Once again I subjected myself to the entirety of the MTV Video Music Awards, as I do year after year for some inexplicable reason. This year, I decided to break my tradition of drinking two forties during the live broadcast and it proved to be a mistake.For those that missed it, this may not have been the worst show they’ve put on, but it was certainly the sloppiest. The fact that it was in Las Vegas and by far the drunkest…
VMA certainly had something to do with that, but it seems as if the whole event was ill-conceived. The idea seemed to be to reinvent the show from the ground up, changing the night from Thursday to Sunday, eliminating most of the awards categories, adding a couple of new ones, and dispensing with the concept of a host. There was also the addition of four parties hosted by four different artists (Justin Timberlake/Timbaland, Kanye West, Fall Out Boy, Foo Fighters) in suites throughout the Palms hotel, which they would periodically cut to. The result was a choppy, inconsistent show that often seemed to be thrown together on the fly, and in which the handing out of awards came off as an afterthought hastily tossed in between musical performances.
Unfortunately, the best moment of the night didn’t make it on air. Apparently Kid Rock and Tommy Lee got in a fight over Pamela Anderson. The best moment we actually got to see came moments after when an obviously hammered Jamie Foxx took the stage to present an award, but not before he gleefully called for an end to “white-on-white violence.”
Other highlights include:
- Sarah Silverman’s opening monologue, which included some pretty brutal Britney jokes.
- Mastodon performing at the Foo Fighters party with Josh Homme on backup vocals.
- Rihanna, who looked amazingly hot and was all class while winning two awards and performing twice.
- Alicia Keys, who along with Rihanna, was one of the few performers on the main stage not to lip sync.
Low lights include:
- Britney’s blatantly lip synced “comeback” performance in which she strutted awkwardly around the stage in what looked to be a Percocet haze. At this point, she’s just a few years of failure away from being a character in a Tennessee Williams play.
- Timbaland’s “special performance” which actually turned out to be Linkin Park performing some shitty new song.
- The the appearance of the “surprise music icon” Dr. Dre. Of course, Dre is a legend, but after at least a half hour of buildup, they only brought him on stage to announce the nominees for “Video of the Year.”
As always, MTV gets the last laugh as I forced myself to sit through the whole two hour debacle and will do the same next year. If you missed it, I’m sure they’ll replay it 140 times this week.