I Don't Want YOUR MTV

I watched most of the MTV Music Awards last night, what with my being stuck on a couch in a DVR-free home. Somehow, I managed to miss the Michael Jackson tribute thing twice, but I caught the Kanye West/Taylor Swift thing (don't blow it out, though, since the Beastie Boys did it first, yo), all the Lady Gaga goo goo, and other assorted nonsense from the evening. Green Day sounded great and I was happy to see the Muse perform, but rock acts feel as out of place on the MTV stage now as Metallica did back when Jethro Tull was beating them for Best Metal/Hard Rock Band at the Grammy's. Really, the MTV Awards are mostly about noise and clutter, much like the station as a whole.

I mean...individual acts were good. I don't want to take away from each individual performer who did their thing, lip syncing or not, and probably satisfied their fans. But the editing and overall format, the lifeless indifference of the teleprompter readers (aka, presenters), the idea of a house band filling every moment of quiet with more noise, so monologues bled into awards bled into performances bled into commercials without any sensory break or pause. What is MTV going for these days? What is the point of it all? It's like they turned a mic and camera toward Times Square and left it up to the audience to find the sights and sounds that stood out to them from the chaos.

Maybe this is the old fuddy duddy in me blogging, but MTV used to very clearly represent innovation, creativity, and a rebel spirit (also music videos), and the generations that came up with it 10, 15, 20 years after its launch brought the same to the rest of the world. MTV has become more and more of a train wreck, representing hype, shock, discordant noise, and--over anything else--a lack of focus. I can't help but wonder if these are the virtues that the next generation will bring to the table when they enter "the real world" (the real real world).

Good luck with that, future.