VMA's in Review

The MTV Video Music Awards have come and gone once again, and as usual, have left us with much to talk about. As for the awards themselves, it seems to take a backseat to a night of speeches and performances that drew the most interest. From beginning to end, the show always continues to grab the audience’s attention because of the sheer unknown of what will happen next. 

Miley Cyrus is back in the spotlight, this time as host for the 2015 VMAs. Her stage presence cannot be questioned; her outfits, however, were. Many of her ensembles were the trending topics on social media, but before that could take the cake for her most dramatic, a wardrobe malfunction caught a bit too much skin on Miley as she hid behind a curtain as the station turned to a commercial break.  

Even after that disaster was handled, she was not done being the center of attention. As Nicki Minaj was accepting an award for Best Hip-Hop Video, she turned her attention to Miley and confronted her about what she had said about Nicki in an interview. Miley seemed to shake it off and placed the blame on the media taking her words out of context as they often do with celebrities and people of interest. The standoff ignited the online chatter of a new feud between the two celebrities. 

What are the VMA’s in today’s world without talk of Kanye West and Taylor swift? We last saw these two face off in 2009 on the VMA stage when Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to give credit to his friend Beyoncé on what he thought has the best video of the year. Since then the tables have turned and in this installment of the VMA’s Taylor called to the stage her old friend Kanye to accept the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. 

Swift started her announcement off with a familiar “Imma let you finish” and then added “but Kanye West had one of the greatest careers of all time,” before handing off the award. Oh but how the action had just begun there. Kanye’s lengthy acceptance speech was filled with questionable moments but at one point he even seemed to have admitted to be under the influence by saying, “ yes” to his rhetorical question of did he smoke something before getting on stage.  Kanye continued, “I rolled up a little something to knock the edge off.”  Even then Kanye had more to tell. In what had become a speech that bounced around all over the place, it ended up landing with Kanye concluding by announcing his nomination for United States President in 2020. If he didn’t accomplish anything at all that night, Kanye did get our attention, something that he never seems to fail at.   

All in all the night played out as expected, no truly shocking upsets in award winners. Taylor Swift brought home the coveted video of the year award with her song “Bad Blood,” which also sparked fan interest due to the related skirmish with Nicki Minaj. Swift and Minaj ended up singing a duet together wearing red dresses that concluded with Swift singing a piece from “Bad Blood” all with a smile. Maybe not the action the audience had hoped for, but all the while fun to watch. 

Until next year’s show comes back around we will wait and see how the development of Kanye’s presidential campaign plans to unfold, and surely have plenty of beef and rivalries between the artists and, as always, the Video Music Awards will provide us with plenty to chat about.