We on Award Tour - 2006 Video Music Awards

There were high hopes for this year’s MTV Music Video Awards after two years of well below sub-par shows. But in the end this year’s VMA’s were just as bad as the previous one with Jack Black somehow finding a way to be unfunny (and this may be a tipping point for Black after being universally panned for Nacho Libre). What was worse was for a show that has built itself of big stage productions and surprised guest, the performances seemed extremely low-budgets compared to years past and the surprised guests this year were Montel Williams, the little kid from the movie no one but movie snobs saw, and Lou Reed and the dude from ZZ Top who were most likely only there because The Raconteurs invited them. Here are more disappointing moments from the five hours of my life that I’ll never get back:

- Just as worthless as the big show was the hour and a half pre-show this basically was a vehicle for people to promote upcoming albums. Usually they have a world premiere video or exclusive interview, but nothing but two horrible performances.

- The show starts out with the chick from Kids Incorporated performing London Bridge, a song easily a lock for the Worst Songs of 2006 list. Blatant guided vocal track here as she didn’t even bother to even lip-sync half the time.

- Kurt Loder and John Norris must have something on the higher ups at the network because as MTV tries to distance itself from what it used to be (even refusing to even acknowledge it’s 25th anniversary) these two still show up every year at the VMA’s.

- Does the world really need a rock opera from My Chemical Romance? Really the world doesn’t need another album from them let along a concept album. But with the goth Sergeant Pepper garb, the creepy skeleton children’s choir, and the lead singer actually trying to sing with a fake British accent maybe the musical version of Jumping the Shark. Oh as for the premiere of their new song, it is easily a lock for the Worst Songs of 2006 list.

- Can we please end the Diddy era? The dude is now walking around with his own spokesman because he’s too elf important to talk. Really no one has capitalized on the death of someone else. Well except for all the Elvis impersonators.

- We start off the big show with Jay-Z welcoming the show back to New York City from a top of a building. This would have been a lot cooler had they not had the My Chemical Romance performance there earlier.

- Who ever decided the show should start off with a performance of a song that no one has ever heard should be fired. Worst show opening ever. When Justin Timberlake then switched to Worst Song of 2006 nominee SexyBack and brought out Big Head Timberland and a blatant guided vocal track, things didn’t get much better. What’s worse is it seems that the phrase Sexyback is going to overtake the go to phase for the corny old dudes replacing Fiddy (as in Fiddy Cent) after corny old dudes Al Gore and Jared Leto both used it.

- I kept waiting and waiting for the opening Jack Black skit to get funny, but sadly it never did. I think that it may have been the goal with the “everything going wrong” theme, but that’s just too high brow for me. Although I like how the MTV execs were the Douches. And what was with Black kissing everyone’s butt all evening? MTV really need to bring Chris Rock back.

- The first presenter is the straight from jail Lil’ Kim. Seeing her makes me wonder should you lose all the street cred you receive for going to jail but by getting released early for good behavior?

- The first shocker of the night was James Blunt for winning Best Male Video. I have a suspicion that this was a last minute decision to give him the award just to give his girlfriend some airtime.

- The least hip-hop song nominated wins Best Hip-Hop award. And up the irony quotient one of the Black Eyed Peas talked about how there is a place for positive rap as he picks up an award for a song about a woman’s naughty bits.

- Shakira and her Indian themed performance for Hips Don't Lie was probably the best of the night, but that’s not really saying much.

- Can someone please explain the allure of Jackass to me? Am I the moron for not finding naked midgets and dudes hitting each other in the testicles funny?

- Lil’ John is up next and tells everyone to get on the feet, but as the camera scans the place, everyone is as slow to get up as if a hymn started to play at church. But I can’t blame them considering it was just for Ludacris whose set looked like it was on a lower budget than most high school plays. Not a good sign for a song called Moneymaker. And had Ludacris not namedropped them, I would have never known that it was the Pussycat Dolls that came on stage at the end of the song.

- Speaking of the Pussycat Dolls, it’s sad tat we live in a world where they actually won a music award. But it’s nice that they thanked God for winning an award that tells dudes to loosen up their buttons. Classy.

- Jessica Simpson actually used the phrase “Push My Tush” while presenting the awards. I actually can feel my IQ dropping. Oh, and to follow up a story I broke here a couple days ago about her hooking up with John Mayer, just days later, Mayer posted on his blog that he really like the Public Enemy song Don’t Believe the Hype.

- OK Go redid their Here it Goes Again video with the treadmills step for step. What a waste of time. I could see the same exact routine on YouTube whenever I want, why would I want to see it live. The least they could have done was to screw p somewhere to make this performance memorable. Complete waste of time.

- What was on Paris Hilton’s head? But something has to be said that her album has been out more than a week and she has yet to perform a song live once. Even Ashlee Simpson’s people trusted her enough to lip-sync, it’s not a good sign that Paris cannot even be trusted to do that. Luckily she didn’t try doing it tonight instead she was just relegated to present the dude from Smallville and his band.

- Did some backstage dude grab Nicole Richie’s butt as she went onstage? I wonder if Nicole realized that Pink was making fun of her during her acceptance speech. I wonder if Pink realized that no one knew she was trying to be ironic.

- Did anyone else start to feel old when Snoop Dogg was talking about how all the new rappers were in diapers when he started? He then presents the Best Rap Video to Chamillionaire who said the best advice he ever got was to stay humble. Keep in mind this is coming from a guy who then named himself Chamillionaire.

- Guided Vocal Alert! Beyoncé gets no introduction and performs her second single off her new album. It’s never a good sign when a label has to rush out a second single before the album is never a good sign. Maybe we can expect that Destiny’s Child reunion sooner than later.

- T.I. is out next to perform a medley of songs I’ve never heard before and hope to never hear again.

- How funny was it that the dude who won Ringtone of the Year actually brought a list of people to thank? Apparently he didn’t get the memo that’s this was a joke award.

- It’s official, I am now totally sick of Fall Out Boy. And what was with the dude with the cape? The band is out to present Panic! at the Disco, or as I like to call it, a bathroom break. The performance would have been much better had the lead singer would have gotten hit with a bottle early in the song. If you want to see that happen, check out YouTube. Now that was entertaining.

- What's with bringing out the ten-year-old girl to the sounds of Rick James Superfreak. That is just totally wrong.

- I know that people like to make fun of past scandals but when your scandal is that you are horrible parents, it’s not a good idea to parody that sediment like Britney and her baby daddy did. Someone please send that tape to child services.

- Christina Aguilera for some reason to performed a balled. The massive guns she was showing off didn’t help with those drag queen comparisons.

- I thought they took out Michael Jackson from the Video Vangard award. Granted they have been sporatic giving it out lately. Hype Williams wins. It's sad that the rap cliches his videos created over a decade ago are still being used today.

- So AFI wins Best Rock Video and they were the only one all night who brings up the voting. This was something I was really wondering about, in the press release for the nominees, it mentioned that there was voting on the website, but I never heard anything about it after that. Nor did anything mention what the votes meant or if they meant why there was still a Viewer’s Choice Award. This is really bugging me.

- During one of their many mini-songs The Raconteurs changed the lyrics of historic song to “internet killed the video star.” Clever. Although this is about a year after I declared Podcasts Killed the Video Star.

- Worst Dressed of the night goes to Jennifer Lopez and her gypsy outfit. Seriously, who brought her out of obscurity? Can we quickly send her back there before she makes more crappy music? She appropriately presents Video of the Year to Panic! at the Disco, a crappy song to top off the crappy year.

- The night ends with The Killers. As the song ends they go to the nosebleed camera and just when you think they are setting up for something special, they cut back to Jack Black who ends the show.