Himillsy on the VMAs

Check back soon for my post on inorganic seminal moments through the entertainment industry and why we need them.

Did you watch the Video Music Awards last night? If not, count yourself among the majority of non-pre-adolescents nationwide who would like to confiscate my irony card. I love the VMAs and I watch them every year. I love the glitzy overproduction, the self-congratulatory cluelessness of MTV (which seems to honestly believe that it is still relevant), and the potential for Something Awesome Happening, even though it rarely ever does. For me, MTV is that friend I loved in high school but can no longer remember why, and the VMAs are the coffee we have once a year, to make sure we keep in touch anyway.

Last night’s VMAs, though, were something different. Its music sounded like my house. The top awards went to hip-hop artists all, save a politically charged pop-punk band and a geeky white girl whose anthem somehow became the indie darling du jour to cover. Winter and I don’t claim to be huge fans of any of the winners –he’s a Springsteen and indie hip-hop fan; I veer towards the indie pop mainstays—but when we want to feel a little less lonely and weird, we put on the music that we heard last night: Kanye. The Game. Green Day. Kelly Clarkson.

Of course we do, you could argue. That’s what we’re sold. Well, almost. How many of the crappy, overexposed songs we were supposed to adore actually won anything? After all the money spent promoting Gwen Stefani’s atrocious and *adorably* racist album, the one with the song you couldn’t escape if you locked yourself in an iron box, Gwen walked away with a fashion award and nothing else. Same goes for Lindsay Lohan’s vanity project, My Chemical Romance’s gimmicky preening, and Ashlee Simpson’s triumph over acid reflux. In the end, the credit went to the hard workers and true talents, the Missy Elliotts and Green Days (who’ve been together for 16 years), not the usual suspects that earn MTV their bucks.

More than anything, last night’s awards were a commentary on the evolution of music. When the late Biggie Smalls sang “whoever thought that hip-hop would take it this far?” over a lilting orchestra, he had by far the best –and most relevant- performance of the night (even with the words “World Trade” bleeped from the 1994 single). The entire evening revolved around hip-hop culture –from Lil Kim’s drop-in before prison to freestyle by Common to a post-conviction soliloquy from R. Kelly. The “surprise” guests, ranging from MC Hammer to 2 Live Crew’s Luke to Grandmaster Flash, were throwbacks to an earlier age in music, when hip-hop was considered by a white mainstream to be a novelty act, and not the centerpiece of the music industry.

Maybe that’s why everyone was having so much fun. The Black Eyed Peas, who weren’t nominated for anything (shame. Will.I.Am’s social commentary lends gravity to The Future Soundtrack for America), rocked out to their favorites from their seats, as did Kanye West, who mouthed the lyrics to Ludacris’ ode to male whoredom. Even Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx (himself once a novelty act) took the stage to perform an overdramatic “Golddigger” with West. By the time that Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong noted, “It’s great to know that rock still has a place at MTV,” I was having fun, too. Pop was dead! Rock lived on! Hip-hop was king, and women like Missy Elliott were equally honored without having to show nipple! MTV didn’t suck!

And then I went to work this morning with my iRiver playing the familiar mix: Supposed Greatest Rock Band in America Sleater-Kinney’s new album, The Woods; Talib Kweli’s The Beautiful Struggle; and the demos and scratchy live recordings of indies across the country. I’d been suckered again. When I get home tonight, MTV will have already resumed its 55,897^th airing of the Pussycat Dolls video sandwiched between two episodes of Date My Mom. The ratio of accessible good music to profitable music will remain at 1:815071507. And I’ll keep making excuses for a network that gave up on real credibility when I was listening to mixtapes.

But we go way back, you know?