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This year’s MTV Video Music Awards party was the first major awards show of the Covid era, which meant it had something weird about VMAs: a reason to exist. The whole night felt like a strange experiment, with everyone figuring out how to put on a stunning music show during a pandemic, with social distancing and no audience. MTV originally planned it as a live broadcast from Brooklyn’s Barclay Center, but it turned into a virtual gala filled with prerecorded dazzles. However, that only gave him a sense of creative risk and emotional risks; for once, it felt like a real show. Even the Black Eyed Peas couldn’t screw it up (though they sure did try).
Was everyone hungry for an awards show? Were artists desperate for a chance to show off and prove they are pop stars, after a summer of canceled tours? Were you grateful to join a glamorous old-fashioned no-nonsense pop party for these private times of fun? Did you look for an antidote to TikTok? Triumph of the will what was the republican convention last week? Was it a relief to avoid the energy-consuming behind-the-scenes charlatanism scene? Either way, they all rose to the occasion. (Almost everyone. Did I mention the Black Eyed Peas?)
If MTV wanted to maximize social distancing, they could have ensured that people would stay away by bringing back last year’s host Sebastián Maniscalco. Remember: the hideous comedian gossiping about his mother’s zucchini recipe and what happens to kids these days? (But it was great a few months later at Scorsese’s the Irish, playing Crazy Joey Gallo, so we all have a place in the cosmic plan.) This year’s host, Keke Palmer, kept it serious, opening the late Chadwick Boseman with a dedication. He spoke about Black Lives Matter and the Kenosha Police Riots and said, “We can never tolerate police brutality or any injustice.”
Since artists couldn’t shtick live, they ended up being forced to make music videos, the last thing you expect to see on MTV. (What a concept!) They frolicked in front of green screen soundstages that could have been Zoom backgrounds, complete with fake audience noise and CGI fireworks. However, the simulated liveliness made the show feel like a liver than usual. Miley Cyrus set the tone: she’s always ready to make VMAs her LiveJournal year after year, ever since her landmark 2013 twerk “We Can’t Stop.” She sang a fantastic “Midnight Sky”, coming on board to ride a disco mirror ball and evoke her “Wrecking Ball” days. It was a beautiful moment, the most real thing she’s done at the VMAs since the terror on her face on the 2015 show, when Nicki Minaj screamed, “Miley, what’s so great?
BTS made their long-awaited VMA debut with a hyperactive “Dynamite,” finally breaking loose on the big stage and seizing their moment. They did the “Dynamite” chic disco romp wearing office clothes from ’80s movies against a Manhattan / Seoul backdrop: it was a little Fred Astaire, a little Backstreet Boys, but unmistakably BTS. (I love those TRL-was headband microphones). Jungkook was in top form rapping, “Milk Cup, let’s rock / King Kong, kick the drum / Rolling like a Rolling Stone.” (The first time Dylan received an award from the VMAs in quite some time.)
The Weeknd sang “Blinding Lights” to the helicopters over New York, and it ultimately won Video of the Year. He delivered the same speech twice: “It’s very difficult for me to celebrate now and enjoy this moment, so I’m just going to say justice for Jacob Blake and justice for Breonna Taylor.” DaBaby made a fierce “Rockstar” on top of a police car in front of a sign that read, “Stop killing us.” Taylor Swift won for directing “The Man,” giving a stirring remote speech to thank fans and make a reference to Folklore. She received her award from Drew Barrymore, who brought all her grunge fervor to screaming the name “Taylor Swift!”
CNCO gave the night offense the charm of the old school boy band, doing “Kiss” in a drive-in theater, preening on top of cars. It’s safe to say that CNCO are the rookies who made the most new fans on this show. CNCO and Muluma’s performances were supposedly live from a drive-in movie theater in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, except that the theater was actually showing Minions at the time.
MTV presented a “Best Alternative” video award for the first time since the 1990s; The last year VMAs had an Alternative category, Green Day won with “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”, beating Radiohead, Garbage, and Verve. This year, the Alternative award went to an artist so young and nervous that he already played Tommy Lee in a Hollywood movie: Congratulations to Machine Gun Kelly, who beat Lana Del Rey, 21 Pilots, Finneas and 1975’s All Time Low. Here we are now, have fun.
But Lady Gaga was the star of the night, treating it like a coronation for her. Chromatic It was – 10 years after her 2010 Meat Dress triumph, she appeared hungry to claim the edge of glory. In the past, when Gaga could take a spotlight like this for granted, she prided herself on wasting it, a year she even staged as her alter ego Jo Calderon. But this year, she wanted to show off, for the benefit of all. She gave the most powerful live performance of the night, doing a mix of Chromatic highlights, bringing Ariana Grande for “Rain on Me.” When he sat down at the piano to do “Stupid Love,” it was a poignant reminder of how phenomenal a live performer can always be and how hungry he sounds to be back performing these songs in front of people.
He reveled in the pandemic elegance of costume balls, donning a host of avant-garde masks and making each a different fashion and political statement. (It was like the year REM won for “Losing My Religion” and Michael Stipe kept changing her shirts). He even sold his Video Vanguard Award on something new called “Tri-Con”, which is basically the same as the artist. of the Millennium award that Michael Jackson decided she won in 2002. Maybe next year she’ll come back to upgrade her Tri-Con to Quadricon or Octoglom?
Chloe x Halle did a stellar “Ungodly Hour” on the red carpet, one of the music highlights of the night. Doja Cat gave a classic MTV salute, playing a VJ doing a Kurt Loder report on herself. She also won the Best New Artist award, saying, “Stay safe and thank you, Mom.” Blackpink won Song of the Summer for “How You Like That,” which just makes you wish 2020 could have given Blackpink a summer worthy of this great song.
The night caught fire with the dumbest climax possible: ladies and gentlemen, the Black Eyed Peas, thawed with their neon light bars ready to go. They put out their MySpace Top 8 anthem “I Gotta Feeling” to evoke the bad old days of ten years ago, as if MTV was already trying to spin nostalgia for the era of GTL and lady lumps. What could sum up the quarantine era alienation as the Peas yelling “let’s burn the ceiling and do it again” with canned applause in an empty room?
Will.I.Am and his team were very happy to be there, finally making their VMA debut. As he explained on the red carpet: “You know when you’ve been around as long as the Peas, and you’ve sat in countless MTV seats, watching the Weezer and Green Day days, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and all of that. ages? And have you always wanted to be on stage? “I’m glad it means so much to them. For the rest of us, it was strangely joyful to remember how sad music was in 2010, and how far we’ve come since then, in a ridiculously generous musical year like this. It was a reminder That the music has at least improved, a sign of hope in these dark times Come back, Fergie, all is forgiven.
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