The MTV Video Music Awards are tonight at 9 p.m. ET. You can always count on this event to produce memorable moments, even in worst years. And this shouldn’t be a bad year. As the New York Times reported, music videos matter again! That’s due to YouTube rather than television, of course, but who cares, as long as we’re getting great work like Beyonce’s visual album Lemonade?
Ahead of the show, here are my previous blog posts inspired by the VMAs, dating back to 2007.
- Sept. 9, 2007: Britney Spears had a rough time at the 2007 VMAs. She’s going to be back — and hopefully much better — this year.
- Sept. 12, 2007: People were really nasty to Britney about that performance, so I had to write another post to tell ’em to leave Britney aloooooooooone. Unfortunately, I didn’t do that as memorably as a fan named Chris Crocker did.
- Sept. 24, 2007: While the VMAs were on my mind, I flashed back to Triumph the Insult Comic Dog confronting Jennifer Lopez about the size of her ass in 2001. If only Triumph the puppet had know the Kardashians were coming! He wouldn’t have been so impressed with J. Lo. By the way, Triumph and his comic puppeteer Robert Smigel are still around. He/they did an interview with Rolling Stone that mentions Triumph’s notorious confrontation with Eminem at the 2002 awards.
- Oct. 5, 2010: I suddenly realized that Kesha’s garbage-bag VMAs dress wasn’t a first. Debbie Harry of Blondie wore a garbage bag in 1980’s “Atomic” video.
- Feb. 13, 2011: Did I ever tell you I was at the VMAs in person in 2000 when Eminem did his iconic performance with a crowd of Slim Shady clones? This might be the first of my million mentions of that fact.
- Aug. 28, 2011: A flashback to 2003, when I also went to the VMAs. I still have the souvenir Moonman. And the dress!
- Aug. 29, 2011: This was the year of men in red pants at the VMAs.
- Nov. 21, 2011: A Kid Rock concert reminded me of being at the VMAs in person in 1999. That was a fucking awesome show. I listed the iconic moments in this post.
- Sept. 7, 2012: Pink, Miley Cyrus and Rihanna all rocked short hair at the 2012 VMAs.
- Aug. 25, 2013: I dug up my souvenir from the 2002 VMAs. I wonder if I can find an outfit photo? Believe it or not, there was once a time where we didn’t take outfit photos every day. Sometimes not even for a big event! But I should look around and see what I can find.
- Aug. 27, 2013: Oh, this was Miley Cyrus’s year! We were talking about her for weeks!
- Sept. 4, 2013: Things got so nuts about Miley that I did a Huffington Post story on the psychological reasons why we’re shocked — SHOCKED! — by certain behavior at first and then come to view it as iconic. I had more great content than I could fit in the Huffington Post piece so I put some of it on my blog.
*HERE’S MY 2013 HUFFINGTON POST STORY ON FADING AFFECT BIAS*
- Oct. 3, 2013: The revisionist history of Miley’s performance with Robin Thicke had already started by now, just as I predicted. And it continued. Does ANYONE care about Robin Thicke now? Meanwhile, Miley Cyrus is a coach on The Voice.
- Jan. 9, 2014: How a Neil Young got censored by MTV in 1988 for badmouthing commercialism, and later won “Best Video of the Year” at the 1989 VMAs.
- April 7, 2014: I annoyed Gloria Steinem and then ran off to a Miley Cyrus concert. The concert was planned. I didn’t do it in reaction to annoying Gloria, but I thought the juxtaposition was amusing. I wanted to see Miley because she was so hot from the previous year’s 2013 VMAs “scandal.”
- Oct. 26, 2014: Still doing my “I told you so” victory dance over Miley’s 2013 VMAs performance. The New York Times took notice of how Robin Thicke’s career had collapsed while Miley was going strong.
- July 23, 2015: When the 2015 VMA nominations came out, Taylor Swift had a lot of them and Nicki Minaj did not. Nicki had something to say about that and Taylor got all in her white-privilege feelings about that. Also, I took Swift-superfan MrB to a Taylor Swift concert. Never again.
- Aug. 30, 2015: A whole bunch of VMA invitations that I saved.
- Aug. 31, 2015: Oh damn! Nicki vs. Miley. “MILEY, WHAT’S GOOD?” Definitely the highlight of the 2015 VMAs.
I’ve got a pre-VMA flashback photo scheduled for before the show and I’ll do a Best Dressed/Wear What You Want post during or after the show. Stay tuned!