One year after singlehandedly driving MTV’s Video Music Awards into the ground with a disastrous and dazed performance, Britney Spears returned to the VMA stage last Sunday to inject the flagging awards show with something she almost completely stripped from it — relevance. Appearing at the top of the show in a comedic skit with Superbad actor Jonah Hill, Spears appeared happy, healthy and (perhaps most relieving of all, after last year) sober.
This year marked the 25th anniversary of the VMAs, although besides a quick mention by Spears, there was little made of what should have been a monumental event that has hosted several marquee performances from the likes of Madonna, Prince and Spears herself. Rather than have the originals perform, MTV was content to allow Katy Perry of “I Kissed A Girl” fame to wrestle “Like a Virgin” and have Miley Cyrus perform “Livin’ on a Prayer” (yes, really) in an unfunny skit designed to promote the “Rock Band” game.
Host Russell Brand has quickly become the focal point of all talk about this year’s show.
After a series of hilarious promotional spots with Spears and LL Cool J, anticipation was high that he would deliver. He did deliver — however, not exactly in the way planned. Oozing a sort of wackiness that MTV used to breathe, Brand attacked President Bush, plugged Sen. Barack Obama and made mincemeat out of teen sensations the Jonas Brothers. It was Brand’s running joke about the Brothers’ virginity — which they have used to market themselves, not totally unlike Spears circa 2000 — that has become the VMA must-see moment of 2008.
Brand’s special kind of wackiness steered the show, which veered from mediocrity to brilliance in the course of two hours. Several acts such as Perry, Lupe Fiasco, The Ting Tings and LL had their performances cut out by commercials, so when the show returned, they were nearly finished. With the show in Los Angeles, for the first time in 10 years, MTV attempted to use the studio lots of television and movie productions as the stages of several performances. Only P!nk, singing her brand new glam-rock single “So What,” was able to take full advantage of the format. Staging explosions left and right, she roused the crowd with a shot of adrenaline that unfortunately was missing for much of the show.
The main stage was filled throughout the night with performances from Lil Wayne (who also performed awkwardly with Kid Rock later), Paramore (who rocked through “Misery Business” in their best early No Doubt impression) and a goth-esque Christina Aguilera, who slinked her way through an electro-remix of “Genie in a Bottle” before launching into her new single, “Keeps Getting Better.”
By the time the Video of the Year award rolled around, Britney had already picked up two earlier awards for her “Piece of Me” video, Tokio Hotel had won Best New Artist, Chris Brown had collected the Best Male Video for “With You” and Linkin Park had earned a sneer from former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash when they won Best Rock Video. The award went to Miss Spears again, and she was sure to thank her fans yet again for their continued support.
Kanye West was called in to close the show, and he did not disappoint. Dressed in a simple suit, Kanye stood almost still while he ripped his newest song, “Love Lockdown” (think a rave-inspired “Lollipop”). Cementing his one-in-a-million status, West wowed the crowd with his dramatic backdrop of space-inspired effects and pure showmanship. It marked an exhilarating end to a show that often lacked direction and perhaps relied too heavily on the resurrection of Spears.
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