MTV VMAs 2009

The year 2009 witnessed the death of ‘The King of Pop’ and the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards would have been remembered for the tribute to the musical genius had not the series of dramatic events that followed later in the evening occurred. The curtains were lifted to an emotionally charged five minute long speech by the ‘Queen of Pop’ (Madonna) talking about her experiences with Michael. Madge exited the stage with the words "Yes, yes Michael Jackson was a human being, but dammit, he was a king. Long live the king."The Michael Jackson tribute commenced with a medley of his hits Thriller, Bad, smooth criminal. Finally his sister Janet Jackson stepped up the heat with Scream, dancing in sync with a video of Michael in the background.

The audiences were in for a surprise with the drama that unfolded with Kanye West hijacking the mike and the stage from the cheerful, young Taylor Swift and blurting out that Beyonce deserved the award for Best Female Video . The young star seemed to be at a loss of words and walked off stage. Beyonce, while picking up the Video of the Year award for Single Ladies showed her classbyinviting Taylor Swift on stage once again to finish her acceptance speech. West, previously known for such tantrums was promptly evicted from the awards show held at Radio City Music Hall in New York. This time, the whole world seemed united in their criticism on his behavior, with even the American President calling him ‘a jackass’. It looked like a few sips of Hennessy bought nothing but a lot of bad publicity for this colorful celebrity. Another stage crasher came in the form of Lil Mama who walked up on stage uninvited towards the end of Jay-Z’s performance with Alicia Keys.

The host Russell Brand brought along his own brand of British humor to the stage, receiving just a lukewarm response from the audience. The other show stoppers included Pink doing a Lil Kim(1999 VMA’s) with just a pink heart covering her nipple, performing Sober while hanging upside down on a trapeze. It looked like she was in the run against Lady Gaga for the ‘most bizarre outfit’ and ‘eccentric performance’. Lady Gaga’s pretentious performance of Poker Face and Paparazzi dressed inwhite knee-high boots and a white belly-bearing unitard with a single feathered shoulder pad ending with fake blood dripping out of her ribcage and eventually her mock death resembled some sort of a ritual to the stunned audience. Beyonce meanwhile took to the stage with her bunch of dancers clad in shiny leotards and performed Single ladies. Other performances included Taylor Swift’s You belong with me and Jay Z’s Empire State of Mind withAlicia Keys.

Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Jacob Lautner, the cast of Twilight- New Moon also showed up on stage to introduce the movie to a cheering and delighted audience.

With only a total of seven awards being handed out, the ceremony lasted just a while over two hours. Two of the recipients (Britney Spears and T.I.) were not attending (It looked like the rest of the winners couldn’t make it to the show). Judging from the headlines the next day it seemed that the elaborate Jackson tribute was slightly overshadowed by the drunken antics of Mr. West. The producers might have been embarrassed or maybe it was all an elaborate ploy to get the ratings up. I think I’ll leave all the gossip mongering to you.

List Of Winners At The MTV Video Music Awards