day 301

the vma's

taylor swift doesn't care about black people. okay, that's not true, but that's all i could think of last night when kanye west rushed the vma stage during taylor swift's acceptance speech for "female video of the year." if you didn't get a chance to see the moment, here it is.

taylor looked dumbfounded and beyonce looked mortified. way to go, kanye. way to go. kanye and his lady friend, amber rose, were escorted out of radio city music hall soon after the debacle, but that didn't stop from people booing kanye anytime his name was mentioned for the rest of the show. this morning, pink popped up on the today show and got a chance to talk about her thoughts on the whole situation, managing to call kanye a toolbox in the process. here's the video.

i liked pink before, but now i like her even better. pink was able to rock radio city last night do, doing a crazy cirque du solei style take on her hit "sober." after this, i don't want to see any star lip sync because if pink can fling her body around in the air while singing live, britney spears should be able to, too. she's just doing a little choreography. pink was risking her life.

pink wasn't the only star to perform or stand up for miss swift, either. beyonce took the stage to perform the routine from "video of the year" hit "single ladies."

my only complaint with the performance is that beyonce chose the closest tone-deaf girl in the audience for the audience participation portion. or should i say sasha fiece chose the girl? i don't know. anyway, over all the performance was ridiculous but some more effects - like in the solo in the beginning - would have been cooler to watch. plus, the back-up track was kind of annoying when beyonce decided to just focus on choreography and not at least pretend to sing. we've all seen the routine umm...i don't know? umpteen times. mix it up and sing! or add some new steps, please. i wonder if she's tired of this choreography yet. i know i would be. when "single ladies" took home the night's top moon man, beyonce was the ever-gracious recipient and gave up her speech time to give taylor her vma moment.

that really is a once-in-a-lifetime, first time experience and beyonce gave taylor exactly what she needed and deserved. if you didn't like beyonce before, you most definitely do now. though, taylor's speech 2.0 really didn't add anything to what she got to say the first time, so it was kind of a lost moment. kanye attempted to apologize for what he did on his official blog by saying he didn't mean to take the attention away from taylor, but was just trying to give credit to the appropriate artist...um, that's the same thing kanye. he also proceded to remind up that when he won his moon man, he gave it away to outkast because they deserved it over him. dear kanye, what you think is right is not necessarily the popular outcome. people have opinions. this is a viewers choice award...you should have voted for beyonce if you really wanted her to win. people most likely chose taylor - and britney spears in the "pop video" category - over beyonce because they knew they were voting for her to take home the top prize. duh.

okay, the other memorable person from last night was lady gaga. she is one crazy artist. not only did she dress up as little bunny foofoo, an eskimo and some crazy pile of bloody lace, but she took to the stage to perform a "poker face"/"paparazzi" medly that was more performance art than performance. if you haven't seen this yet, i recommend not watching if you're squeemish. one word: blood.

if this is any indicator of what a lady gaga concert is like, i don't know that i ever want to go to one. gaga took home the award for "best new artist," which is deserved because she was bigger than anyone else nominated, but that performance made me very uncomfortable.

the show had two michael jackson moments. the first was the opening number, which was introduced by madonna in her fake british accent. while madonna was looking good for being 50+, her monotone delivery was anything but entertaining. i know she's the queen of pop and all, but she didn't really seem to know michael, other than one meeting where she told him he looked like a limo with sunglasses on and then proceeded to make the entire audience uncomfortable by saying that her 4 year old son likes to grab his crotch. the michael jackson tribute was very tastefully done and didn't make me want to shoot myself, which is surprising because everything else michael jackson has been getting on my nerves. michael's sister janet performed alongside her brother (digitally, of course) one last time to their duet "scream." while the performance was awesome, janet seemed like she was trying to imitate her late brother's voice rather than just perform. check it out below.

janet's performance made me realize that i actually do like when she performs, we just haven't seen her do it since that little superbowl debacle. do people actually remember that? is it still stopping her from performing on tv? something to look in to...

the show closed with a preview of michael jackson's final memorial, the concert movie compiled from rehearsals for the this is it tour. the movie, which comes out next month, is sure to do well, but i'm thinking it will be really creepy to watch. all the recorded performances are audience-less, meaning each number will end with silence and not a roaring applause like a typical concert film would. can you say creepy?

and that's about it, folks. the whole show is viewable on mtv.com on-demand, so you can watch each piece individually and don't have to sit through all the lame acceptance speeches. russel brand was definitely not as big of a hit this year as he was last year - he looked like he accidentally wore a jonas brothers' reject suit - and all of his jokes bombed. they were all about having sex with random performers who didn't seem in on it. hopefully mtv will mix it up next year and find some new talent? yes, please. make sure to check out taylor swift's performance of "you belong with me," below, too. she didn't seem to let the whole kanye incident phase her, but i was kind of unimpressed. pre-recorded bits are fun and all, but an on-stage performance is way more entertaining. i still am waiting for her to top this performance of "should've said no," which is probably my favorite live performance ever at an awards show.