The 40th annual MTV Video Music Awards took place on Wednesday, Sept. 11. Excellent performances aside, I can’t say I agree with every category’s winners.
My first thought was, “where were the awards?” This is an award show, and I feel like there weren’t many awards that were presented on the stage out of the 25 awards that were given out.
Eight awards were announced during the main show and the others were either announced during the pre-show or commercial breaks. I love a good performance, but too many makes it feel more like a concert and less like an award show.
Though I wished they focused a little bit more on the awards, I think the musical acts this year were stellar and had a great range of artists. I enjoyed Sabrina Carpenter and Katy Perry’s medleys of each of their respective hits, as well as Chappell Roan’s performance of “Good Luck, Babe!”
All the artists’ segments were well done. From the lighting, stage design, and choreography, each performer had personal flares to their own productions–and it showed.
For example, Carpenter’s segment included a mashup of her songs “Please Please Please,” “Taste,” and “Espresso” beginning with her sitting on a hanging diamond. This part was followed by a very Carpenter-styled display filled with her flirtatious energy and her kissing an alien to reference her newest music video.
Now let’s talk about some of the winners and their categories. This year, they had two new categories, those being “Most Iconic VMA Moment” and “Best Trending Video.”
The purpose of the “Most Iconic VMA Moment” is to look back at performances from previous years of the VMA’s history and pick the most iconic and memorable ones. This award was won by Perry with her display of “Roar” from the 2013 VMAs.
After looking at the moments that were nominated for the “Most Iconic VMA Moment,” I feel as if Lady Gaga’s performance of “Paparazzi” from the 2009 VMAs should have won. Though Perry’s production was a good one, it didn’t feel like anything stood out, while Gaga’s was the most unique compared to the other nominated moments.
To summarize what made Gaga’s display so iconic, it established that she isn’t scared to go gory. I feel this moment helped establish her style. The production displayed a reference to the musical “Phantom of the Opera” with her dying after a chandelier fell on her. By the end of the song, she was covered in fake blood.
The “Best Trending Video” award sets out to look through viral music videos of the year with the winner of the award being Megan the Stallion and Yuki Chiba for their “Mamushi” music video. I think they won this award because of the cinematic and movie-like quality of the video.
When looking through the other videos that were nominated for “Best Trending Video,” in my opinion, the video for “HOT TO GO!” by Chappell Roan should have won. Roan’s video features her teaching a fun dance for the song to her grandparents, fans and drag queens. The music video is full of bright colors, detailed and fun outfits and contains a lot of positive energy.
Although this year’s VMAs had some small faults with its lack of giving out awards and slight differences with who should have won, it was still an entertaining show. Hopefully next year’s VMAs will give more time for the awards and tone down the music segments.