MTV Video Music Awards

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Weekend, 12/28/12

We're gettin' an early jump on the weekend because you've probably already checked out anyway. So here are the 10 best concerts around the city this weekend, in no particular order. The Ten Best Reissues of 2012 The Ten Best Noise Tracks of 2012 The Ten Best Metal Albums of 2012 The Ten Best Countr ... More >>

MTV's Video Music Awards Enters The Post-Music-Video Era

This Week In the Voice: The VMAs Fizzle; Unlocking The Truth Go To Metal School

In this week's Village Voice, out now: Despite the aerial hijinks of P!nk (above) and lots of sex talk, I get underwhelmed by MTV's Video Music Awards; and Jonah Bromwich hangs out with the hard-rocking kids who make up Unlocking The Truth, who you might be able to catch playing Times Square sometim ... More >>

Live: Madonna Brings Her Set Pieces, Sex Pieces, And Masterpieces To Yankee Stadium

Madonna w/ Avicii Yankee Stadium Thursday, September 6 Better than: The VMAs. If ever you need a concise summary of Madonna's year, the billing for her New York dates will do nicely. There's Madonna, her name in no way styled to resemble that of a party drug. And there's Avicii, a Swedish stadium- ... More >>

Live: Fiona Apple Can't Help It At The Bowery Ballroom

Fiona Apple Bowery Ballroom Monday, March 26 Better than: Holding it all in. Before Fiona Apple took the stage at the Bowery Ballroom last night, Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It" pumped out of the speakers, its flirtatiously skipping beat booming throughout the packed room. The tale of a ... More >>

Live: The Secret Policeman's Ball Speaks Freely At Radio City Music Hall

The Secret Policeman's Ball: Coldplay, Mumford & Sons, Russell Brand, Eddie Izzard, and many others Radio City Music Hall Sunday, March 4 Better than: Watching the Lohan Saturday Night Live on DVR. Going to a live show that's actually meant to be broadcast on television can be a deadly propositio ... More >>

R.E.M.'s Reckoning

The band closes the book on their legacy

100 & Single: The Increase In Hot 100 Rebounders, And The iTunes-Radio Tug Of War

​The first week I remember ever hearing American Top 40 with Casey Kasem on the radio, back in the summer of 1981, the No. 1 spot was a real cliffhanger. As Kasem explained, the week before, Kim Carnes's synth-pop smash "Bette Davis Eyes" had ceded the top spot after about a month, to a song ... More >>

You Are Old: Pearl Jam Twenty

Lil Wayne Just Misses the Milli Mark, but Sells a Boatload of Tha Carter IV

​Yesterday there were rumblings that Lil Wayne's Tha Carter IV--the hyperactive MC's newest album, which dropped shortly after he closed out last month's Video Music Awards--had indeed sold more than a million copies in its first week out, the way that its predecessor in the Carter series did ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Raising The Bar For "YouTube Platinum"

Justin Bieber and Ludacris: Congratulations. A lot of people watched your video.​On August 28, MTV will throw the 2011 installment of its Video Music Awards, honoring achievements in the art form that used to make up the majority of its programming. While it's all too tempting to note the iron ... More >>

Kreayshawn

The Five "Best" Retired Categories At The Video Music Awards

MTV turns 30 today. To celebrate, we're running a bunch of pieces on the channel, its legacy, and its future. Would you look at all that postmodernism? For a multimillion-dollar event orchestrated with the dictatorial hand of all awards shows, there's always been a certain thrilling seat-of-the-pa ... More >>

Will Bon Jovi Be The Band That Heals The Wounds Of 9/11 Once And For All?

​Probably not, but: "New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in secret negotiations with HBO to produce a historic Bon Jovi concert in Central Park the night before the 10th anniversary of 9/11." That's from The Daily's gossip page today. So, you know, this show—which will reportedly be ... More >>

The Video Music Awards' Nominations Play To The Internet (Again)

​Last night MTV announced the nominees for this year's installment of their annual pseudo-event extravaganza, the 2011 Video Music Awards, and once again, the nominees for Video Of The Year have three pop picks ("Rolling In The Deep," "Firework," "Grenade"), one sop to the olds in the crowd wh ... More >>

The Five Best Pop Songs To Lip-Sync To

​Let's keep this gender-unspecific ---i.e., this isn't just about drag queens, but about anyone who loves mouthing along to a song. (And who doesn't, especially if you're unemployed?) Let's also stay within the relatively modern era. I'm not including "Don't Rain On My Parade," OK? And so, t ... More >>

Zach Baron's Top 10 Singles of 2010

Rich aliens, rich alienation. Still via connect.in.com​With sincere apologies to Chuck Eddy, my two favorite records of the year also produced my two favorite singles: funny how that happens. And though ten songs increasingly feels like about forty too few, especially when Dr. Luke is working, ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? LCD Soundsystem and Nostalgia's Creeping Scourge

Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week! James Murphy, pulling no punches.​Dear fellow illumin ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? Bowling With Titus Andronicus and the Joy of the Work

Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week! Please, this holiday season, spare a thought for these mill ... More >>

Free Lindsay Lohan: Someone Pulls Some Strings, Actress Goes Free on Bail

​Lindsay Lohan is free once again. But to rewind: In the last few weeks, Lindsay Lohan failed two court-ordered drug tests, showing either an amazing amount of gall or demonstrating the intensity of a horrible disease. Probably both. As punishment, on Friday morning a judge ordered her directl ... More >>

Lady Gaga, Lobbyist

Apparently, Lady Gaga doesn't just have the power to get major legislation moved onto the floor of the U.S. Senate, but she's got U.S. senators clamoring to reach her on Twitter. After turning up to the VMAs on Sunday with four service members discharged because of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and calli ... More >>

Week in Review: Sit Down, Man

​​​​Behold the amazing talents of Ryan Dombal.​In the week someone introduced us to the term "rap sabbatical," we got investigative, bringing news of the newfound hip-hop ban at Savalas (which sent DJ Ayres packing), HARD Fest's harsh words for M.I.A., Lil Wayne's prefe ... More >>

Stream Deadmau5's Set At Provocateur Last Night

​Fresh off his stint DJing the MTV Video Music Awards (netting him invaluable 10-second bursts of airtime!), electro-house misfit Deadmau5 dropped by swank West Side club Provocateur last night ("It is rumored that entry will be like getting into Fort Knox") and apparently UStreamed his entire ... More >>

Live: Jay-Z And Eminem Bring Out Dr. Dre, Kanye West, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Swizz Beatz, And Chris Martin (??!!) At Yankee Stadium

This actually happened Jay-Z/Eminem Yankee Stadium Monday, September 13 Better than: The shows in Detroit, I have to think. Sorry, Detroit. So let's start somewhere in the middle: Chris Martin! The dude from Coldplay! Seriously! Out he shuffles roughly halfway through Jay-Z's n ... More >>

Lady Gaga Wears Meat to MTV Awards; Corn Syrup Hoping to Change Name & Image

​Michelle Obama addressed the NRA recently -- the National Restaurant Association, that is -- calling for increased efforts to fight childhood obesity. [Nation's Restaurant News] U.S. Foodservice Inc., a food distribution company, agreed to pay $30 million to settle civil fraud charges that i ... More >>

MTV's Video Music Awards Had Me Gaga

​Every year, MTV pretends it's still a music channel and gives awards to the videos it shows in the middle of the night between NyQuil commercials. Fortunately, the VMAs are riveting nonetheless, the entire community assembling to lip-synch a song and screech out an acceptance speech. Rather ... More >>

Week in Review: Welcome to the Ultimate Vacation

Last one of these, we swear. Photo by Nate "Igor" Smith​In the week we got real cozy with some our subjects, Camille Dodero spent four days at the Gathering of the Juggalos and came back best friends with Tom Green, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope (who say it's happening again next year), the worl ... More >>

Lady Gaga's Hypnotic Appeal

​Even when Lady Gaga comes out with a song that doesn't initially seem up to her standard, it ends up ingratiating itself into my system and proving to be a wowser. I didn't think much of "Paparazzi" when I first heard it, but ever since the woman performed it on the VMAs, it drilled into my ... More >>

Bad Girls Gone Worse: Rihanna, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga

While they seethe and snarl, Taylor Swift emasculates with a smile

Drag Queens Need To Update Their Acts

​I love drag queens more than life itself, and I appreciate the timeless appeal of their Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, and Eartha Kitt impressions. It's important to keep those amazing legends alive! But if these impersonators don't mix it up and start updating their acts a little, they're goi ... More >>

Free Will Astrology: December 23 through 29, 2009

Local Man Disrupts MTV Awards Show 10 Years Ago

All in all, you've got to admire the restraint shown by Gothamist editor John Del Signore, who waited 10 years and--more impressively, though one supposes this wasn't exactly ever going to accord with Gothamist's VMA coverage plan-- nearly two months after the whole Kanye/Taylor Swift melodrama to ... More >>

SHE COMES OUT SWINGIN’

Pop insurgent Pink brings the circus to town

In Praise Of The Whitney Houston Oprah-Interview Soundboard

Rich Juzwiak's FourFour blog is required reading for any number of reasons: his absolute command of subjects ranging from horror movies, The-Dream, or America's Next Top Model chief among them. But mostly it's the animated GIFs. Nobody on earth is doing better work in this regard. We have already ... More >>

Jay Leno Scolds Kanye West, Plays The "What Would Your Dead Mom Think" Card; An Appalled Nation Flocks To Letterman En Masse

Now look here. It was a dick move by Kanye, no question -- the farcical situation and meaninglessness of the award itself notwithstanding, the look on Taylor Swift's face as he bratted out for the 15,000th time seemed to be legitimately heartbreaking. (Leno: "When did you know you were wrong?" Kan ... More >>

One Last Live Shot at Phoenix, Whose Central Park Shows Are Both Sold Out

​Both of Phoenix's shows in Central Park later this month are sold out, which would be tough luck for those who haven't seen the band this year--the Phoenix live experience these days being titanic and note-perfect but also kind of moving, all at once--except that Pepsi and VMAs and the AIDS c ... More >>

Taylor Swift's Teenage Country-Star Tales, Spiked With Actual Wisdom

Fergie Is a Man

And other shocking revelations from this year's Video Music Awards

1984

2003

NY Mirror

VMT&A's

Who and what went down at the MTV Video Awards

'Motherfuckers!'

NY Mirror

Celebs Take Manhattan

NY Mirror

Music

Music

MTV: Behind the Music

VJs, Video Awards, and Li'l Kim's Boob

NY Mirror

''Most high-minded of all was Madonna, a spiritual lady who wears her heart on her jewel-encrusted sari sleeve.''