Inside the arena too it seemed as if not paying direct attention was the norm too if the cutaway shots of the famous and bored during the show were any indication One Direction studiously mute during the brief N Sync reunion Drake averting his eyes as Miley Cyrus raunchily twerked Rihanna barely moving her head for anyone.
To be fair to the celebrities trapped inside the Barclays Center though there wasn t much to look at during this year s event and even less reason to look at it. A celebration of music videos that are almost never shown on MTV this awards show is the final thread connecting the MTV of Snooki and Teen Mom to its roots this was the 30th annual installment of the extravaganza. At this point it serves largely as an implicit rejoinder to the Grammys a place where the kids can play safely without fear of Adele s stealing their lunch money and Moonman statues.
Given that it should at minimum be both disturbingly loose and also reflective of pop s true tidal waves. And yet both were only sometimes the case during this show which lasted a little more than two hours with seemingly 20 percent of that time given over to Justin Timberlake recipient of the Video Vanguard Award and by the demographics of the room a village elder. (He also won video of the year for Mirrors as anticlimactic a winner as this awards show has ever seen.)
Mr. Timberlake was on trend in one way though this was a banner year for clumsy white appropriation of black culture the shambolic trickster esque performance by Ms. Cyrus to whom no one has apparently said no for the last six months or so which included plenty of lewdness and a molesting of Robin Thicke the ubiquity of Macklemore Ryan Lewis the edgeless and intensely popular hip hop duo who received three awards including best hip hop video. They also performed Same Love their gay rights anthem with the singer Mary Lambert though when Jennifer Hudson emerged to perform the last part of the song with Ms. Lambert it felt like an apologetic compensation for the night s whitewash. (For good measure Eminem announced the details of his new album in ads sponsored by Beats by Dre.)
The ceremony was also a tribute to the stubborn persistence of pop. There was the extremely brief but still exciting reunion of N Sync a group plenty of artists in the crowd grew up on (to wit Taylor Swift s agog reaction shot). Four fifths of Danity Kane one of the groups formed by Diddy on MTV s old reality show Making the Band also announced a reunion on the red carpet.
The award for artist to watch went to Austin Mahone a ninth generation Xerox of Justin Bieber. The British boy band One Direction won best song of the summer an 11th hour category dreamed up by marketing executives. But even an award that fake shouldn t have gone to One Direction over Daft Punk or Mr. Thicke who was nominated in four categories for his resilient buoyant Blurred Lines and was both shut out and tasked with playing straight man to Ms. Cyrus s wily narcissism during his performance.
The show also began and ended with the reigning women of pop. Lady Gaga opened with a frenzied costume change happy rendition of Applause (which also appeared as the soundtrack to commercials for Kia) and Katy Perry closed the night energetically performing Roar in a boxing ring erected at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Ms. Perry s act especially stood out as did Ms. Cyrus s though for opposite reasons. There were also a pair of strong hip hop performances by Kanye West who emoted largely in silhouette and Drake who sang and rapped.
For every standout artistic moment though there was a questionable logistical one. At various points the show was bedeviled by slipshod editing selective bleeping of offensive language and intermittent problems with lighting and especially during Mr. Timberlake s career spanning medley sound.
Bruno Mars s performance didn t suffer from any of these mishaps it was purposely unflashy much like the man himself and it was also one of the best. On a show that had little use for it it was a solid artistic statement and no one seemed to notice.
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