2012 MTV Video Music Awards: Who Will Win Video Of The Year?
The day of the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards has finally arrived, and the big shebang will air live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles tonight at 8 p.m. EST on MTV. For those few of you who are still clueless as to who is up for what, let us catch you up. First, you can get a rundown of all the nominees here. We’ve also whipped up a handy viewer’s guide, so you know what to expect this evening.
We’ve also been offering up our thoughts on who will win and who should win in several big categories over the past week, including Best New Artist, Best Pop Video, Best Female Video and Best Male Video. That just leaves us with the biggie — Video Of The Year. Let’s take a closer look at those who stand to take home the most coveted Moonman of them all below.
VIDEO OF THE YEAR NOMINEES:
Drake featuring Rihanna — “Take Care”
Gotye featuring Kimbra — “Somebody That I Used To Know”
M.I.A. — “Bad Girls”
Katy Perry — “Wide Awake”
Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris — “We Found Love”
THOUGHTS ON THE NOMINEES: Here we have Drake and Rihanna’s minimalist black and white video for “Take Care” up against the visual for RiRi and Calvin Harris’ 2011 smash “We Found Love”. Yoann Lemoine directed the former and managed to perfectly capture the song’s moody tone. On the other hand, Melina Matsoukas got behind the lens for “We Found Love” and offered up an edgy, dazzling display that we didn’t quite expect — but were quite thrilled with, nonetheless.
No less of an art piece — quite literally — is Gotye’s clip for “Somebody That I Used To Know”. Director Natasha Pincus and skin illustrator Emma Hack spent a huge chunk of time making sure Gotye and duet partner Kimbra looked just right, so their naked, painted bodies could blend into the illustration in the background. The result: one of the most viewed videos, and one of the biggest hits, of the past year.
Elsewhere, Katy Perry’s final video of her Teenage Dream era, “Wide Awake”, has her entering a fairytale land, imparting wisdom to a younger version of herself an punching Prince Charming (aka ex-husband Russell Brand?) in the face. We’ll say this: the Tony T. Datis-directed visual was more memorable, and the song certainly a bigger hit, than Perry’s Part Of Me 3-D concert film was .
Finally we have M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls”, a video that plays like a scene out of Fast & Furious — if Fast & Furious had been shot in Morocco. The best bits of the Romain Gavras-directed clip have M.I.A. filing her nails while astride a moving car that’s tipped on its side and sitting inside a different glowing vehicle that’s cruising through the night with glass doors.
WILL WIN: The Video Of The Year Moonman is really Rihanna’s to lose. “We Found Love” proved to be a much bigger hit than “Take Care” and we’re thinking MTV will side with the singer’s Talk That Talk jam. But either way, score for RiRi!
SHOULD WIN: We’d actually love to see M.I.A. cause a big upset and take home the prize here. While “Bad Girls” is no less entertaining than “We Found Love”, dare we say it, we kind of think it trumps both “Wide Awake” and “Take Care”. At any rate, whatever the outcome, we’ll know in a few hours.
Who do you think will win Video Of The Year at the 2012 MTV VMAs? Let us know below, or by hitting us up on Facebook and Twitter!
