2009 VMA ZAZZ

I clearly reneged on the promise of an MTV VMA Live Blogcast Extravaganza last night. The RoBeastress and I were too busy playing Tetris Party on the Wii. Yes, I have priorities in my life.

Eventually I turned on the show just in time to catch the Kanye West debacle. The sentiment seems to be pretty unanimous on the internets--he is a completely tacky and classless douchebag. His backhanded tribute to Beyonce was about as heartfelt as the shots David Hinckley fired off for Jodie Foster. I don't really care for Taylor Swift's teenybopper music, but I sincerely felt horrible for her last night. Had she not been an innocent seventeen year old, she may have played it off more casually, but seeing her completely paralyzed with confusion and disappointment made me even more angry at that narcissistic hack.

I know this is supposed to be the hippest pop culture event of the year where "OMG ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN" (and after translating Kanye's blog response to incident, I think he tried to invoke that excuse) but timing and context is something that has to be taken into consideration before pulling shit like this.

I recall that back in '94 when one of the Beastie Boys stormed the stage, it wasn't such a horrible thing. The difference was:

1. Adam Yauch went up in costume as his alter-ego Nathanial Hörnblowér, which was visually funny.
2. He was directly connected to the award category in question (and "Sabotage" was truly an awesome video).
3. His obviously tongue-in-cheek protest probably didn't hurt R.E.M.'s feelings.

As far as I remember, that was the first time anyone had ever done that, and its irreverence was worth a chuckle back in the "alternative" days. Kanye's interruption did not pay tribute to that moment. It didn't reference it or build on its humor, and it certainly didn't one-up it. Kanye's bomb had no zazz, so he was well deserving of the chorus of boos. Dude just doesn't understand Time and Place.

Remember when Tim Commerford from Rage Against the Machine drunkenly climbed up on stage to heckle Limp Bizkit? I was a Rage fan back in the day, and I certainly hated Fred Durst, but the whole moment was just awkward and uncomfortable. It was the furthest thing from funny, and when he was thrown out and arrested, he deserved it--especially because it made Durst look like the classy one. If Kanye would've climbed a catwalk dressed as the Phantom of the Opera during Lady Gaga's performance, maybe I would have given him some credit. The truth is, Adam Yauch's disruptive blitz was quick and lo-fi, but still maximized its effectiveness. It would be difficult for anyone to top it with such efficiency. That's not a challenge, just a request for attention whores and sore losers to find an original way to express themselves in the future.

All right, enough about Kanye. Let's talk about other vaginas. What do you think was more visibly swollen--Madonna's cheekbones or Katy Perry's labia? Tough call, I know.

Lady Gaga's vagina actually played piano during her performance of "Paparazzi." I can't say that I like all of her songs, I will say that I get what she's doing. I think she's entertaining even if most of the time I'm scratching my head. I think she's underachieving musically (at least what I've heard of her album compared to her live sets) in order to focus her image, which I hope changes in the future. Performing in a white dress covered in blood still isn't going to make me forget that the chorus of "Paparazzi" borrows liberally from Berlin's "Take My Breath Away." Top Gun was just finishing up on AMC at the same time Gaga took the stage. Holy synchronicity, Batman!

Muse has always been dogged for sounding like a Queen/Radiohead crossbreed, but this "Uprising" song of theirs is like a jock rock version of Battles' "Atlas" (The RoBeast Song of the Year, 2007). I can deal with arena rock dynamics in extreme moderation, but the lyrics here are more bland than "We Are the Champions." Don't get me wrong, I like Muse (The Absolution album is good stuff), but them and Green Day and My Chemical Romance and Foo Fighters need to settle the fuck down with the theatrics and start pretending that there's only one person listening to their song at a time. Coldplay can keep doing it though. I don't give a shit about them.

What else happened? To be honest, I spent most of the time either reading people's reactions to Kanye or thinking about Tetris, so forgive me. I guess I wasn't looking up at the screen enough. I remember not recognizing 95% of the presenters. I remember not understanding 95% of what Russell Brand was saying. I remember Jay-Z performing the first song ever written about New York City (95% of which was censored). Michael Jackson showed up, but Britney Spears didn't. Was Shakira there? I wanted to hear her say "A-WOOOOO!" It's ferocious!

Well, I'm not a 50-year old pop star that grew up in the Midwest with 8 brothers and sisters, so I'll stop talking now. Here are some suggested topics for your classroom discussion:

• Does Soy Bomb have a place in a post-Dimebag world?
• Does Kanye West care about white people?
• Should the guy in worn-out jeans date the Cheer Captain or the girl on the bleachers?
• Can we stop talking about the Beatles now for a little while?
  

EDIT VEDDER

I've got a quick update to a recent post.

The Pearl Jam Unplugged DVD being released tomorrow has achieved a very disappointing trifecta--the set is edited, rearranged, and incomplete. I will most likely not be shelling out any money for that bullshit.

Here is the original set list:

01. Oceans
02. State of Love and Trust
03. Alive
04. Black
05. Jeremy
06. Porch
07. Even Flow
08. Rockin' in the Free World

Of that set, only "Alive," "Black," "Jeremy," and "Porch" made it to the original cable broadcast. "Even Flow" had also been aired a handful of times, but always separate from MTV's half-hour Unplugged broadcast. The remaining rare tracks and in-between stage banter have been passed around on the internet for years, complete with the exciting time code on the bottom of the screen.

From what I've gathered on message boards and press releases, "Oceans" and "State of Love and Trust" have been added to the DVD. "Rockin' in the Free World" has not. Also, "Even Flow" shows up out of order. It will appear super-obviously out of order as the end of "Porch" features Eddie Vedder standing up on his stool and writing "PRO-CHOICE!!!" on his arm in black marker. Now, you'll see it written on his arm earlier in the set, before he actually writes it there. I know it sounds like a ridiculous thing to get hung up on. Just bear with me, I am about to get more insane.

At the end of "Oceans," the vocals have been altered from the original recording (I would have preferred to underline the predicate to show my outrage, but alas, Blogger has decided that underlining is not such an important tool, and I don't feel like typing out the code the old school way... so you get italics instead). Eddie Vedder has a tendency to alter his own lyrics in concert, and towards the end of the MTV version of "Oceans" he amended "Ohhhhh, ohhhhhh" to "Ohhhhh, Beth," a tribute to his girlfriend at the time. Apparently on the DVD, the references to Beth are removed and replaced with a "grunt" of some sort. No edit is made to the visual portion.

I'm assuming they thought no one would notice, but someone did, and they pointed it out on the Pearl Jam Ten Club message board. To be honest, I have not heard the unplugged version of "Oceans" that many times and would probably not have noticed myself, but now that I know, I think it's lametarded. While I am 100% on board with them remixing Ten and changing the audio, they fully disclose this on the packaging and in press releases. People are going to be buying this Ten re-release expressly for the purpose of hearing an altered version of the album. There was never any mention of the Unplugged set being altered.

They should have taken a page from Alice in Chains and Nirvana, who released (as far as I know) complete versions of their Unplugged sessions. Those packages wisely included the fuck-ups and false starts. That's the shit I love, man! The charm of live sets is realism and spontaneity. Eddie Vedder screws up the lyrics to "Black" and they kept that in there (as far as I know). Why would they change anything else? Yeah, I know it's your fucking song and you can do whatever you want with it, but it's just tacky to try to change history. I sort of embarrassed by how bothered I am by this. It just doesn't seem very Rock n' Roll to me. I can't figure out the reasoning behind this. Was her name that painful to hear? Did Beth threaten to sue? Did the band complain? I just don't get it. People, stop editing shit! GO TAKE THE FUCKING HARMONICA OUT OF FOOTSTEPS AND THROW BETH BACK IN THE OCEAN!

Keep on Rocking* in the Free World, fuckers.

(* The extra g is for Greedo Shoots First.)

In other quick news, I had a dream the other night that Sean Penn died, so I apologize to his family if The Curse of The RoBeast kills him in the next few weeks. As for Natasha Richardson, I never mentioned her name here before, but I think something must have rubbed off of Liam Neeson. Sorry.