According to reasonably reputable sources, this year’s MTV VMAs (the annual Video Music Awards, broadcast live on Sunday night) were watched by over 12 million people. I imagine the majority of viewers tuned in to see what extravagant outfit Lady Gaga would turn up in, and were instead confounded and perhaps exasperated by her lengthy opening monologue as a male greaser named “Jo Calderone.” (In fact, Gaga remained in character the entire night, a bit of mild performance art showing an impressive level of commitment. Not Abramovic commitment, but commitment nonetheless.) Thankfully this was also paired with a visceral rendition of her new countrified single “You and I” featuring Queen guitarist Brian May, a sort of “anxiety of influence” moment where Gaga’s indebtedness to Freddie Mercury and co. (her name derives from the song “Radio Ga Ga”) shone through clearly. Other memorable moments included Beyonce’s escalating vocal acrobatics and “big reveal” that she and Jay-Z are having a baby – considering J-Hova is the father, it can only be an immaculate conception – as well as teen idol Justin Bieber specifically thanking “not just God, but Jesus.”
Beyond all these antics, however, two performances from this pop culture fiesta stood out as starkly opposed demonstrations of the best and worst of contemporary pop music.
On the one hand, Chris Brown’s over-the-top, obviously lip-synched performance presented the audience with an incoherent spectacle ostensibly involving the young singer travelling into the past (1993, and then 1991, to be specific) and then the future, where wires carried him into the air high above the stage to perform somersaults and fly around like some kind of celestial being. (To see this strange spectacle, click on video 29 here.) There is no doubt Chris Brown is a gifted dancer, but seeing the man who in 2009 severely beat his girlfriend treated like a returning saviour descending from the clouds was a little hard to stomach. Moreover, all the trampolines, high-flying stunts and pyrotechnics did little to disguise the fact that this performance was a lot of sizzle with not very much steak.
Adorno and Horkheimer spoke disparagingly of the “culture industry,” which churns out products for mass consumption, and certainly it’s hard not to think of this kind of depthless, generic drivel as exemplifying the very worst of “pop music.” If this is what MTV is about in the age of “Jersey Shore,” it is symptomatic of the worst of “pop culture” – a mindless celebration of both artistic and ethical mediocrity.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, British singer Adele – 21 years old, virtually the same age as Brown – proved that there is still a place for authentic, soulful artistry even on MTV. Her simple, raw performance – accompanied by only a piano, without any trampolines, explosives or backup dancers – was mesmerizing. Each word of her song “Someone Like You” was pregnant with emotion, ranging from a longing for past intimacy to a simmering anger stemming from a broken heart. Near the end of the song, the lyric “I never knew / how bittersweet this could be,” accompanied by a subtle hand movement indicating the large arena in which the performance was unfolding, contained the whole emotional force of the song in one phrase; Adele’s own story somehow seemed wrapped up in the story of the song, about a girl becoming famous but missing the one person who could make it all matter. This is not a matter of hip-hop bad, singer-songwriter music good – rather, whether it’s Kanye West with nothing but an 808 or Bob Dylan with nothing but a guitar, the very sparseness of a performance can attest to the artfulness of the song and the expressive power of the person singing it. It’s telling that even many of the stars walking the VMA “black carpet” said they were looking forward to Adele’s performance – when it comes to pop music, it’s easy to recognize who the true artists are.