VMA's: A Letdown

As we all know, this past Sunday was the 25th anniversary of the MTV Video Music Awards.  As a severe atheist, holidays don't mean much to me, but award shows do.  I hate missing them, and I always dedicate my night solely to the show, when they are on.  The VMA's are my absolute favorite, as it was my first ever award show that I watched all the way through.  That was 2006, and now it's '08, and I must say, they have gotten progressively worsse.  Last year was a dreadful let down, and this year, it was just odd.  

While Russell Brand was hilarious, telling his sexual jokes in his very British manner, and beginning the night with a pro-Obama monologue, I thought the show might redeem itself in my eyes, but no.  There seemed to be less awards, and the few that were given out were boring and went to artists that I didn't even like.  What happened to the days when rock bands would win?  Now it seems the VMA's are only doled out to those in the Hip Hop or Rap genre (and most those music videos have common themes.)  The fact of the matter was that merely "Tokio Hotel" (I didn't know they were German until the pre-show, and so I laughed when they spoke; I'm a bad person), "Paramore", "Panic at the Disco", "Miley Cyrus", "The Jonas Brothers", "Britney Spears","Taylor Swift", and a couple others were even nominated and outside of the Rap/Hip Hop-ness.  And out of all those nominees, Britney and Tokio Hotel were the only ones to win any awards.  

As you may have heard, Britney Spears made some sort of "come back" by appearing at the show.  While I think she looked great, I'm not so sure she deserved 3 VMA's in one night.  The performances weren't even that great.  Rihanna's "Disturbia" was truly disturbing, it was quite creepy, and  her thighs looked huge (which I'm sure they aren't because she is in extremely good shape, so it must have been due to the odd costume.)  P!nk's production and song were very empowering, but the lyrics probably only apply to her, not exactly something one can easily relate to.  So what, I'm still a rock star, I've got my rock moves...  She may be a rock star, but I'm not.  Paramore gave a very good performance of their hit "Misery Business" and there were a few little songs performed that were not a huge performances but good anyway.  Of the other big songs of the night, Christina Agulara was good, as always, and there were others that were forgettable.  But Kanye West's song at the end.  Whoa.  I heard that, and didn't know what had happened!  And do you know why?  Because I had no clue what he had done.  Was he singing?  If he was, it wasn't working for him.

All in all, it was a dissappointing show, other than Russell Brand and his "VPILF" joke about Sarah Palin, and his other interesting remarks (that were of course said in a rush, as he is a Brit.)  Now we just have to wait for next year, and by then they'll be a new President, Britney may have bounced back, and the Jonas brothers might stop singing about "Love Bugs."