What happened to the VMAs?

As a lifelong scholar of pop music, I have always followed the MTV Video Music Awards, but it is getting harder every year to say they are contributing to cultural discourse the same way they once did. 

Historically, the VMAs have been a place where the artist you heard on the radio was able to become a character that played a role in culture. There was a reality TV-like quality to the interactions between these huge stars that played out like a Bravo show. They were human beings, just the most highly produced and exaggerated versions of themselves.

Most importantly, the show shaped culture. MTV determined what music and artists should have success. They were the tastemaker and culture curator because they used music videos to unite people under an artist's vision like never before.

However, that was when society was living in a monoculture. 

This year I was excited as ever to see what would happen at the VMAs. I wanted insane performances, looks so iconic they would be Halloween costumes and crazy moments we would tell the next generation about. But that is not exactly what we got.

The show opened with a performance by the queen of music videos, Madonna. As the most nominated artist of the night, she brought her “Confessions II - The Film” to life on stage with a massive set, an army of dancers and cameos from celebrities in the original video.

The performance felt unrehearsed and did not show the energy Madonna brings to all of her work, which brought the show down for me as a huge Madonna fan. Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX were the saving grace, though.

For the whole show, I was waiting to be wowed, but it never happened. 

The best moments of the night were when artists kept it simple but powerful.

LISA had one of my favorite performances of the night to her new song “SaWaDiKa.” It featured fierce dancing, martial arts and a life-sized tuk-tuk. She had my trust as a viewer that she knew what she was doing. She held my focus even when the set was chaotic. It felt like classic VMAs.

Another amazing performance I would watch again was GENER8ION and Yung Lean’s “Storm.” It brought the aggressive teenage angst of a futuristic boys boarding school to life. The performance was simple but packed with emotion, meaning and hypnotic choreography.

The most moving moment of the show was Kacey Musgraves singing “I Will Always Love You” in tribute to Dolly Parton. Again, it was simple and powerful and gave the audience what we wanted. I would highly recommend checking it out.

Madonna, despite her performance, brought the show up with her three unrehearsed acceptance speeches. She won Best Collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter for “Bring Your Love” and during the acceptance speech she explained how she got in contact with Sabrina through a DM. It was messy in the best way. 

There were some bad, if not just cringey moments. The George Michael tribute was weird, because why would Sombr and Teddy Swims have the biggest parts in a tribute to him? And Snoop Dogg’s hosting felt underwhelming. 

I think most of the artists up for awards were over the whole thing when they realized if you were not Madonna or Taylor Swift, you would not be winning anything.

The only other people that won were LISA for Best Pop and Sienna Spiro for Best New Artist. 

The shady cuts to Charli XCX and PinkPantheress serving absolute ‘who cares!’ energy during Madonna’s and Taylor’s speeches say it all.

A VMA is not the most prestigious award. You do not need one to achieve EGOT. But they are fan-voted, and that means a lot when you look to them as a record of pop music. This year felt like there was voter fraud.

Music visuals are supposed to bring us into the world an artist has crafted with their music. Some of the artists that masterfully used music visuals this year were overlooked.

Slayyyter had an incredible breakthrough this year with her visual album “WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA” She made music videos and imagery integral to the pathos of the album. Her success benefited from the Lynchian and American independent cinema-inspired imagery. It is truly a modern pop era defined by the visual.

Zara Larsson’s Midnight Sun era and rebrand was launched by capitalizing on a Lisa Frank dolphin meme, yet her adept use of pop culture to create visuals was not rewarded either.

Overall, the show was not super memorable. I felt that the VMAs were celebrating their own iconography within culture rather than pushing the music industry forward with their curation of taste.

The age of social media has made it hard for the music video to serve the same purpose it once did. Now artists can tell fans directly what their vision is for a project and use music visuals as a ploy for virality.

MTV ran its last music video not long after last year's VMA ceremony, which was actually good. But there is a sense that they are trying to maintain the same relevancy and their strategies are missing the mark. 

The premiere of Taylor Swift’s “Patient Zero” music video and the made-up lifetime achievement award given to her felt empty.

She has directed some incredible music videos, but there are other artists who would be more deserving of an award meant for artists who direct their own videos. Madonna, even though I love her, was also given awards and praise that felt out of place for this year. 

I believe the VMAs wanted to give awards to artists they have had a part in making dominators of culture. Madonna is the Queen of Pop and a VMAs favorite, and Taylor is the most awarded artist in history and the biggest artist of the moment.

So to me it was an attempt from them to fortify their place in the zeitgeist by showing that the stars they helped to make are still the brightest.

Many cultural authorities like Vogue and other print media, cable TV, professional critics and even universities are losing their grip on power because of social media and the internet. 

Now popularity and cultural worth have become democratized, and a group of people sitting in a boardroom cannot make all the decisions for society.

But when these established groups do things for their own interests and make weird decisions, it breaks the illusion that kept them in power. 

I do not know if there is a happy medium of establishment and individuality to control culture or if they are mutually exclusive. What I do know is I want my VMAs back. 

There is too much new talent and boundary-pushing art to not reward it. We as pop music fans have to create new legends of culture.