Seat-filling site 1iota.com is looking for Jonas Brothers fans to stuff the audience ranks for the boys’ Video Music Awards performance, and as if seeing their favorite Jersey-raised brothers isn’t enough of a carrot for these kids, the site hints that people selected to be in the audience will get to see what the site is billing as a “Top-Secret Finale.” (Caps theirs.) But which performer could actually shock the Red Bull-and-IM-frazzled children of today into being, well, surprised? Poll after the jump.
Sure, gossip pages around the world are hoping against hope that Britney Spears will come full circle from last year and have a big redemptive moment at this year’s Video Music Awards. More »
MTV announced two more slates of Video Music Awards nominations today, and while the nominees for Best Rock Video have a few OK contenders among them (Fall Out Boy’s “Beat It” cover, Paramore’s “crushcrushcrush”), a couple of the contenders for Video Of The Year–you know, the big prize–are worthy of a head-scratch or two. Sure, I can buy the idea of Britney Spears’ road to redemption culminating with her winning a moonman for her self-mocking “Piece Of Me” clip. And the Jonas Brothers’ “Burnin’ Up” isn’t groundbreaking, but those kids sure do know how to mobilize their fanbase. But the other three videos in the category would surely be considered also-rans in any other year. You’ve got Chris Brown’s stealth gum ad “Forever”; the Ting Tings’ “Shut Up And Let Me Go,” which looks like a film-school synthesis between the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” and that Justice clip that got nominated last year; and the Pussycat Dolls’ “When I Grow Up,” which is such a steaming piece of all-around garbage that I have to think there was some sort of coordinated street-team effort by Interscope to fool people into thinking that Nicole Scherzinger was still worthy of attention. All five clips are after the jump, so you can judge for yourself.
MTV is only confirming Lil Wayne and the Jonas Brothers as far as guests for the Sept. 7 Video Music Awards go, but you have to admit that Britney Spears looks pretty good flirting with host Russell Brand in the promos for the telecast. More »
More Video Music Awards nominations came down the pike on Friday night. Along with the Best New Artist category, which will pit sensations from different tween demographics (Miley Cyrus for the kids, Taylor Swift for the country girls, Tokio Hotel for the beauty-school aspirants) against each other, we have the Best Dancing In A Video category, which has dispensed with crediting the choreographers who came up with the honored routines as it ditched the word “choreography” from its name. What gives with that development, hm? If I were the person charged with making the Pussycat Dolls swing and sway in unison, I’d be a little bit cheesed off–especially since that means I’d have been charged with having to hear “When I Grow Up” all day as part of my job. Anyway, all the announced nominees so far are after the jump.
Deerhunter, King Khan, and the Black Lips on the Video Music Awards? You have to admit, whatever they’d bring to the ceremony would be a hell of a lot more cutting edge than any pseudo-sexy dance routine dreamed up by the Pussycat Dolls. More »
As sorta-predicted in this space Friday, MTV is using the Best Pop Video category in this year’s Video Music Awards to promote a big showdown between the morose Germans of Tokio Hotel and the fresh-faced American boys that make up the Jonas Brothers. Thanks to the online efforts of their fanbases, both bands have clips nominated in the Best Pop Video category, where they’ll do battle with the previously nominated Britney Spears, the shrillly omnipresent Danity Kane, and the more popular than their Soundscans might indicate Panic At the Disco. MTV has also announced the nominees for Best Hip-Hop video, and among them are the earth-shattering collaboration between Kanye West, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and Hype Williams and Flo Rida’s deathless “Low.” (Click on the moonman for the two categories’ full slates.)
As sorta-predicted in this space Friday, MTV is using the Best Pop Video category in this year’s Video Music Awards to promote a big showdown between the morose Germans of Tokio Hotel and the fresh-faced American boys that make up the Jonas Brothers. Thanks to the online efforts of their fanbases, both bands have clips nominated in the Best Pop Video category, where they’ll do battle with the previously nominated Britney Spears, the shrillly omnipresent Danity Kane, and the more popular than their Soundscans might indicate Panic At the Disco. MTV has also announced the nominees for Best Hip-Hop video, and among them are the earth-shattering collaboration between Kanye West, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and Hype Williams and Flo Rida’s deathless “Low.” (Click on the moonman for the two categories’ full slates.)
Inexplicably enigmatic German outfit Tokio Hotel has apparently snagged the first Video Music Awards nomination of its career, with the band’s clip for “Ready, Set, Go!” getting nominated in the Best Pop Video category. This victory-before-the-victory was no doubt assisted by the fact that Internet fan voting helped determine said division’s picks, what with Tokio Hotel fans rivaling only Jonas Brothers diehards in the current pantheon of “bands who have crazed, computer-equipped teen girl squads as their fanbases.” And hey, given that the Jonas Brothers have already been announced as a performer on the Sept. 7 broadcast, and that MTV–no stranger to the fans of those two bands waging war on behalf of their beloved musicians–wants the broadcast to make a Britney-sized ratings splash again this year, I suspect this is all going to lead up to some sort of wresting match. Or at least a hairdo-off of some kind. The “Ready, Set, Go!” clip is after the jump, just so you all know what we’ll be getting into a month from now.
The first sets of nominees for this year’s Video Music Awards were announced during FNMTV on Friday, and perhaps what’s most impressive is the fact that bubblegum star Chris Brown got nominated in both announced categories, despite one of them being Best Female Video. (His duet partner Jordin Sparks’ “No Air” got one of the nods.) But aside from that, the big, obvious question posed by both “Piece Of Me” and “I Kissed A Girl” being up for Best Female Video is this: Will Britney Spears be coaxed out of her hermitude and forced to kiss Katy Perry? And if the smooch does happen, does that mean the Madonna Curse will be passed on? We can only hope. The full list of nominees for Best Female Video and Best Male Video–complete with director info!–after the jump.
