Last night Britney won three MTV Video Music Awards, her first ever. Linkin Park, Chris Brown and Tokio Hotel also picked up moon men. But you know the awards always take a backseat to the performances, outfits and red carpet shenanigans.
Let's start with the arrivals. On any other award show, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus showing up together would be the biggest shocker. But no, Tokio Hotel shows up in a monster truck decorated with their own faces, T-Pain sets this circus down and Paramore shows up in little baby Smart Cars. Seriously, T-Pain on a elephant was far more insane than the Tokio Hotel stunt, no matter what MTV voters thought during the pre-show.Other than that, it was alot of the usual: Christina looked drag-y, Slipknot looked Slipknot-y and the the Jo Bros were super polite. They even told Sway to be safe in his helicopter overseeing the entrances. So cute!
But then the show starts! Britney and Superbad's Jonah Hill had a modestly humorous video bit, in which Jonah continually attempts to mack on the resurgent pop star. Then Britney walks out on stage, breezes through the teleprompted lines and opens the 25th Annual VMAs!
With that, Rihanna kicks off the show with a Thriller-inspired performance of current hit "Disturbia" with zombie dancers and a breakdown of The White Stripes' "Seven nation Army" and if I'm not mistaken, some "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of These)" synth lines. Despite the fact she can't really sing, she is truly a major pop force. This captivating performance was repeated when she guest on T.I's "Live Your Life" later in the evening.
Russell Brand made his entrance afterwards, being extremely funny in his opening monologue. He joked on his lack of US fame ("Without fame this haircut could look like mental illness." As if the two were mutually exclusive) and politics. The riff on Sarah Palin's daughter's baby daddy was priceless. "Use a condom or become a Republican." And I actually liked the Jo Bros/promise ring jokes. Mostly cause it gave Jordin Sparks a chance to call everybody a slut. Go girl!
During Jamie Foxx's obnoxious turn a presenter for the Best Female Video award, he made mention of giving it up for the ladies. Cut to a bored Zac Efron. Best camera cut all night!
Next The Jonas Brothers perform the follow-up single to "Burnin' Up" called "Lovebug." It's pretty awful, in that fake-Juno-soundtrack kind of way. But the screaming girls couldn't get enough!
The house band for this year's VMAs was DJ AM and Travis Barker. By house band, they mean maker of thirty-second snippets of music to play the commercials in and out. Katy Perry performed "Like A Virgin" with them and with two peels of her banana peel shoulder strap, she proved you don't need major stunts to create a fabulous performance. But alas, she only got a half-minute of screen time.
Yay! Zillion-time gold medalist (and male butterface) Micheal Phelps introducing his playlist king Lil' Wayne. Now, I'm not really a Lil' Wayne fan. But I've heard his Nina Simone sampling "Don't Get It" and was impressed. By the sample more than the song. So I was pleased to see brill pop diva Leona Lewis recreate Nina's legendary version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" for Weezy's performance. But his ass hanging out of his britches was less legendary.
Ugh. The Pussycat Doll's "When I Grow Up" needs to go away now. It's not a song, it's a cacophony of horrible squelches and the fact that is was nominated, let alone won, is sad.
Ok, we have a couple of meh performances. Pink "rocked" her new single "So What" in a very safe rah-rah kind of way. Which is not to say I won't be love with this song at some point. It's just taking longer than usual for a Pink song to grow on me. But I don't know if it's her face, or her new hair, or what, but she looks weird. Oh, I got it! She looks like Jackie from Workout. Also, not a fan of this new T.I. joint "Whatever You Like" but I'm kinda feeling the Rihanna collabo, "Live Your Life." But as much as a love Paramore and "Misery Business" the way Russell totally telegraphed the big lame reveal during the performance was stupid.
But then we come to Christina Aguilera's performance! Her reworking of debut single "Genie In A Bottle", (which she was reportedly not satisfied with the original mix ten years ago) and the new single "Keeps Getting Better" both had a glossy euro-disco sound, similar to the Chris Brown/Ne-Yo/Rihanna sound we've been hearing lately. Actually, the new track sounds very much like UK sensation Sam Sparro's "Black And Gold" a major club hit across the pond. I'm very excited about this song, and I'm hoping the new version of "Genie" is the one slated to appear on Christina's greatest hits package coming out in November. I fucking love it!
Britney was so cool and sane in her first acceptance speech, and the I figured out why during the second one. She must have had a script, cause it was the same speech both times. But I'm just happy she's sane enough to remember to thank anybody! Welcome back Brit!
I hated Kid Rock's performance, except Lil' Wayne's killer outfit. I'm loving the vest!
Then Kanye closed the show! This new song, which surprisingly did not leak before his unveiling, was a strange funk-dirge with a killer drum line and old-school soul vocals vocoded over. It's called "Love Lockdown" and I'm think I love it.
So that was the VMAs! Maybe next year I'll get my act together and live-blog the thing. There is nothing better than snarking on shit as it goes down! But thanks to Rachel and Beth for live-texting with me. We snarked together from different zip codes.
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