Blurred Lines: I Know You Want It (?)
Twerking… fuck, I hate that word.
1. I could have easily played a video game or watched a film, but I was somehow bored enough (?) and ended up zapping through channels. First moment I tuned into this show was just 5 minutes before Robin Thicke performed. I’m not a fan of Thicke — the success of Blurred Lines irks me — and while Miley Cyrus involved turned this into a rampant shitfest, I kind of liked seeing Thicke jumping the shark just because human beings like watching downfalls. Shortly after that, I stuck around to see if N*Sync was really going to perform according to rumors around the web. Their appearance was more of a cameo: it was all about Justin Timberlake and rightfully so. And then, I changed the channel to something else.
Anything else newsworthy from the VMAs? Eminem releases a new album and that’s it for me.
That’s still a poor excuse, right? Could have done house activities (they were done) or gone to the cinema, but I already saw The Conjuring last night (it was great) and I don’t feel like paying money to see Jurassic Park in 3D.
2. Chris Rock will sum it up best for you in a segment [1] from 2004’s Chris Rock: Never Scared stand-up show.
“If the beat’s all right, she will dance all night. Women don’t give a fuck. The nastier, the better.”
I know this refers to rap music, but this also applies to songs of any genre with beats and not just related to women, but also to guys who enjoy these kind of songs, regardless of what the singer is saying, and I’ve been guilty of this many times (who hasn’t been guilty of this in life is a liar).
I’ll give you this: Blurred Lines is catchy despite the content of the song and video that can be easily perceived as mysoginistic to women. Funny enough, the most offensive lyrical content of the song is given to T.I. (a black guy) instead of Thicke, who gets to say you’re the hottest bitch in this place at some point during the song.
3. Ratings, I guess. It’s safe to safe that this isn’t trolling because of MTV’s current audience and most, if not all, of the winners aimed towards them.
Or if I borrow Amy’s mind, maybe this was done to make Justin Timberlake look phenomenal after the trash that happened before his performance. :P
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If there is a “positive” (?) out of this thing, it’s perhaps a blog post done by me. :P
Let’s hope that by the end of 2013, this song doesn’t become #1 of the year. At least, all the Top 15 songs from the first half of 2013 that I liked are better than Blurred Lines.
Maybe I should pull off a video ranking by the end of the year and show the world how it should be done.
Edit: Will Smith’s family was actually reacting to Lady Gaga’s performance instead of the Miley-Robin thing (but Rihanna and One Direction did). Still meme-worthy, though.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, I didn’t need that photo on Page 2.
Jurassic Park 3D was money (and time) better spent than with the VMA. And yeh, I give a flying fish about Blurred Lines, but when my cousin has it on the radio in his car I don’t mind the beat if I’m able to tuned out the English. I usually just do it automatically nowadays. But when reading the lyrics to Blurred Lines, I got a mad case of eyes rolling, though I don’t think they were as bad as when I listened to that Asian Girlz song that was so bad, I was more offended by how bad the song was than the actual racist content. LOL
Blurred Lines is on average American pop content lyrics, including JT.
And about JT’s performance, I did caught it on the kitchen while having dinner with my mother, and her reaction was PERFECT. “Is this what they call a show nowadays?” LOL Afterwards, we caught Chayanne on A&E singing Yo Te Amo and Completamente Enamorados… so there’s that. xD
I was so embarrassed for NSYNC, though, like- if you ain’t putting the time to make a killer performance, don’t make a not so surprise performance. At least in Beyonce’s case, they were decent. That’s been the last time I’ve been impressed with a show since Florence + The Machine’s VMA show. Good shows are getting scarce.
@amy, The thing with me and re-released films is that I wouldn’t pay to see them. Regardless of how great Jurassic Park is (and other past films re-released on 3D or not), my brain can’t process/accept the idea of paying to see a film that was already released years ago. I skipped Pulp Fiction, Trainspotting, Lion King, etc. because of that idea. I know this sounds dumb for anyone who loves films, lol.
I made a friend listen to Blurred Lines today. He loved the beat, but when he saw the video and started to pay a bit of attention to the lyrics, it was another story. Lol. BTW, I only heard that song on Doble 9 and that’s because Pharrell Williams is in it. Then again, I rarely listen to radio and I doubt Oxigeno/Oasis would play it.
Haven’t listened to Asian Girls yet.
I liked JT’s performance, but then again I prefer him solo than N*Sync for the most part. But somehow, I listened to Girlfriend twice. My boss’s secretary’s reaction to N*Sync’s cameo was “That’s it?” and she doesn’t care for JT since she’s more of a Latin music listener (which makes my eyes roll often at work) and telenovela viewer (?).
Haven’t paid attention to the VMA performances after 2003 with some exceptions. Maybe I should watch everything from the start and rank them all?
@Rodrigo, don’t bother. It’s not worth the torture. TRUST ME. This year the GIFs are making it all WORSE, except when it’s VMA reactions.
I liked NSYNC’s performing, like- I’m all over all the screens and lasers they used to use, and how tight the choreography used to be, and it was all a good show. High stamina. At some point after boy bands died and Britney went crazy, new pop idols went high-brow saying “I don’t do sync dancing because that looks silly.” (I side-eye One Direction every time they mention that) So they usually never got the skill or never bothered to perfect it, while screaming to the four winds that they were “true artists” so they wrote all their songs (Lovato and Miley… and, I guess, Bieber), while their composition skills were so basic due to the level of English most manage. Taylor Swift showed some promised in her first two albums, but the pop industry has taken over her. She hasn’t even bothered improving her vocals, which are the weaker side between her writing and singing. xD
Most Kpop boy bands are miles ahead in the vocal department.
The last good thing from the VMA was Lady Gaga’s debut show, Florence’s Dog Days, and Janet’s tribute to MJ. Even JT’s 20-min gig this weekend doesn’t reach the level of those performances in scale.
But I’m giving Lady Gaga a pass, even though everyone’s shitting on her show, because she’s had hip surgery you F*CKS! Even if it’s been a couple of months, but it’s still hip surgery however big it had been. And I’m usually not a Gaga apologist.
@amy, I was thinking about ranking performances from the USA VMAs from 1984 to current. I dunno if I’d be able to find all the footage of every single performance and I have no idea if MTV has done a DVD/BR collection of their shows yet (there’s money in there somehow). One thing I hate is that after 1999 or 2003, the genres has been very uneven in terms of live performers. I think this year is the first without a live rock act at all and I guess next year’s will be like this. Even when Nirvana was huge, there was still variety.
From the 3 performances you mentioned, I only saw Gaga (memorable for the blood thing only) and Janet, but that one was destined to be memorable no matter what regardless of the performance (which was very good). I haven’t seen Florence’s because at the time I never liked Dog Days. I’d say JT’s performance could have been above Gaga’s until N*Sync showed up, which kind of lowered his value (?) to a certain extent.
With N*Sync, I only listened to Girlfriend yesterday twice – I forgot about the song. I don’t think I could go around and listen to their other hits given the cheesiness of it. With JT’s songs, at least I can lol about it and enjoy them (?).
Didn’t caught Gaga, but I read about the surgery thing. I think she should have no-showed or been replaced with someone else.
You should really check out NSYNC’s gig in 2000, get past the pitchy intro rendition of This Is Promise You (courtesy of JT) and get to Bye Bye Bye with the flat screens performance. There hasn’t been a pop performance with that kind of use of stage since those days. lol
’99 was prime with Run DMC with Aerosmith opening with Kid Rock, Lauryn Hill, TLC, Fatboy Slim xD, but except for clips that may get taken down, there won’t be enough of them on YT. Viacom is merciless when it comes to their videos.