Okay… did any of you ended up thinking this was missing something? For sure, and improvement from last year.
So I was searching a little bit about tonight’s show, and found out that it was actually 8 awards. I didn’t actually count, so I just felt it was a little too short on awards. Anyway… I did a little more research because I remember it used to be so many more categories… like ACTUAL interesting categories, like Breakthrough Video.
Anyway, like any of you I ended up in Wikipedia. They have the VMA’s ‘current categories’ as 15 of them… what happened to the other 7 tonight? Dunno. But it is likely the Wiki article is outdated… so I went back memory lane and began remembering.
Tonight’s categories included:
- Video of the Year (re-labeled by moi as Video of This Year’s Most Voted Artist)
- Best Female Video (or… Video by the Most Voted Female Artist)
- Best Male Video (Video by the Most Voted Male Artist)
- Best Rock Video (Most Voted Rock Video)
- Best Hip-Hop Video (Most Voted Hip-Hop Video)
- Best Pop Video (Most Voted Pop Video)
- Best Dancing in a Video (Most Voted Video with Dancing in It, LOL)
- Best New Artist (Most Voted New Artist)
**EDIT** [Mar.2013]
Playlist of all Breakthrough Winners.
Now let’s look back on some of the left-out categories, such as Breakthrough Video. I think Breakthrough Video was probably one of the essences (if not THE essence) of video-making. It was first received in 1988 with I Need You Tonight by INXS, and went on and on to such artists like R.E.M (Losing my Religion and Everybody Hurts), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Give it Away), Weezer (Buddy Holly), The Smashing Pumpkins (Tonight, Tonight), Jamiroquai (Virtual Insanity), Fatboy Slim (Praise You and Weapon of Choice), Bjork (All Is Full of Love), The White Stripes (Fell in Love with a Girl), Coldplay (The Scientist), Franz Ferdinand (Take me Out), and finally ended with Gorillaz (Feel Good Inc.) in 2005… whatever happened to Breakthrough music videos after that?
I am sure there had been mind-blowing videos… I mean, I cannot mention them at the top of my head, but I’m sure there are… Just this year, Bjork’s Wanderlust, which came out on 2D and 3D version could’ve won Breakthrough easily… I think. Or in 2006, it could’ve easily been U2’s Window in the Skies. I’m missing 2007, though~ Anyone care to refresh my memory of 2007?
**EDIT** [Sept. 21]
I’m torn between two videos for 2007… First there’s D.A.N.C.E. by Justice, which rocked my world. And then there was Tom Waits’ Come on up to the House, which is basically a Sagmeister-looking (typography on body) music video~ xD
There used to be a whole lot of other categories, which I figure were hard to fill… but if you take your time to find bands, you can probably find who to nominate… categories such as:
- Best Group Video
- Viewers Choice (I mean, why make us choose… most people blow at voting for someone, so let them choose here)
- Best Dance Video
- Best R&B Video
- Best Rap Video
- International Viewer’s Choice (Let some international artist shine through here!)
- Best Video for a Film
- Best Alternative Video
- Best Cinematography
- Best Editing
- Best Art Direction
- Best Special Effects (Okay… maybe this one it a bit out-dated)
- Best Choreography
- Best Direction
What happened to all of those??? I know that Alternative is not commercial anymore, but in the days of music through the net… people are listening to some of those bands, and those bands might benefit with the nominations… and ratings can benefit from the fans of those bands that don’t watch MTV.
Celebrate music-video-making by actually letting the people who work in them choose who wins… just like Grammys celebrates music by letting people who work in music choose winners, and just like the Academy Awards celebrates films by letting people who work on film choose winners… Yes, some people think it’s elitist… but they have been around for years. Let the VMAs celebrate music videos with the people that actually LOVE music videos… musicians, directors, editors, sound designers, choreographers…
