Sep. 10, 2008 - Issue #673: Sex in the City 2008

Backlash Blues

Schwing!

Last Sunday, I took in the 25th anniversary of the MTV Video Music Awards and saw it as an extremely detailed, two-hour-long Powerpoint presentation. The subject? The music industry’s 2008 - 09 marketing plan: how to make new money with old ideas. I was bombarded with imagery in the classic MTV fashion, but there seemed to be a new reason for all this colour and flash. Specifically, the reason is the re-up. They need their product back on the streets and they need a new customer base willing to cop it. 
 

The stage setup this year seemed remarkably stripped down from years past, where spectacle was once equal to musicality. It seemed that even MTV realized this: capable but relatively unknown host Russell Brand was forced to basically regurgitate the night’s events in a manner that emphasized how much “fun” the show was and how “anything could happen.” There were no rock stars climbing angular fixtures, no torch passing via makeout and no “Wu-Tang is for the children” sloganeering. Slash almost slipped on a rotating staircase, though. Something can happen, but only if the company knows about it, and if the company knows about, it can only be so interesting. Cookie, I think you’re tame.
 

It seems obvious that the industry is in panic mode, especially when they think the old tricks are gonna work (because they do). Until last night, I had managed to successfully never hear a Jonas Brothers song. Their saccharine love-me-do is promoted expertly in the Beatles/Monkees model: they play their own instruments, and, more important than their dreamy looks and shared bromance, they represent “Your Daughter’s First Rebellion,” a scene depicted live on MTV’s Hollywood sound stage with a thousand girls madly rushing the stage when the Jonas’s “rock out portion” reared its toothless head. But don’t worry, dudes: they’ve got something for you too.

 

I’ve also been purposely avoiding Katy Perry’s near-immediate ascension to worldwide fame. I hadn’t even heard her song by accident, in a supermarket, at a bar or whatever. I just didn’t want to be a part of this ballgame, because I knew I’d never stop playing if they got me in the rotation. The VMAs had one cool performance angle where DJ AM and Travis Barker would drum and scratch and incorporate live vocalists. Katy Perry did a cover of Madonna’s “Like A Virgin,” along with her hit song “I Kissed A Girl,” while wearing a Karen O costume (MJ gloves and a unitard with Warholian peelable banana applique on the front) and I was mesmerized. “They” (label, MTV and PR company working as Cerberus) poked my boner switch from all angles, appealing to sensuality triggers such as electroclash circa 2001, Karen O, Madonna and the mere thought of girls making out. This, I suppose, explains its status as a number one hit. I immediately downloaded “I Kissed A Girl” and have since unironically considered playing it in public.

Nowadays, the MTV VMAs are only tangentially about music, the same way MTV the station isn’t necessarily about playing music videos. So as the music goes away more and more, this pointless event with a bored-looking crowd of celebrities and programmed fans is somehow becoming less and less entertaining. The only thing they do still have a hold on is how to use our emotions against us and for them. The image is the Trojan horse that tricks you into buying the product, wanting to support the person behind the image, whether or not they are even connected. It’s a good game but it can’t work forever. V 

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