall Out Boy... but that was at Fall Out Boy's party, not on stage. I frankly found it all too confusing. In my advancing age, I can't handle getting bounced from someone on stage to someone's party to someone performing with Mark Ronson and his horn section.
Speaking of a performance that actually did take place on the stage, Chris Brown's was really good. It started with someone dropping a quarter into a slot for a "puppet dance show", and the curtains opened up, and there was Chris Brown as Charlie Chaplin, of all people. The only problem I had with that is... does anyone in MTV's target audience even KNOW who Charlie Chaplin was? If not, shame on them, but I enjoyed it, and you gotta love anyone who has the guts to follow that with a spot-on recreation of Michael Jackson's "Motown 25" performance, if only for 30 seconds.
We thankfully were spared the endless plugs of past years' shows, as only Jamie Foxx did the annoying "yell out the name and release date of your album/movie every 10 seconds" routine, but Justin Timberlake ("the "Quadruple Threat" himself, as MTV crowned him) made perhaps the most salient point of the evening about how MTV does things. He finished his acceptance speech by pleading with MTV to show more videos and fewer dumb reality shows, something we ALL have been wanting for years. Then, as if to prove Mr. Timberlake's point, MTV cut to a promo for some new reality show that apparently stars a Maxim cover model and a houseful of lesbians (no, I am not kidding). Brilliant guy, Justin Timberlake, and you never thought you'd see me say THAT, did you?
As I've said in the past, the real (though unintentional) purpose of a VMAs show is to create a time capsule to feature many of the celebrities and artists of the moment who cease to be popular about 2 weeks after the show airs. For example, this year, we have Miss Teen South Carolina, she of the "Americans can't find their own country on a map because a lot of Americans don't have maps" comment. MTV trotted her out there to say... well, to be honest, I don't know what the hell she was plugging because frankly, she made more sense during the Miss Teen USA pageant. Scripted ditziness just doesn't work as well as real honest-to-god ditziness, apparently, like, such as.
Along those lines, you had Seth Rogen and friend plugging the "Best New Artist" award not in terms of who was going to win, but who was going to lose, because just like the Grammys, for every Puddle of Mudd, B2K, Kid Rock, or Papa Roach who doesn't win the Best New Artist, there's a Macy Gray, Natalie Imbruglia, or Jesus Jones who does win. Actually, the VMA Best New Artist is usually a better predictor of longevity than its Grammy counterpart. For example, the winners from 2001-2005: Alicia Keys, Avril Lavigne, 50 Cent, Maroon 5, and The Killers. Although in this year's case, I think Lily Allen and Carrie Underwood are likely to have longer careers than Gym Class Heroes. Eventually, they're gonna run out of obscure 1980s hits to recycle... Puffy did... or is that Puffy Diddy?
Speaking of Diddy, he did come up with one of the most memorable lines of the evening... right after the aforementioned Kid Rock walked up to his fellow former Mr. Pamela Anderson, the aforementioned Tommy Lee, and decked him. Kid got cited for assault for his troubles, and Diddy closed the show by using it as a perfect opportunity to proclaim, "Stop the violence in rock!" I for one appreciate the delicious irony...
...and then MTV replayed the "one time only" show... speaking of irony...
posted by Dave | 5:19 PM
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