Let’s be honest, we watch the video music awards for everything except, well, the awards. The 2014 MTV VMAs are no different. The awards provided a perfectly adequate way to end your Sunday night. The theme of the night was sex. Eveybody was selling it and from the looks of the performances, business is good.
The show opened with Ariana Grande (and her ponytail. sigh) singing her newest single, “Break Free.” The fresh-faced songstress belted her hit with all the strength and power of a new age Mariah Carey. Her set flowed into a provocative and super-sexed performance of “Anaconda”. Nicki Minaj stuffed all of her … umm… assets into a pair of green bedazzled shorts that left very little to the imagination. She grinded, wined, rolled and twerked so hard that it would make Miley Cyrus blush. She barely even had time to change outfits. She strutted her stuff out on stage “wearing” a black dress that she had to hold together to prevent a nip-slip. Jessie J joined Nicki and Ariana on stage to sing what I think might be the summer anthemn, “Bang Bang”. Jessie’s voice… if you aren’t familiar with Jessie J’s music, I’ll forgive you if you stop reading and go to youtube.
Most of the show consisted of me asking my friends, “who is that?” I think I may be getting old. 5 Seconds of Summer, Fifth Harmony, Becky G… who are these kids? Well, whoever they are, congratulations on whatever it is you were doing on the show last night.
Peppered throughout the night were familiar faces. Usher brought his fancy footwork, but left his falsetto elsewhere. He performed his new single, “She Came to Give It To Me”, but struggled to perform the high pitched patched at par with the studio version. He should have sang “Good Kisser”. Also, it was a perfectly average Usher performance.
The most anticipated part of the evening was Beyonce. According to the rumors, Beyonce had a secret remix to “Blow” and would be performing it tonight with Rihanna. Another one was that Beyonce was reuniting the original Destiny’s Child for a throwback medley of their greatest hits. But none of that happened. Beyonce sung the majority of her latest album and like she always does, nailed every note and hit every choreographed dance move with precision. At the end of her set, her husband Jay Z, with their baby Blue Ivy in hand, presented Queen Bey with the Michael Jackson Vanguard award. It was definitely hard to hold in your “Awww” as Baby Blue clapped for her mother.
Overall, the awards were just okay. I think my expectations are still too high for shows like this. They never quite seem to measure up. Last night was a sexplosion of expic proportions. Is that really where our music is goin? Please God, say no. If you missed it, just wait, MTV will air it again and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
