Just a reminder that tonight I’ll be live-blogging this year’s MTV Video Music Awards beginning at 8 p.m. ET, and in what I guess is an upgrade from my normal live-blogging stations on various couches around the country, tonight’s transmissions will be coming to you live from the awards’ “media compound” on-site in New York City. And in what is either someone playing a joke on the Internet or a last-ditch effort to drum up some buzz for the telecast, a “winners list” that’s heavy on the GaGa leaked yesterday. It’s naturally been discounted by the network’s house organ, but it’ll sure be useful as a cheat sheet for tonight! Check it out after the jump. More »
In addition to letting slip that Jay-Z and Alicia Keys would grace this year’s Video Music Awards with a performance of their collaboration “Empire State of Mind,” MTV has announced more additions to its roster of presenters for Sunday night’s broadcast; among them are Canadian cutie Justin Bieber, Shakira, Pete Wentz, Gabe Saporta, Jack Black, and… Jennifer Lopez. Jennifer Lopez, really? I guess she still counts as a music-related celebrity—and who knows, maybe she’s prepping for a very belated deluxe reissue of the floptastic Brave! The night’s roster of performers and presenters after the jump. More »
Beyoncé has been added to the lineup of the Sept. 13 Video Music Awards, where she’ll join her husband Jay-Z, as well as Green Day, Muse, Taylor Swift, P!nk, and Lady GaGa. Also, the VMAs are bringing back that “house band” idea where lesser lights of the music galaxy collaborate with one act as the show goes into interstitial moments—the house band is the D.C. go-go outfit the Uncalled 4 Band (a.k.a. UCB), and it’ll be led by tourmate and fellow Washingtonian Wale while collaborating with with The All-American Rejects, Pitbull, and 3OH!3 over the course of the evening. (See what I meant about “lesser lights” there?) A performance of the UCB and Wale collaborating on “Sexy Lady” after the jump. More »
Dave Itzkoff at the New York Times notes that the Video Music Awards aren’t the first 2009 awards show to incorporate the classic musical West Side Story: “Didn’t we see a “West Side Story” parody, complete with topical satirical lyrics, performed on another award show at Radio City Music Hall (by a singer who doesn’t need any assistance from Auto-Tune) like two months ago?” he asks, referring to the Tonys. Host (and recently minted American Idol guest judge) Neil Patrick Harris did, in fact, close out the show with his own version of “Tonight,” which can only lead this observer to wonder if that parallelism is a sign that we’ll be in for a Very Special Semi-Accidental Decapitation Of Bret Michaels on Sept. 13. [ArtsBeat / Earlier] More »
My love for Ne-Yo propelled me all the way through the one-minute mark of the musical tribute to Leonard Bernstein and the Video Music Awards’ dubious honors, despite the musical instruments underneath him echoing in such a way that I wondered if they’d been recorded in one of the redbird trains being repurposed as reefs, then piped up to sea level using an intricately designed system of tin cans. But then Katy Perry came in at the 1:18 mark, wielding garden shears and sounding like an unfortunately winded Bjork, and suddenly hearing all about Johan Santana’s bone chips sounded like a somewhat appealing alternative! What about you? [YouTube] More »
I mean, an ad that’s framed as a duel between Cobra Starship and Ne-Yo? I know I’m a little out of your target demo, but it seems like I would at least enjoy those two artists facing off. And yet. And yet. The latest West Side Story-themed ad for the Sept. 13 Video Music Awards is a trainwreck of epic proportions—an achievement, I suppose, given that it’s only 30 seconds long, but. What are those synthesizer horns at the end? They’re not “triumphant” as much as they are “demo track on a Casio keyboard that some production assistant found molding in a corner of the basement.” Please, for the love of God. Stop it. Or at least get Matt Parker & Trey Stone to show you how to properly write an homage to the art of the musical. The clip after the jump. More »
The just-released ad for the Video Music Awards placed after the jump, featuring Cobra Starship and Gossip Girl starlet Leighton Meester, will apparently be the “first of many West Side Story-inspired VMA promos,” according to the clip’s caption. Is it super-condescending to ask how many members of the MTV target demo have even heard of the Laurents/Bernstein/Sondheim musical about inter-gang and racial tensions? Probably. But that doesn’t make the decision to theme this year’s Video Music Awards after a 52-year-old musical any less strange. Perhaps there will be a Very Special Episode of Parental Control in order to bridge the generational gap. More »
An article from the still-vaguely-interested-in-music channel MTV’s news arm runs down a few potential sources of “inspiration” for the Video Music Awards performance of kleptomaniacal pop star Lady GaGa, who along with Jay-Z was just announced as a performer on the Sept. 13 broadcast. More »
Perhaps realizing that a good chunk of the people who still care about its brand wouldn’t know a 3OH!3 from a GaGa, MTV has added a new, retro-tastic category to this year’s Video Music Awards: Best Video That Should Have Won A Moonman, in which an overlooked clip from years gone by gets its space-statue due. (I do wonder if the presentation of said award will be shown on VH1, if only because it can then be blown out into an hour-long special about Loving The Videos That Lost At The Video Music Awards or somesuch.) There are 10 clips up for this honor, and they hail from eras as long-ago as MTV’s earliest days and as recent as the YouTube Age. My biases in this category are probably given away by the above screen grab, but you might think* differently! More »
Nominees for the 2009 Video Music Awards, which will be presented on Sunday, Sept. 13 in New York City:
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