2016 VMAs Highs and Lows: Lemons and ‘Lemonade’
Well, at least Britney Spears’s ballyhooed return to the MTV Video Music Awards was only her second-weakest VMAs performance. Compared to the debacle of 2007, her medley of “Make Me” and G-Eazy’s “Me, Myself and I” felt completely passable, though “not bad enough to be discussed around the water cooler” probably isn’t quite the comeback Spears enthusiasts were hoping for.
Its perfunctory unremarkableness left only one burning question: What wrong did Spears ever do to one of the show’s producers to merit the death-row slot immediately following Beyoncé’s? Below are some of the telecast’s best and worst moments.
LOW: Britney Spears, “Make Me”/”Me, Myself and I”
For her first VMAs performance in nine years, Spears spent half the number playing backup to her duet partner, G-Eazy … not exactly a huge show of confidence on MTV’s part in her ability to pull her own weight. Worse, Spears’s lip-synched vocals on “Me, Myself and I” — presumably recorded specifically for this occasion — sounded like they were being piped in from Mars. When she squatted behind the rapper and reached her hand through his legs, it looked like she was having trouble finding his crotch for a moment. But actual disaster was averted, and she can still whip that mane like nobody’s business, which may be good enough to sell more Vegas tickets, if not necessarily copies of Glory.
HIGH: Beyoncé, “Formation”
The closing segment of Bey’s Lemonade megamedley had her dancers seen from overhead, Busby Berkeley-style, forming the ♀ symbol. Feminism, meet marching-band precision! She dedicated her “Formation” video of the year award to the people of New Orleans.
LOW: Kanye West’s speech
Who among us has not at some point thought, “I am Kanye West, and that feels really great to say”? Donald Trump could only aspire to wing it with a stream-of-consciousness speech as meandering as West’s. One moment, it was about the troubles of “us on the inside of the TV” (and “I see you, Amber”). Then things got serious with “Last week, it was 22 people murdered in Chicago,” literally followed the next sentence by a Taylor Swift namecheck, followed three sentences later by kids dying again. But you have to give some kind of props to the first public address in history to give shout-outs to both Walt Disney and Jaden Smith.
HIGH: Beyoncé, “Pray You Catch Me”
The opening of Beyoncé’s epic Lemonade condensation also began with some overhead shots, with her angelically dressed backup dancers falling one by one (or two by two) in sudden baths of red, presumably cut down by the infidelity that is the subject of the song. If she’d stopped right there, it would have been the highlight of the night, but there were still about 12 minutes to go in her performance.
LOW: Key & Peele as hosts
MTV insisted ahead of time that the show would be host-less … and then the comedy duo were clearly the hosts of the show. Even their biggest fans knocked their mostly painful scripted patter, though, making you wonder if MTV’s refusal to acknowledge their role in the show was just a case of plausible deniability.
HIGH: Beyoncé, “Hold Up”
Did she really smash the camera, or was it just a cleverly rendered effect? Either way, with Beyoncé wielding a bat, the security probably didn’t have to work overtime to get the audience members in the front row to stay out of the way.
LOW: Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj, “Side to Side”
Competing with Kanye’s sexy gym in his “Fade” video, starring Teyana Taylor, Ariana and Nicki opened their own risqué workout facility, with Grande meriting a monogrammed pommel horse that was left rather wasted, given the disappointing lack of Olympic action in this production number. But if they gave medals for simulating oral sex, Grande and Minaj would both be champions. The number ended with the duo receiving the attention of their male dancers in a way that made even MTV’s editors blush and look away.
HIGH: Beyoncé, “Hurt Yourself”
Even without Jack White to join her, as he does on Lemonade, Beyoncé sang the F out of this profanity-filled rocker about putting the hurt back on a cheater.
LOW: Nick Jonas and Ty Dolla $ign, “Bacon“
So the big celebrity cameo Jonas promised for this number turned out to be … Joe Jonas? The idea of following Nick through a diner that eventually becomes more alive with dancing buddies had some initial promise, but by the time he joined his rapper pal on the boulevard outside, the wan payoff made us wonder if it wouldn’t have been more interesting just to follow Jonas through the Duane Reade across the street.
How many hours went into designing the camera blocking for Beyoncé’s medley? More than were spent on the rest of the show in total, from the looks of things … and none of the effort was wasted.
LOW: Rihanna’s first three performances
The idea of Rihanna as the evening’s recurring motif — a veritable medley of sequential medleys — suggested an emphasis on quantity over quality. And although she was hardly the only performer of the night to lip-sync (nearly everyone but Beyoncé did), her lack of interest in even mouthing the words, or holding up the mic half the time, could be read either as a great F-you to the pretense of miming or just a lazy inattention to all the details of multitasking.
HIGH: Beyoncé’s speech and guests
Look, we’re not saying that Beyoncé was pretty much the only good thing about this show, but … OK, we’re saying that. Anyhow: Her dedication of her final award to the people of New Orleans, and her bringing the mothers of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, and Oscar Grant to the telecast, indicated that, for all her queenliness, she may have been one of the least narcissistic headliners of the evening.
LOW: Chainsmokers and Halsey, “Closer“
Maybe we all get the Song of the Summer we deserve, but if this is really a contender for 2016’s seasonal anthem, let’s hope for a less milquetoast autumn. The near-makeout session between Drew Taggart and Halsey looked more like calculation than chemistry. But Halsey did at least bring some serious underboob back for anyone who’d been missing it since the Kanye “Fade” video an hour earlier.
HIGH: Rihanna’s fourth and final performance
What? Beyoncé wasn’t the single-handed highlight of the VMAs? Against all odds, Rihanna pulled it out of the bag with a final medley that proved she can sing live and/or go utterly classy, and kill it on both counts, if the whim strikes her. When you need something to close a show that doesn’t make you wish you’d just turned it off an hour earlier, “Diamonds” are a viewer’s best friend.
