Soon after Maroon 5's Adam Levine called the Video Music Awards the "one day a year when MTV pretends to still care about music," the show had a chance to prove him wrong with a VMAs more packed with music history than any in recent memory.
It still wasn't too convincing. Maybe just convincing enough to continue, for another year, the farce that MTV still has anything to do with music. Which is the whole point of the VMAs, right?
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The theme was time travel, or something, and lots of artists took it seriously: Lady Gaga brought up Brian May, whose song with Queen, "Radio Gaga," inspired her name. Jay-Z and Kanye West invoked Otis Redding, not super successfully. And Gaga paid tribute to grizzled music veteran Britney Spears.
But here's the thing: No one, with the exception of Gaga, Adele, a pregnant Beyonce and a couple of others, seemed that into it. Usually it doesn't matter: No one expects anything but perfunctory performances from the VMAs (or Grammys, or any other awards show). But usually MTV lucks into -- or creates -- some kind of outrageous moment distracting enough to make us forget about the music.
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Not this year. The only moments worth talking about were musical ones, and there were only a few of those: Adele's stunning number, Gaga's amusing schtick as her alter ego Chris Gaines -- sorry, Jo Calderone -- and Beyonce's joyous number, performed moments after she announced her pregnancy on the red carpet.
But the show couldn't generate a shock. Britney demurred on kissing Calderone. Cloris Leachman's pairing with the "Jersey Shore" women was boring and irritating. West was a complete gentleman.
Unfortunately.
Here's how it went down, in chronological order:
9 p.m.: Lady Gaga kicked off the VMAs by critiquing herself in the guise of Calderone, a kind of 50s greaser dude who claims to have dated her. We wondered last week how she could go weirder than a meat dress or showing up in an egg, and we guess she sort of did.
She also wins over the traditional rock types by performing with May. Dave Grohl looks psyched. Britney Spears, who goes on to receive a special award and the first prize of the night, looks confused.
9:23: Jay-Z and West -- making his semi-triumphant return to the VMAs -- perform "Otis" from their new "Watch the Throne" collaboration. It never really takes off because the song doesn't work. It's a boring loop with barely any beat, and Otis Redding, being dead, doesn't get to do his best work. Kanye, Jay and Otis Redding: Three great tastes that don't work well together.
9:27: Foo Fighters win best rock video, despite MTV not playing a Foo Fighters video in 37 years.
