Song of the day:
Video of the day:
Too Old for the VMAs
Last night I recorded then watched the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs). I haven’t watched it in a number of years but I heard that Ed Sheeran was going to perform so I decided to check it out.
Ed was fantastic, which was not shocking. His new music is soooo good. But he was one of only a handful of artists I cared anything about. The other performances that were highlights for me included Foo Fighters - who were honored with the Global Icon award, Alicia Keys, and, randomly, Busta Rhymes. All those performances were amazing. I actually enjoyed Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes as well, but I fast forwarded through most of the show.
It’s been a long time since I cared about who performed or who won, but I usually check out one or two of the performances online after the fact. It’s just not for me anymore. I realized that when they made a big deal about celebrating the 40-year anniversary of MTV and brought out performers from prior decades like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Avril Lavigne, members of NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and 98 Degree, and so on. I realized I was more excited about those presenters than anything they were presenting about.
It’s wild that MTV is 40 years old. I was a teenager when it debuted and I remember it vividly - Video Killed the Radio Star. For years it was THE thing to do; wake up in the morning and watch MTV, come home and watch MTV, talk about the videos you saw with your friends at school. It was all music videos then, not like now when you’re hard pressed to actually find a video on one of their channels.
MTV was mostly about pop music in the beginning, as well as rock. I remember there was some kind of hard rock/metal show that aired late at night, but it wasn’t for me. I also remember when they started airing hip hop videos. Again, they had a show that highlighted those videos. At some point they started to mix it all up, which was cool because you were exposed to a lot of different music.
I remember they used to play videos all day on Christmas - every holiday video known to man from Bing Crosby and David Bowie to Wham! to every video created from the Very Special Christmas albums. It was great. I waited all year to see that Bing Crosby/David Bowie collaboration. Truly one of the greatest things ever. In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here you go.
I don’t know exactly when they stopped being strictly a video channel; maybe it was when they started airing The Real World in 1992, but it feels like it happened before then. I don’t know. I guess maybe I stopped watching when I went to college because there was no cable TV in the dorms. I just know that now I pretty much only see videos on YouTube. Maybe it was inevitable once the internet came along, but still, the network is literally called MUSIC television and very little of their content is music.
But even without the all-day videos, there have always been the VMAs. Like many music-related award shows they’ve become all about the performances, especially collaborations you wouldn’t get anywhere else. Sure, they hand out a few awards, but most of the awards are given outside of the main ceremony. So it’s really just about seeing people play their hit songs, which now mostly includes songs that aren’t on my daily playlist. And the gap between what’s on my playlist and what’s on the show gets bigger every year. Because apparently, I’ve become too old for the VMAs.