Last night at the Video Music Awards, American Idol winner Jordin Sparks veered from the script to defend herself against the incessant mocking of the Jonas Brothers’ vows of chastity by host Russell Brand. “I just have one thing to say about promise rings. It’s not bad to wear a promise ring, because not everybody–guy or girl–wants to be a slut,” she said as an amused John Legend looked on. Sparks is a promise ring wearer herself; she chatted up her no-sex stance in the weeks after winning Idol, and she toiled in the Christian-pop scene before singing in front of Randy, Paula, Simon, and America. But is her dissent, and the somewhat positive reaction it’s been getting in the VMA afterglow, a harbinger of a less sexed-up world of pop music? And was it only a matter of time?
Oh HI! It’s dickdogfood. I welcome you to Idolator’s liveblog of the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. Now before I became a quasi-anonymous commentator legend, I was known as Michael Daddino. (I still am, in certain obscure circles.) Once, during that long-gone era, I watched 24 hours of MTV and wrote about it on the internet in real-time; thus the concept of the liveblog was forged in the smithy of my soul. And today I return to my old stomping grounds, all Proverbs 26:11-style, to point and laugh at…well, what’s it going to be today, kiddies? What’s it gonna be? Contrite Britney? Egotasmic Kanye? The JoBros making their inevitable Fleet Foxes move? Nickleodeon crossovers? Candidate cameos? Overrehearsed spontaneity? Underwhelming medleys? Regrettable covers? A smidge of actual entertainment? Yes, we are likely to get them all: the stars will it so. The handwringing and the laughter begin after the jump.
Sure, in the long run, “which artists had to take moonmen home from tonight’s Video Music Awards ceremony” is probably a meaningless statistic on the level of, say, “almost-no-hitters in Mets history,” but admit it, you want to know if Paramore beat out Fall Out Boy or if both of them got robbed by Linkin Park I MEAN COME ON YOU GUYS–uh, I mean, full list of winners after the jump.
While we wait for comments to get fixed, those of you who would like to comment on Mike’s fine liveblogging of the night can chat here, at least until we hit 100 posts, at which point I guess we’ll go into thread No. 3? More »
Since MTV’s Video Music Awards-related Twitter feed has lain dormant for the past seven months, I’ve decided to pick up the slack–and get you all ready for our liveblog, which starts at 8 p.m. ET– by updating Idolator’s account on the microblogging service with notes from the red carpet. More »
We have about 52ish hours until Britney Spears trades on her recent notoriety to open the 25th-anniversary installment of MTV’s Video Music Awards, and like last year, you are all invited to watch with Idolator as we break down the goings-on–and, maybe, break down–in real time. So do come back at 8 p.m. ET for the pregame show and the live broadcast, which starts at 9! Sadly, I will not be handling live-blogging duties as a) I was only given a red-carpet pass, and not access to watch the broadcast being simulcast; and b) even if I did high-tail it back to my hotel room really really fast, the damn thing doesn’t air on the West Coast until 9 p.m. PT. But I’ve handed over the task to someone who’s more than capable: Our own Dickdogfood, who pioneered the art of the MTV liveblog all the way back in 2001, which is like forever ago in Internet time.
ARTIST: Christina Aguilera
TITLE: “Keeps Gettin’ Better”
WEB DEBUT: Sept. 5, 2008
Those of you who have been following the run-up to Sunday’s Video Music Awards as closely as I not only have my sympathies, you have confirmation of your suspicions: Britney Spears, she of last year’s botched show opener and this year’s elephantine teaser ads, will once again appear in the… More »
For better or worse, no one covers the innumerable amount of awards given to producers of cultural product than the Los Angeles Times, and this weekend, two of their bloggers made their predictions for Video Of The Year award at this Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards. However, some sort of gas must have been leaking into the Times‘ cubicle farm that day, since both of them picked the Pussycat Dolls’ scaffolding-happy clip for “When I Grow Up” to pick up the top prize.
The kids from High School Musical, the continually overrated Scarlett Johansson, and the guy who played McLovin’ have been added to the Video Music Awards’ lineup of presenters. More »
