Video Music Awards

What channel is MTV again?

And what kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where an unscripted precursor is the height of the show. That's right, the shooting of Suge Knight was this year's memorable moment, and that's all the VMAs are about these days, trying to create lasting impressions, which this year's telecast failed to do.

How do I know? I scanned the web!

So we've got a self-congratulatory music industry trumpeting this faux show because of its reach and we've got an advertising industry fascinated because they see these young nitwits as their next audience and we've got self-satisfied oldsters refusing to watch because they've got no idea who these people are and want to feel superior.

Welcome to 2014, where self-promotion is paramount and music is second to your brand.

How did we get here?

Ironically, via MTV itself. Which proved that music is second to money. Which took fly by night acts and blew them up to icons so big that they can still tour sheds today.

But that was 1982. Long before videos cost a million bucks in the nineties and then the whole paradigm was eviscerated by the web. Yup, a couple of years back Adam Levine excoriates the channel, now he plays it, because after all, who can turn down that exposure?

That's the avenue you take when you've got little talent, when you don't record memorable music. You call out the usual suspects, the hacks in the media world, and get them to trump up your evanescent product to the point where you feel it's significant, even though most of us shrug our shoulders and move on.

At least credit Sam Smith for concocting a good song. But the point is how do you reach people not in the echo chamber? Oldsters who prefer CDs to YouTube, who don't search SoundCloud and find it too hard to use Spotify.

We're complicit in the decline of the music industry. All the makers and sellers. Because we haven't come up with a way to showcase our wares. So MTV does it for us, poorly, and Grammy ratings improve because everybody at home has no idea what to listen to. It's kind of like Twitter. Its adherents and the press keep telling us it's changing the world, but we never go there. Hell, I follow my feed religiously but almost no one was commenting on the VMAs last night, I guess there's no nexus between who I read and those who watch the VMAs.

So where do we start?

Always with the acts.

Give these VMA stars credit, they create catchy tunes. Not Beyonce, who self-indulgently tributed herself with sixteen minutes of music that didn't break through and few want to hear, but the Ariana Grande and Iggy Azaleas of this world. How come oldsters can't write catchy tunes? How come Americana acts can't write catchy tunes? Have we lost the formula? Do only Max Martin and Dr. Luke have the secret sauce?

Because it's damn hard to be ubiquitous with a product that does not deserve the acclaim.

And today, even though classic rock sustains, almost nothing else does. Check the most played tracks on Spotify, you'll find Led Zeppelin, but not PSY. And Led Zeppelin didn't break through until "Whole Lotta Love." And sure, "Stairway To Heaven" was not an AM single, but it was unavoidable on FM, which was coming to dominate.

The youngsters know how to play the game.

But they've got nothing to say, other than pay attention to me, watch me dance, look at my bank account, wanna have sex with me? You can't!

The oldsters want to say something but they've got bad tunes and bad voices and they're so demanding of our attention that we ignore them. The VMAs of the hipsters is a feature in the "New York Times Magazine," which just goes to prove you're a wanker who appeals to the head not the heart, and deserve little attention.

Yes, we need a new awards show. A Mercury Prize for America.

But who are we gonna give it to?

The problem is us. We refuse to acknowledge that the basics are always key. That first and foremost music is something you listen to, and if it doesn't hook you quickly, it won't hook you at all, especially in these overwhelming times.

Come on, how many times did you have to hear "I Want To Hold Your Hand"?

And most of the acts whose music you had to hear multiple times had hits to entice us first.

But the truth is I'm not optimistic. Because music lost its hold on the culture decades ago, it's not where you go for honesty and truth. I get a bigger hit opening my browser than going to the iTunes Store. We've decimated our credibility. Once upon a time music was hot, now it's meh.

Yup, YouTube features young stars with credibility, but on MTV we get the fawning Sway.

Radiohead entered our consciousness via "Creep," yet has not recorded anything that memorable for the masses since.

Which is why EDM could be our savior. Because the mainstream doesn't care about it, the oldsters don't get it and the deejays and attendees don't need our attention.

Yup, it may be driven by drugs, but no one in that world is saying LOOK AT ME!

So, so long 2014 VMAs... The run-up was more memorable than the show.

And so long the seventies, when breaking through on radio meant everybody in the demo knew you.

And so long to the eighties, when we were all watching MTV.

Hello to the twenty first century. Where we're overloaded with information and just because you're yelling that does not mean we hear you.

We live in a world where most is ignored but that which is picked up is spread like wildfire.

You know why you don't know Iggy Azalea, never mind Ariana Grande?

BECAUSE THEY'RE JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

Kid music for kids.

But it used to be different...


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