…Oh and Gaga bleeds profusely from her breasts…
Unless you’ve been living under a rock and still think Serena’s verbal barrage on a referee with a penchant for tennis ball dinners is big news, you’ve no doubt heard about Kanye earning his doctorate in Douche-ology last night. In fact, he even took an honorary minor in Pathetic-of-his-rocker-batshit-stupid with his outstanding display of classlessness when he stole the mic from sweet Taylor Swift during the acceptance of her first MTV Video Music Award at the ripe age of 17.
First of all, I’m not a huge Taylor Swift fan. I don’t necessarily have anything bad to say about her, but I’m just not a huge fan like the bazillions of others who made her album the highest selling of the year. After this incident, however, I felt nothing but love for the girl. If she wasn’t big enough already, this definitely solidified her skyrocketing star power…EXPONENTIALLY.
I have never been on board with Kanye. I feel like the level of unabashed cocky confidence that he exudes is something that no one has the right to obtain. You write songs that are acclaimed and you know what you’re doing - you are by no means the second coming of Jesus in the form of a rapper that thinks he can sing and also thinks that the MTV Video Music Awards are the pinnacle of artistic recognition in the music industry. Might I point out that the award is a silver moon man?
By the end of the show, Kanye’s young apprentice in douche-baggery, Lil Mama (her confirmation name), crashed Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ performance by randomly and quite awkwardly joining them for the last few seconds of the song.
Now on to the good - and there was a whole hell of a lot of it in the form of Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Pink. Each of these women upped the metaphorical ante to a level that Britney Spears once thought was capped when she wore a skin colored body suit to perform a raunchy version of “Oops…I did it again”…call me when the body suit starts bleeding from the tits and then maybe you’ll get your crown back.
Beyonce, not surprisingly, sang “Single Ladies,” the song whose accompanying video ended up winning Video of the Year at the end of the night. Not only did she sing it, but she nearly set the stage on fire as Sascha Fierce strutted her perfect unitard-emblazoned frame down the stage only to be joined with an entire crew of female dancers. The energy, the audience involvement, and the collective hand-flipping routine were all in a league of their own - she tore it up.
Lady Gaga opened up laying on the ground wearing what seemed to be a body-doily while singing a slow chorus of “Poker Face.” The song quickly transitioned into her next single, “Paparazzi,” which got a fairly matter-of-fact performance much like its video. Gaga screamed and danced her face off until she took a spread-eagled seat at her piano for some classical accompaniment. As she stood up from the piano, the performance went from interesting to unbelievably captivating as her bra started to erupt a waterfall of “blood”. The screaming turned into moans of pain as her dancers connected her to an arm harness that then lifted her above the audience, bloody and backlit by an angelic light. The metaphor was painted pretty blatantly, but it is the blatant nature of the performance that made it most effective. I have no doubt that the people in the audience that though she was off her rocker were the cast of The Hills, The City and most likely J-Lo as they all don’t seem like they would get the connection to their own weave-filled lives…(WTF J-Lo?!).
Let me also briefly touch on Lady Gaga’s “outfits.” When she first started dominating the scene, every report and blog commented on her outrageous style. At the time, the style was definitely outrageous, but it was interesting (spiky shoulder pads, robotic looks and bubble body suits…). Now, she has just completely lost it. I get that she is doing everything for her art and to express herself, but it’s at the point now where the art is being completely muddied by ridiculous outfits and accessories. If she wants her art to be taken seriously, she could start by not wearing a bird’s nest on her face - or perhaps even showing her face instead of covering it with a full-facial red sars mask. Each of her 4 outfits for the night were absolutely insane - save for her performance costume, which was surprisingly the most conservative of them all. What makes me angrier is that she probably loves that people are talking about it - her ‘art’ is sparking dialogue. Gaga, I like you and your music, just take a breather.
Pink hands down stole the show. She stole it, ran with it and shoved it down Serena Williams’ throat. I had heard a slight teaser about how she was going to be performing while suspended above the stage. There didn’t seem to be anything too crazy sounding about this, but I knew that it would be enjoyable nonetheless. Boy was I surprised when she sang “Sober” whilst not only being suspended above stage, but while also performing and entire acrobatic free-falling routine. This bitch is fearless and I have NOTHING but the utmost respect for how she treats her work and how she represents herself as a performer and someone in the spotlight. My love for Pink was only dramatically increased when I saw her tweet after the show:
Kanye west is the biggest piece of shit on earth. Quote me.
Done and done.
Finally, I need to give a much-deserved honorable mention to Janet, who TORE IT UP while singing “Scream,” her 90s duet with her brother, Michael. I’m a huge fan of the song, so when this part of the MJ tribute arrived, I, for lack of a better phrase, completely lost my shit. I’m sure this performance was far from easy for her, and although she seemed to struggle SLIGHTLY in the dance solo, she still sold it. And the way they edited her out of the original video and filmed it as if she was dancing next to Michael was one of the most brilliant things I have seen since I saw the news that Ellen was joining American Idol.
Well done VMAs. You redeemed yourself for last year’s absolute trainwreck. GTFO, Kanye, Madonna looked crazy and why the hell was Faye Dunaway there?
