LOS ANGELES — The 2011 MTV Video Music Awards
ceremony went without a host or much sense of direction Sunday night at
Nokia Theatre, as a heartfelt tribute to singer Amy Winehouse and a
career-rehab performance from Chris Brown offered strong moments over
the course of a wildly inconsistent evening.
In
the salute to Winehouse, who died last month at 27, British comedian
Russell Brand recalled first hearing her “raw, from-the-guts-of-humanity
voice” in London before he knew who she was. “She suffered from
alcoholism and drug addiction. A lot of people just get the disease; not
everyone gets the talent Amy was blessed with.”
Brand
then turned the segment over to Tony Bennett, who had recorded a duet
in March with Winehouse for his forthcoming album. “She was so
unbelievable,” Bennett said. “Of all the young artists I’ve ever met in
the last 20 years, she was a true jazz artist in the tradition of Ella
Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. She had the gift. With real jazz, you
can’t just be a jazz singer; either you’ve got it or you haven’t.”
Video
footage from their session on the pop classic “Body and Soul” segued
into Bruno Mars’ onstage rendition of her bouncy Motown-rooted song
“Valerie” in one of the night’s most exuberantly moving live
performances.
R&B singer Brown scored another
with his high-flying performance in which he and other performers were
flown through the theater as he sampled his hit “Yeah 3X,” Wu-Tang
Clan’s “Protect Ya Neck” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Brown
continues efforts to rebuild his career after becoming a virtual pop
star non grata because of his attack on then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009
on their way to the Grammy Awards.
Katy Perry’s
“Firework” was named overall video of the year, which she accepted
sporting a yellow cube that appeared to be embedded in her head.
“Oh
my goodness, thank you so much,” Perry said as she picked up her VMA
Moonman statuette for the video that had logged more than 227 million
views as of Sunday night. “I’m very proud of the song it stands for.”
Perry
and Adele videos won three each, making them the night’s big winners.
Besides overall video of the year for “Firework,” Perry won for
collaboration and special effects, both for “E.T.” with Kanye West.
Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” video collected awards in three so-called
“professional categories”: art direction, cinematography and editing.
Lady
Gaga had many of her peers and other onlookers slack-jawed with her
opening performance-art appearance as her chain-smoking,
expletive-spewing greaser alter-ego Jo Calderone, which she carried
through the evening.
“Earlier tonight they told me
I got best video with a message,” Gaga-as-Calderone said when she
accepted her second VMA for “Born This Way” in the female video
category, after winning the newly added category of best video with a
message. “There are so many great artists in this room. … Every video
they’ve got has a … message. “
The new category
appeared to be an effort by MTV honchos to beef up the artistic
credibility to the glitzy fashion- and celebrity-focused event.
On
MTV’s website, a note appeared under each of the six nominated videos
to make sure the message of each wouldn’t be missed: Eminem’s video for
“Love The Way You Lie” is about “the pain and peril of domestic
violence”; “Firework,” it said, “celebrates the spark and originality in
all of us,” etc.
But the video-with-a-message win
for Gaga was announced midway into the pre-show telecast rather than
highlighted during the formal ceremony, a move that seemed to imply that
the rest of the evening would be dedicated to videos with no particular
point.
West, however, managed to slip a socially
conscious message into “All of the Lights,” one of the nominees for
hip-hop video. It’s an anti-domestic violence drama that includes West’s
fervent plea about the daughter of a violence-inclined couple: “Don’t
let her grow up in that ghetto university.”
West’s
video, in fact, carries a stern message of its own: “WARNING: This
video has been identified by Epilepsy Action to potentially trigger
seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy.”
“We
are doing all we can to warn people who may be affected not to watch
it,” Epilepsy Action spokeswoman Aimee Gee said earlier. “We feel it is
unfortunately very likely that people may have already been affected.”
Show
officials could have used a similar warning in advance of the opening
segment with comedian-actor Kevin Hart, which may have induced
disorientation for some viewers with its rotating stream of geometric
shapes behind him.
Hart tempered his comments with
mantra-like disclaimers that “I’m not hosting. … If I was the host, I
woulda said it differently.”
Then a string of category hosts slogged fitfully from segment to segment.
“It’s
essentially a music show,” ‘NSync’s JC Chasez said on the red carpet
heading into the theater, “so I don’t know how many comedians we need
telling jokes, anyway. So it might be great to just get to your favorite
artist, get to the music, get to the award. I’m curious to see how the
pace works.”
Perry had different pace issues on
her mind as she entered the theater with a field-leading 10 nominations
among this year’s 15 categories, and she became the first artist to
score nominations for four different videos in the same year.
“It
means all my work has been recognized by MTV and the people who are
voting, which is really important,” Perry said. “But I’m here to have a
good time. I already had a shot of tequila at 12.”
As
Calderone, Gaga said that Gaga had told him, “I’m not real, I’m
theater, and you and I — this is just rehearsal.” Then she sat at a
piano and started singing “You and I.” for which she was joined by Queen
guitarist Brian May.
She continued in character
for her introduction of Britney Spears as this year’s recipient of the
Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award. Spears also won the first VMA of
the night, taking the pop video award for her post-apocalyptic “Till the
World Ends.”
“This award means so much to me,
especially on the night before Michael Jackson’s birthday,” she said and
then introduced Beyonce, who had attendees buzzing with her baby bump,
which she showed off during her carpet walk into the theater.
Her
pregnancy was less visible under the red sequined tuxedo jacket and
black slacks she wore while singing “Love on Top,” an R&B number
from her new “4” album. But at the end of the song, she unbuttoned the
jacket and rubbed her belly, as a backstage camera flashed on her
husband, rapper Jay-Z.
The cable channel’s
reliance in recent years on reality shows and other non-music video
programming took a hit when Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine tweeted that the
VMA ceremony constitutes “one day a year when MTV pretends to still
care about music.”
Rapper Busta Rhymes picked up
on the comment at the show, saying, “The truth is undisputed. It ain’t
what they used to be as far as supporting the music, you know what I’m
sayin’? But at the end of the day, you still gotta come out and make
sure that you are being acknowledged properly, especially when they’re
not acknowledging us properly any other time. So I salute Adam Levine
from Maroon 5 for shedding a light on that.”
Perry also brought up another moment from VMA past when she accepted, with West, the video collaboration award for “E.T.”
“This
is the time you want to interrupt me, Kanye,” Perry said, her doe-eyed
allusion to West’s infamous interruption of Taylor Swift two years ago.
“I
didn’t write a thank you speech,” rapper Tyler the Creator and leader
of the L.A. collective Odd Future said after being named best new
artist. “To all the kids that’s watching” he offered advice, most of
which was bleeped for expletives.
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