The 2010 VMA's were pretty much a snooze fest.
I was pretty bored by most of the performances. Here is what I thought of them:
Advertising marked "Eminems great comeback" If I were Eminem, and this were my great comeback, I think maybe a little shock and awe would be necessary... I'm Eminem for crying out loud. The two songs he has busting through the charts are two of the greatest he has ever created. Not to mention who pulls off controversial better than Em??? I don't mean it has to be all Borat sticking his ass in his face to pull off some stupid fake fight, but the craziest part of the performance was Rihanna's hair...
Justin Bieber... Oh my little buddy, how adorable is he??? Too bad every live performance is the same thing. Bieber, while being a teen sensation, is still really a one hit wonder at this point. He has multiple songs out, so why not spice it up a bit and do that? We all know Sean Kingston was on site, why not do "Eenie Meenie" with him... THAT would have been something we all hadn't seen before like promised... instead of "Baby" and a drum solo (We just saw that last week on the re-run of Oprah)
Usher very easily could have taken best performance of the night... but later acts stole the show. Not to mention the back up track sang most of the performance for him. While breathing heavy from all the dancing into the mic, it was still obvious there was a bit of lip syncing going on here. With that being said, I am a sucker for dancers. It all comes from a lack of being able to dance myself. So watching Usher becomes sort of hypnotic for me. His dancing, his dancers, the lights and how perfectly spot on his moves were was amazing and beautiful. "O.M.G." is a fun song, not exactly my favorite, but when i hear it i stop and listen... I'm not a fan of "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love" though.
I was a little confused by the Florence and the Machine performance, though that doesn't mean I didn't like it. I really enjoyed how her setup had her performing more for us fans at home and not necessarily for everyone inside the Nokia Theater. Its a great song and her outfit was beautiful, though the dancers, like in the video, slightly creeped me out. But once again that doesn't mean I didn't like it. I rate this best performance of the night. It was different, and theatrical and gave me goosebumps. It made me go "wtf is going on" and I loved that.
Taylor Swift... blah blah blah. After last years VMA's I felt sorry for Taylor for like a whole 2 minutes. When I heard she would be performing this year's VMAS with a song she wrote about last years, I was excited. Mainly because I wanted to see the anger or something from her that would lead to a song that wasn't about princesses or high school love or everything else that make all of her songs so immature. The set up for the song, really cool. Taylor's look, really sophisticated and grown up. The song? BORING. Taylor looked and sounded like she was struggling through it. I'm very happy with the grown up aspect of the song, after all it was what I wanted to see. But for something she claims to have written about Kanye, its seemed really hypocritical telling Kanye he had a lot of growing up to do... I dunno. Maybe I expected too much.
Drake gets my vote for worst performance of the night (Well worst performance during the actual awards show... Nicki Manaj is a whole 'nother story) . Mary J. Blige always ruins things. This performance could have been HUGE for Drake and his breakthrough into the music scene. I think it was a classy performance ( until Drake shouted out "Free Weezy!" at the end) and big names like Mary J Blige should be huge. But shes the type of artist who needs her own stage. Her need to carry out a note for 10 minutes makes her upstage whoever is with her, and not in a good way. I would have enjoyed a lot more rap from Drake. I hope to see better in the future.
I'll admit it. I am obsessed with B.O.B. Especially "Airplanes" my last.fm usually has B.O.B as one of my top artists of the week, and you can pretty much bet the number of times I've listened to "Airplanes" is the number of times last.fm says I've listened to the artist. I was really excited when B.O.B was announced as part of the Paramore performance. It only seemed right that "Airplanes" get a little bit of the spotlight from the night, so I'm glad they fit it in. The simplistic approach to just Bruno Mars and the piano and then B.O.B and then eventually Haley made for a great performance between the artist. Haley looked awkward in the chosen outfit, and she stood out tremendously after joining up with the rest of Paramore." Only Exception" seemed like a very anti-climatic finish to a great build up of the three chosen songs.
I wasn't even aware Linkin Park was still a band... and after their VMA performance... maybe they shouldn't be. There is a lot of talent in that band stemming from all different areas... yet I've never felt that potential has been met. The best thing the band has done was mash their songs with Jay-Z. The setup was spectacular I'll give them that. Using the Griffith Observatory as a backdrop was a great idea. The new song, "The Catalyst" however felt like it was created to fit in and not follow the normal Linkin Park feel. I hope the lack of the "rap-metal" (i hate that term by the way) vibe in "The Catalyst" isn't what we should expect from the new album. Otherwise, they really shouldn't still be a band.
Kanye, Kanye, Kanye. I loved the performance. The song was good, but the white stage, red outfit combo of the performance made it. I had said the song went on "This is my favorite performance this evening... best for last" then he turned on the auto-tunes. DAMNIT KANYE! Don't give in to such nonsense. Lyrically, the song said a lot about his past year and I think the chorus let us all know, he's still Kanye, and he's not about to let us down. I think out of all the performances, Kanye's performance was the only one that made me want to see more. Like if I didn't know who any one of 9 performances (10 if you count Paramore and B.O.B seperate) were, Kanye would be the one I'd seek out afterwards.
