They may have dressed to impress, but star-gazing is the only pleasure to be found in this years Video Music Awards on MTV. Many have argued for years that the annual award show was losing its glimmer as the television network spent the best part of the last decade more focused on being the teen reality show network with programs like Made and Teen Mom, Jersey Shore even moving into original programming like Teen Wolf; a formula they had tried in the late 1990’s with teen soaps and MTV Sports, and stunt shows like Jackass, but somewhere in the muddle was something about the music lifestyle. Now I’m not sure what I’m watching when I flip by MTV and its sister networks. Award shows seem to be the only reason to stop on the channel and now they can’t even do that right.
Maybe MTV has a hard time finding its target after the original MTV kids aged out of the viewership, or maybe it is because that channel has nothing to do with music at all anymore-but previous years of the VMA’s have been a million times better than this crap. Big names as hosts in the past, memorable performances, debuts of new material has come to be what we expect from the VMA’s and long for all year. Even last year with the ‘meat dress’, there was something to talk about- this year, uhm Lady Gaga dressed like a dude and it was weird. Beyonce delivered an anything but thrilling performance and may have a baby bump. Some people won awards that weren’t half as good as some of the artists that didn’t even see nomination this year. MTV wouldn’t know a good rock band anymore if it rode in on the back of Snookie.
Tame? Yes. Boring? Yes. This year’s award show luckily was on at the same time of a great lineup on HBO this year because it you checked in on Twitter most music fans were watching True Blood rather than try to comprehend the confusing lounge act that was the some of the most lackluster live performances ever televised.
I never thought I would have much in common with Maroon 5 until I saw this tweet from Adam Levine giving the bird to the station saying quote:”The VMA’s. one day a year when MTV pretends to still care about music. I’m drawing a line in the sand. (Bleep) you VMAs.”
Even the corporate stooges that most 13-34 year olds are programmed to “like” weren’t racking up the Moon Men in the fashion that one would have expected. Who actually won anything? Most people changed the channel before the show actually made it that far.
I’m pretty sure MTV just put the last nail in the music industry coffin with this years VMA show. There is still hope for music in indie radio stations, and online outlets as more artists pull away from the corporate world. Real music will live. Real fans will remember what we love about the music industry.
Don’t worry about MTV though. Somewhere there is a knocked up sixteen year old that they can put on TV four times a day. Then follow that up with some out of control Jersey losers that are far too old to be beach bums and need to be in school or using their valuable skill set at a drive up window somewhere getting my french fries. I know, they can make another teen drama that no one watches and as long as there is a tiny snippet of music in the credits they can nominate THAT as the winner of next VMA;s.