Another Year, Another Bad Show

The 25th annual MTV Video Music Awards aired last Sunday night and once again it was another disappointing show. Remember when the video music awards used to be fun to watch? Well, apparently that was the good ole’ days.

Let’s start off with the obvious: Britney Spears. Last year, she performed and made a fool out of herself by stumbling across the stage like an unprepared idiot. This year, however, she did not perform (good idea Britney) but opened the show by introducing performer Rihanna. Spears looked a lot better than last year and seemed to be doing much better. In other words, she appeared sane. That was not the problem though. Up until this video music awards Spears had never won any of the awards she was nominated for. Well, her video for the song “Piece of Me” (she made it when she was mentally unstable) was nominated 3 times including video of the year. I was upset to witness her win all 3 of the awards, especially video of the year. I will put it to you this way: Spears’ video sucked. The videos that she was nominated for several years ago (when she was relevant in the music scene) were twice as better and yet she never won then. Yes, the competition was tougher back then since artists were actually making great videos. However, most of the videos she was up against this year were hands down better videos. So, I came to only one possible answer for Spears winning all of a sudden. Either they completely lost their mind or MTV felt sorry for her and wanted her to get back on top. They had to have had some kind of an agreement with Spears to get her to open the show again. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they feel guilty for last year’s humiliating performance and want to make it up to her. Rather than having Spears make a comeback on some other award show, they figured this was their opportunity…also an opportunity to boost the ratings.

Now, I ranted about this in my blog last year, Video Killed the Radio Star, regarding the MTV Video Music Awards: MTV does not play videos anymore; it is all about reality shows for them. I can count on 2 fingers the times they probably played Spears’ “Piece of Me” video. I am sure half the people watching were not aware of the video or even heard of that song. This brings me to another point: Her last album featuring “Piece of Me” received horrible reviews and probably her worst album to date. What was MTV thinking? Obviously not about the quality of videos. I remember when video of the year winners had an impact. Hers did not. She might have deserved to win the best pop video considering she was the only pop artist nominated in that category, but best female video and video of the year, no way. And I know for a fact that I am not the only one complaining about this.
MTV also received criticism for the host they chose for the show: British comedian Russell Brand. He is mostly unknown in the United States which makes MTV’s decision questionable. However, the sad thing is that Brand was probably the best part of the show. He was funny in his own kind of way. Yes, I think he went too far with constantly making fun of the Jonas Brother’s purity rings. He also angered people (I’m guessing they were Republicans) by calling President Bush “a retarded cowboy” and saying in Britain Bush would not be trusted with a pair of scissors. I understand it is not politically correct to use the word “retarded.” Therefore, he should have stuck with idiot or moron. He was right though. People complain that since Russell Brand is not a citizen of the United States and therefore not allowed to vote, he has no right promoting Barack Obama and making fun of our current president. Get real people. We make fun of our president. Quite frankly, it is embarrassing to have a president like Bush. It is pretty apparent from what Brand said that other countries look at us and laugh in the fact that we allowed Bush to be president for not one, but two terms.
Brand also joked about John McCain’s running mate for Vice President, Sarah Palin, and how her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant. I think it is fair game. You know that if it was a nominee on the Democratic ticket, the Republicans would be all over it and would not have a problem with comedians cracking jokes about it.

So, to sum it all up, this year’s MTV Video Music Awards was met with a lot of criticism and disappointment. I heard that their ratings went up this year. Not a surprise since they confirmed that Britney was opening the show and they even threw in Michael Jackson’s name into the mix even though he did not make an appearance (smart move). I also heard that they have already asked Russell Brand back to host again next year. Hmmm…they must like controversy. The way the MTV Video Music Awards have been the last couple years, I think I might have to boycott next year’s show.