Not because of the musical performances or the heartfelt speeches, but because of Miley Cyrus, the 2015 Video Music Awards (VMAs) will be talked about for the next year.
Before the show even began, Taylor Swift premiered her new music video for her single “Wildest Dreams,” similar to how she premiered the infamous “Bad Blood” video before the 2015 Billboard Music Awards.
Nicki Minaj opened the show with a performance of “Trini Dem Girls” and “The Night Is Still Young.” The performance had a tribal theme, but all was well when Swift entered the stage and joined Nicki. In the end, it was all smiles and hugs and the world was at peace again after their Twitter feud. The overall performance was entertaining and showed off the powerful stage presence these two women have.
Miley Cyrus entered the VMAs on a rainbow slide in a very colorful and actually conservative outfit. She wore faux blonde dreads in a ponytail and definitely showed signs that she probably smoked something illegal backstage. Every time Miley came on stage, she had on the most bizarre outfits. One was a clear, plastic dress with random colored circles stuck on it.
Her opening speech was all over the place. The live video cut to a pre-taped skit on how Miley chooses an Instagram photo, which was completely random. This is one of three pre-taped videos that played throughout the night and made absolutely no sense. None of them were related to music or music videos.
Now I love Britney Spears, but when she came out to present Best Male Video, I was a little embarrassed for her. Her dress was short, tight, cut out everywhere and reminded me of something she would have worn at the age of 21. Props to her for still being involved in the music industry. She was one of the few veteran musical performers there that night.
Rebel Wilson came out to present Best Hip-Hop Video, which Nicki Minaj won for her video “Anaconda.” At the end of Minaj’s acceptance speech, Minaj called out Cyrus for what she was saying about her in the press. This was not scripted and is probably one of the most talked about events from this year’s VMAs.
Swift won Best Female Video with “Blank Space” and graciously accepted. Every time Cyrus talked I went to turn the TV off. Demi Lovato performed “Cool For The Summer” with surprise guest Iggy Azalea and rocked out on the outside stage. Justin Bieber sung his new song that we have been seeing on his Instagram for the past 3 months. The song sounds like anything else of his, and then he cried at the end.
Going on to more important things, Kanye West announced her is running for president in 2020. That was announced by West himself after he was presented the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award by none other than Swift. I feel like this was a little revenge for Swift, even though their beef has been settled for quite some time now. Of course she had to throw in, “‘I’m really happy for you and Imma let you finish, but Kanye had one of the greatest careers of all time.”
The final two moments of the awards were, in my opinion, the best and the worst. Swift won Video of the Year for her “Bad Blood” video and brought the whole music video squad on stage. Swift and her friends were classy and her speech was empowering. Cyrus gave a surprise performance that I wish never would have happened. She was trashy, singing about smoking weed and that she “ain’t no hippie.” At the end, she announced her new album; titled “Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz” was available online for free. As you can guess, I didn’t download it.
Other performances were Macklemore with Ryan Lewis, who ran around outside singing their new song “Downtown,” which was just a mess of a song. Tori Kelly gave one of the best performances of the night with her new song, “Should’ve Been Us.” The newcomer showed off her impressive vocals and wowed the crowd. Twenty One Pilots with A$AP Rocky tried mashing up a couple of each other’s songs, but that didn’t end up sounding as well as they hoped. Pharrell Williams sang his song “Freedom,” which gives out an important message, but the performance wasn’t as great as the meaning of the song. The Weeknd, who is one of my new favorite artists, gave an amazing performance of “Can’t Feel My Face.”
Winners included Fetty Wap for the Artist to Watch Award for his song “Trap Queen.” Best Rock Video went to Fall Out Boy for their song “Uma Thurman,” and Best Choreography was awarded to OK Go for “I Won’t Let You Down.” If you haven’t seen this video, please YouTube it now. Best Song of the Summer was awarded to 5 Seconds of Summer for “She’s Kinda Hot,” which they respectively deserve.
Overall, the 2015 Video Music Awards was by far my least favorite award show. Cyrus was messy as ever, West had a half hour long acceptance speech where he talked about nothing, except for running for president in 2020, and there were several instances where I felt very uncomfortable throughout the whole show. I hope next year MTV decides to select a much better host and have a much cleaner production for viewers of all ages to enjoy.
