"I walk alone,
I walk alone..."
-- Green Day
And with those lyrics, the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards began. I didn't realize it at the time, but Green Day was on the money, walking alone as one of the few entertaining act in the whole show.
Hosted by Diddy -- who changed his name from P. Diddy a couple weeks ago, because he "felt like the 'P' was getting between [him] and [his] fans" -- the show was exactly what we've come to expect from the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy. That is to say over the top, ego-driven, and above all else, cheesier than Chester Cheetah. His opening monologue consisted of Diddy trying to rap and do some awkward herky-jerky dancing while Cirque Du Soliel dancers spun in the air, scantily clad women clapped their hands, guys dressed in white danced around him, and laser lights shot in the air. This might have stood a slight chance of being cool if only Diddy didn't do the EXACT SAME THING in past VMA shows. I'm not even kidding, go back and watch the tapes. A mirror image, right down to the Cirque Du Soliel dancers.
The show didn't get much better from there. The most telling indicator of a bad awards show -- I can't name even one of the award winners from the night. But as with any MTV awards show, who really cares? The VMAs are just an excuse to get celebrities together to party like it's 1999. MTV producers knew this, as they paired up presenters to see and be seen, forsaking any rhyme or reason. Ludacris and Lindsay Lohan! Jessica Alba and Dwyane Wade! Common and Johnny Knoxville! Jeremy Piven and Lil' Kim! The prompter reading was so hollow and awkward, I thought I was watching a State of the Union address by our dear President.
Cutaways to the crowd didn't help matters, as celebrities from Jay-Z to Beyonce to Alicia Keys looked so bored I thought My Left Foot was playing in the background. The only hope to salvage the show at this point was the musical acts, and unfortunately they didn't deliver. There were a couple of decent acts -- 50 Cent and Kanye West come to mind (although Jamie Foxx, stick to acting, will ya? And not that Stealth crap either...) -- but the bulk of the musical acts were lackluster.
Ludacris performed a faithful rendition of "Pimpin' All Over the World," but the fact remained that he was singing a song called "Pimpin' All Over the World." The Killers and Mariah Carey were next up, but they weren't even allowed to perform in the building. They had to do their thing outdoors at some nearby hotel, for what reason, I don't know. The Miami heat (the temperature, not the basketball team) was in full effect, as The Killers lead singer, Brandon Flowers, was dripping with sweat 27 seconds into "Mr. Brightside." Even worse, Mariah Carey's hair lost a battle with the Florida humidity, with her curly locks looking more strung out than Whitney Houston.
Diddy took the time to stomp all over the legacy of the Notorious B.I.G. yet again, using old footage of Biggie to try to tug at our heart strings. Wasn't the whole orchestra performance with Sting at the VMA's a few years ago enough? Can't you let poor Biggie rest in peace? It doesn't come off so much as a tribute, but rather a sad attempt by Diddy to pat himself on the back for being such a thoughtful dude for resurrecting his dead friend's memory at even a scant taste of the spotlight. A perfect example of P coming between him and his fans. I have no idea what that means, I just wanted to dredge up that quote again.
Fat Joe followed this display by introducing a patchwork quilt of reggaeton performances. I'm a fan of reggaeton music (which is basically Latin music mixed with hip hop and reggae), but one of the performances (by Don Omar... yeah, I know you've never heard of him) was so off-key it made me miss Roseanne Barr's rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner." Fat Joe finished up this celebration of the rich latin heritage of Miami in the most appropriate way possible -- by mocking 50 Cent and his G-Unit posse, causing the crowd to start yelling profanity at him. Muy bien, mi amigo. Muy bien.
Just when you didn't think the show could get any weirder, R. Kelly made his way on the stage to act out a new chapter in his 5-part "Trapped in the Closet" saga. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's basically a 20 minute hip-hop opera about R. Kelly cheating on his wife with a woman who is married to a pastor who happens to have a gay lover who introduced R. Kelly's own wife to a policeman who she ends up cheating with herself. Yeah, I'm glad I could clear that up for you. In any case, R. Kelly acts out a brand-new, never before seen chapter in which he plays the pastor, the pastor's wife, and the pastor's gay lover. R. Kelly wraps up the chapter by singing about the pastor kissing his gay lover, which caused R. Kelly to crack himself up at the thought. In a big twist, the pastor character suddenly becomes un-gay and goes back to his wife. Um... homophobia doesn't quite work with a dude who's singing a friggin' HIP-HOP OPERA. R. Kelly is the only person who can make Diddy's over the top antics look pedestrian by comparison.
The night was capped off by Kelly Clarkson performing "Since You Were Gone" while getting drenched with water. I was a little bummed out because this whole spectacle made me think of the Shakira performance earlier in the show. Oh, not because Shakira was particularly good or anything, but if I had to see someone from this show being drenched with water, she'd have to be atop that list. In the end, poor Kelly didn't quite pull of the dousing with poise. The stage got so slippery, she literally fell off. Oops.
And that was that. The 2005 MTV Video Music Awards ends not with a bang or a whimper, but with a wet American Idol falling on her ass. Kind of appropriate, don't you think?
