Archives For vma

It’s been a LONG time since I shared anything here xD… but this sure is memorable. It’s also been a long time since I paid any attention to MTV or the VMAs. I have no idea who was doing what where, but since Missy Elliott just dropped Iconology [YT], there wasn’t a better time to catch up with news.

In a decade of forgettable American/Western mainstream music, and an even more forgettable MTV music era, it’s hard to come up with a magical moment that marked this decade… but this could be IT. It’s not the best in the history of VMAs, but it could be very well the best performance VMA has offered this decade.

Missy was, after all, at the top during the peak MTV performance years. Bless her soul. And bless her love for baby girl Aaliyah.

britney-spears-vma-2000-oops-i-did-it-again

I don’t think anyone needs more than a few words on this [1].

Remember when this was standard?

Except for that 3-year break MTV took off the Breakthrough Music Video category, they had continued giving away the prize — which had been given to the likes of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham — until 2010, when they officially removed the category.

So I ask again, what happened to Breakthrough Music Videos?

As a reminder, I put together a list with all the winners.

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If I had been picking winners (from that past post), I chose:

  • 2006 – U2 for Window in the Skies [MV]
  • 2007 – Tom Waits for Come On Up to the House [MV]
  • 2008 – Bjork for Wanderlust [MV]

For the other two years, you know I’m probably partial to SunnyHill [1], but I’ll go with Salyu’s Tadano Tomodachi [1] concept because it’s much more a production concept than a music video concept. For 2012, despite its serious hard-hitting concept [1], I would have to go with Graham Coxon’s What’ll It Take [MV] due to its imaginative execution using fan footage.

So what are some of your favorite music videos?

You know you’re fucking awesome when you lipsync through a whole show and nobody gives a shit, because it’s still awesome. Though, I would argue that MJ should’ve stopped his performance in Dangerous.

Not since Michael Jackson began dazzling the pop music stage has there been any other pop act that has been able to define dancing the way Michael did. To this day and age, when dance pop music (in America) is stale, and Korea gives me pretty choreographed skill [1] — there’s still no one bringing anything new to the pop table.

You’re still missed MJ.

I feel terribly sad that this had to happen this way~

It’s not like I sat through the VMA this year (the very first year that I chose not to, without counting the years I had no access to MTV), but having Jersey Shore introducing me nominees was too much for me to take… in the end, I tuned out and went for dinner.

When I found out that MTV was going to do a Britney Spears tribute, I thought to myself “why?” because, well — for starters, Britney’s not dead. Plus, Britney’s been on the music stage for barely 10 years… and out of those ten years, only five had been actually unquestionably successful.

So it pained me to have to see Britney accepting this because it means it’s just never gonna happen again. No, people. Do not expect Britney ever to recover her former glory, because it ain’t going to happen. But what’s worse is Britney (and her camp) accepting this poorly put together tribute… but who do we blame?

It’s not like the music industry has being able to produce anyone to follow Britney’s footsteps — failing to produce someone who can at least lipsync and kickass dance like Britney used to be able to. So what does MTV do? Get no-name little girls to dance to a speed-up Britney mashup. Each of her tracks gets reduced to a 15sec. blurb in which the girls duplicate Britney’s ‘famous’ moves — it’s just chaos.

And what does MTV do? They make Britney introduce Beyonce.

That just… doesn’t make sense at all.

Britney, you used to deserve so much better. Specially from MTV.

Considering I didn’t think the Latin Grammy was anything special, I thought I’d give the search for my favorite performance of the Video Music Awards.

The initial shot works perfect, despite some problems with the camera zooming out. Moreover, the cuts when everyone shows up dancing work to show the whole stage, and closer shots for all the jumping.

The song is catchy, and the performance is different enough from the rest of the performances of the night to be memorable, and perfect to stand out. I hope Vimeo doesn’t delete it because it’s the only good version I’ve found.

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VMA 2010

September 12, 2010 — 1 Comment

Dunno if I’ll be watching the show. I don’t even know who will be performing xD But if there’s any highlight, if there’s any complaint… it sure will be posted here. LOL

I like Chelsea Handler. Her intro where everyone’s spanking her was pretty funny, but because she couldn’t really take a very direct jab at reality stars, her game wasn’t that good. Besides, almost nto one huge was there… was Beyonce even there? Eminem left… Justin Timberlake was there as an “actor” and… well, Lady Gaga was pretty much the biggest star there without considering Usher (did he win anything?), Taylor Swift, Kanye… and well, okay – Justin Bieber.

Also… Cher. So so wrong xD and the meat purse. LOL but really, what a waste of meat. Instead, Gaga should’ve gone as Joe Calderone (was that the name?) – Really. WASTE OF MEAT. Unless, of course… she eats it, but I doubt that.

The biggest winner of the night? HELLO, VMA 2010 SET DESIGN.

The set design was so awesome, I was distracted from most of the performances. I really REALLY need to find out who was in charge of that set and do a post on it. At first I thought it was Usher’s genius use of light, but no… it was the SET. Even Kanye’s performance was perfectly placed in that PUUURRRRfect set.

And oh… Winners

Lady Gaga won for Bad Romance
Best Dance Music Video
Best Female Video
Best Pop Video
Best Choreography
Best Direction
Best Editing
Video of the Year

and only one – Best Collaboration with Beyonce – for Telephone.

Eminem for  Not Afraid won 2
Best Hip Hop Video
Best Male Video

while 30 Seconds to Mars (Rock), Muse (Special Effects), Justin Bieber (New Artist), Florence and the Machine (Art Direction), Jay Z and Alicia Keys (Cinematography), and The Black Keys (Breakthrough) won one each.

Performance-wise.

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Say hi back to Lauryn Hill.

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What happened to MTV Breakthrough Videos?

The VMA nominations have been announced with Lady Gaga taking the lead with a record 13 nods (10 for Bad Romance, 3 for Telephone featuring Beyonce. Plus, 5 for Video Phone by Beyonce featuring Lady Gaga). Following that, Eminem with 8 nominations for I’m Not Afraid.

Gaga also makes a record by getting Video of the Year for Bad Romance, and Telephone. Plus, they were also nominated for Best Choreography alongside Video Phone – To make that clear, that’s 3 Lady Gaga related videos in the Choreography category. Like I said, Lady Gaga is pretty much the only thing worth keeping an eye out now.

Pink, or should I say Dave Meyers [I should really get to work on my Meyers Music Video Director post] who directed the video for Funhouse, was nominated for 2 VMAs including Best Directing and Best Editing. But you should really check out how fun Please Don’t Leave Me is. Wickedly twisted.

But here we are because of the Breakthrough category, because we all know that the Breakthrough category is the only category that is or could be potentially interesting. And here was the surprise… the most likely to win this year would be the one that won Video of the Year 2009 at the UK Music Video Awards. How outdated is that for the VMA?
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Can I just say Abracadabra is super hot?

I listened to all of Brown Eyed Girls discography, minus singles… only albums, and maybe I did some minialbums. Can’t really recall, it’s been too much music lately. Anyway, from all the girl groups I’ve listened to lately… I liked them the best… dig their voices, and the raps somehow remind me of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez…

Man, she was the shitz~~

TLC killed it in the VMAs 1999. Man, those were the years…

RIP, Left Eye, RIP.