It’s been talked about ad nauseum and Money Mike and I wrote our immediate thoughts here and here.
Let’s quickly restate the facts.
– Taylor Swift wins her first MTV Video Music Award.
– Kanye West rudely interrupts her speech as a way to both direct attention to himself, and to Beyonce, who he thinks should’ve won.
– Beyonce lets Taylor Swift join her onstage so that she can accept her award officially, since West rudely interrupted her before.
– All pop culture hell breaks loose.
– West apologizes.
I’m not sure there’s ever been such a non-serious moment at such a non-serious awards show that has ever caused a stir in the media like this one.
Kanye West might be the music version of Terrell Owens. I’ve never seen a man cause such hate and fervor just by yearning for attention. This was his “Terrell Owens runs to the star at Cowboys Stadium” moment. And it was dumb. This I agree. But should the feedback be as hateful and racist as it has been?
Yes, I said racist. Do me a favor. Go to Google and type in the words “kanye west twitter n-word” and see what’s listed on the first page. It’s become ugly.
I posted the same live blog that I first posted here on another website and one of the first comments talked about wanting to lynch West. How can someone who you don’t know instill such hate that you would want to lynch him? I don’t get it.
West apologizes on The Jay Leno Show
I’m still not 100% certain that this wasn’t some stunt concocted by MTV and Kanye West so that West and the show would dominate Twitter’s Trending Topics. I’m now convinced that Taylor Swift wasn’t in on anything, mostly based on how she’s reacted thus far.
But for those of you who have so much hate for West and feel so badly for Swift, get over it. Swift doesn’t need the help. She’s one of the top female recording artists in the history, and her album outsold Kanye’s latest album by a 2-1 margin. She’s a breakout star who is only going to get more famous. She doesn’t need your pity.
West clearly has some issues with his security and the fact that he’s so up and down with his persona is a bit frustrating. He’s still a talented artist, but just one who is addicted to the lime light and hopefully figures out how to not succumb to it at all opportunities.
But let’s stay away from the hate. What he did should’ve made you roll your eyes, not call for his head.
Money Mike blogged the VMAs earlier this evening. You can read his perspective of the show. Since I’m on the West Coast, and I haven’t seen it yet, I’m live (delay) blogging it as well.
I think everyone has a love/hate relationship with the VMAs. When we only had two “stuffy” music award shows, the VMAs was the necessary contrast, especially to the young generation. It then became the place for artists to shock the world. And now, it’s just a bunch of performances mixed in with goofy publicity stunts, which is what I imagine we’ll see tonight.
Michael Jackson’s This Is It promo posterThey’ve promised a Jay-Z set, Janet Jackson doing a tribute to her big brother, and the trailer to the new MJ movie based on his rehearsal footage movie This Is It. Also, the Internets were abuzz tonight based on something stupid Kanye West supposedly did. I’ll have to see it with my own eyes.
– Madonna comes out and thankfully, isn’t baring her overly buffed out arms. She talked about how MJ missed out on his childhood, which elicited applause, but then we had to see Jermaine and his plaster of paris face stand up.
– She did a pretty nice speech about a date she went on with MJ and how he just wanted a friend, and not a romance. But she made sure to bring it back home and make it about his humanity. Though, she compared the bad press he received to that of hers, and I’m not sure the comparison was there, or necessary.
(Ok, enough seriousness, it’s time to make fun of stuff, like Jermaine’s greasy plaster of paris face.)
– After faceless and nameless dancers went through some MJ choreography, sweet Penny from Good Times (Janet) went through her verse from Scream and did some of her own MJ choreography. That was sweet.
– We’ll see how much of Russell Brand that I can stomach tonight. He already told Katy Perry, who for some reason was performing We Will Rock You that she had a hole in her trousers which gave him a great view from below.
– If you guessed how long it would take for Brand to make a joke about Lady Gaga being a hermaphrodite, you won if your guess was twenty minutes into the show or less.
– If Beyonce’s Single Ladies doesn’t win Best Female Video of not only this year, but of the EARTH, then the fix is in.
You be the judge
– Taylor won. Taylor Swift is ok for who she is, but in no way, in the history of man and woman-kind, can she hold Beyonce’s jock strap when it comes to shaking her badonkadonk in a video.
– See, Kanye agrees with me! And Kanye loves the kids too I bet you! Ok folks, if you don’t think that was just a replay of Kanye channeling his inner Big Baby Jesus, then Kanye pulled the wool over your eyes.
(You can see the video on the right hand side of this page.)
– Wu Tang is for the children!
– Hey, I saw Paramore when they opened up for Gweneth Stefani and No Doubt. Gweneth was very sweaty that night.
– I think I got a little too excited to see Miranda Cosgrove on the VMAs. Sorry y’all, I’m an iCarly fan.
– Taylor Swift just performed on the subway. If anyone saw that and didn’t think Beyonce deserved the award, then I’m not sure what to tell you, other than, “Wu Tang is for the children!”
– Is it wrong of me to try hit the pause button to see if Lady Gaga is really packin’?
(She’s performing by the way.)
– Didn’t RuPaul slide it to the back?
– This is a very meaningless comment, but damn, Nelly Furtado got some hips. Where did they come from? She’s back on the radar.
The man who will always be known as David Silver– I may be the only man alive who thinks this, but when I see Megan Fox, I immediately think, “Where’s David Silver?”
– They just showed the extended trailer of the new Twilight movie. I was told by a 13-year old girl that in no way should I, like, ever read the book because like, it’s for girls and girls day dream about like, boys and it would be, like totally awkward.
– Ne-Yo just came out and I think I used up all my big head jokes on him in the BET Awards write-up. Ok, I lied. Remember when Ne-Yo cried at the concert he did a month or so ago? People wondered if it was a cry for help. Actually, it was a cry for hats.
(Sorry to Chris Rock for mangling his awesome joke.)
– Beyonce is doing Single Ladies and I’m gonna put a ring on it. I’m not sure who I’m going to put that ring on. But Beyonce’s inspired me to put a ring on it. I have two words for you based on this performance: jee zus.
– How did Taylor Swift beat Beyonce again? Wu Tang is for the chilren!
– I should probably know some of Muse’s music, but I have to apologize. I just slapped my hand like Arsenio used to do when he called himself a bad host.
– All show long, they’re doing these skits with Tracy Morgan and Eminem where Em tries to help Tracy achieve his goal of being the Best New Artist. Let’s just say that I liked Em much better at the movie awards when Borat fell ass first on his lap.
– MTV better hope that Asher Roth doesn’t beat Jay-Z for Best Rap Video award. We might see Kanye West again.
(That was just an excuse for me to say, “Wu Tang is for the children!” again.)
– Nope, Ellen Degeneres, I mean, Eminem won the award.
– Eminem’s new album is terrible by the way.
– I think Kid Cudi had to wear a Kid Cudi shirt so that the crowd would know who he was.
Lady Gaga– I wonder if that now because of this Lady Gaga fiasco that she becomes my go-to joke when I make fun of girls who might be guys. Because I really ran that Ciara adam’s apple thing into the ground.
– The great Serena Williams is on the show and she found an Asian girl in the audience and told her she was going to stuff this moon-man down her f****** throat.
– Wait, was that Serena Williams or Estelle?
– Speaking of women having man-like features, Pink (built like a man) is on the stage. She sure doesn’t sing like a man. Mad respect for Pink.
– Pink actually did some hanging gymnastics as her entire performance. Was she really singing? Because I didn’t hear an “oh shit” every time she was thrown in the air.
– I never understand how someone can lose the male or female video of the year, but then win the video of the entire year award. What, this doesn’t really mean anything anyway you say?
– Beyonce just won Video Of The Year and called out Taylor Swift so that she can do her speech. Taylor was oh so ready with microphone in hand. So maybe that Kanye thing was staged? You mean, Wu Tang was really for the children?
– Why is Taylor Swift always squinting?
– Jay-Z is wearing a leather vest over his long sleeve shirt, much like Triple H used to wear. Except, Triple H’s leather was once a jacket and the arms were torn off.
– Looks like Jay-Z and Alicia Keys are going to close the show with Empire State Of Mind like Mariano Rivera.
– “Everybody ride her like a bus route.”
– Watching the trailer to This Is It was a bit surreal, but I know I’m going to be there first day with my 3-D glasses on.
– This show is done, and they did it in 2 1/2 hours. Peace out!
So, I’m an award show junkie. Well, specific to music awards shows, anyway. You won’t catch me watching the Oscars (at least not with both eyes open), but…the Grammys? American Music Awards? BET Awards? Soul Train Awards? I’m there! Which is why it hurts me to say that the majority of these ceremonies blow chunks now.
I didn’t actually watch last night’s MTV Video Music Awards…I was actually at Farm Aid’s inagural trip to NYC (yeah! Mellencamp!!), but anyone who stops by www.mtv.com can pick and choose which parts of the show they’d like to see…pity that most of the show (at least the parts I decided to click on) weren’t worth seeing.
The performances were cut into little chunks (very few of them were complete), and the amount of awards given out has shrunk to damn near zero. There were no nutty acceptance speeches (someone call Fiona Apple or Macy Gray stat), and even the presentation of an award by 50 Cent and Kanye West together didn’t generate any sparks.
What we were left with was the last nail in the coffin of Britney Spears’ career (although, to be fair about it, her performance was no better or no worse than any previous VMA performance…say, has anyone EVER seen/heard Britney sing live on TV???), a performance of “Wake Up Call” that signaled that Adam Levine might be taking the jump soon from lead singer of Maroon 5 to former lead singer of Maroon 5, a WHOLE lot of Justin Timberlake, and Mary J. Blige making mincemeat of her teleprompter.
Oh, and Beyonce’s boobs nearly fell out of her dress. Awesome!!
Actually, the chopped up format by which you can view on MTV’s site is better than having to sit through it on TV because you can skip around to the good parts, which were few and far between: I’m not sure how I feel about Chris Brown, but damn it, the boy can dance. After Cee-Lo’s performance of “Darling Nikki” with the Foo Fighters, it’s my contention that he would do the best black rock album of all time. Ah, and have I mentioned Beyonce’s boobs?
Oh, and Justin implored the powers that be at MTV to play more videos. Wise call, considering the network only airs actual music during the graveyard shift.
