Over the 25 year history of the MTV Video Music Awards, there has rarely been a more stirring and emotional introduction to the show than this year's tribute to Michael Jackson. The show began with a spoken introduction from Madonna, who recounted her appreciation for Jackson and told the story about the time they spent together.
What followed was a performance for the ages: A series of dancers came out to re-enact some classic Jackson moves before Janet Jackson joined them to sing her part of "Scream" (the only duet she ever recorded with her late brother) and mirror his dance solo in the middle of the famous music video for the track.
Of course, the performance didn't come from nowhere, as Janet and the rest of the dancers went through intense rehearsals to make it into an ideal tribute to Michael's legacy and memory. "The Making of Janet Jackson's VMA Tribute Performance," which airs Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on MTV, will provide an exclusive look behind the scenes and take you from the tribute's inception to its final execution.
As you can see from this exclusive preview, paying homage to one of the most iconic dancers in pop history takes a considerable amount of focus and effort.
The final version of the performance was supremely polished and ran through many of Michael's hits, including "Thriller," "Bad," "Smooth Criminal" and finally "Scream." The dancers were dressed in costumes that represented different fashion eras of Michael's life and incorporated all of his stylistic touchstones, from the white socks to the red leather jacket — save for Janet, who came out wearing a futuristic-looking outfit that matched the style of the classic "Scream" video. "It's the most fun I ever had," Jackson said of the performance. "And I know he was watching."
There were several memorable arrivals at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, including Lady Gaga showing up with a Muppet on her arm, Pink cruising in a fire truck and Taylor Swift emerging from a horse-drawn carriage. But one of the arrivals was so big it simply couldn't fit in the confines of the preshow. Before storming Radio City Music Hall, sitting in with house band Wale and UCB and voicing their opinions about Kanye West, the All-American Rejects brought along a marching band and arrived at the red carpet on a massive parade float.
The band eased their way to the VMA red carpet on the very patriotic-looking float as the two-dozen member marching band played the group's hit "Gives You Hell." Once the conveyance stopped, frontman Tyson Ritter (dressed in a red suit, obviously before he donned his all-glitter ensemble), drummer Chris Gaynor and guitarists Nick Wheeler and Mike Kennerty emerged from the vehicle and hit the red carpet. Ritter gave the MTV cameras some devil horns before greeting fans and heading into the venue for the show.
After taking some time off for the show, the Rejects head back out on the road on Friday to re-join the Blink-182 reunion tour. They'll stick with them for the rest of the U.S. stretch of the tour and then head over to Europe for another set of dates before returning to the States for a tour with Taking Back Sunday. Though the group wasn't nominated for any awards on Sunday, their in-house performance coupled with their larger-than-life arrival made it a memorable night for the Oklahoma quartet.
Over the weekend, in preparation for the MTV Video Music Awards, MTV News gave you an uninterrupted live peek at the ongoing construction of the red carpet area outside of Radio City Music Hall. Once the show wrapped up, we gave you a behind-the-scenes look at the red carpet construction with a few statistics thrown in (5,000 square feet of carpet, over six miles of electrical cable, 50 stagehands finishing a five day job in about 36 hours). But in case you want to take a look at the red carpet being built but don't have that much time on your hands, fear not, as we've got the entire construction in thirty seconds. A time-lapse camera was installed to capture single frames every few seconds, and here is the result.
It's not included in the video, but the strike was even more efficient: Everything was cleared out of the front of the building by the time the big show ended so that people could exit out of the main doors of Radio City Music Hall, and by mid-Monday there was nary a trace of MTV's presence in the area. It was a tremendous undertaking, but clearly it paid off, as it allowed us to see Lady Gaga's date, Buzz Aldrin's VMA debut, iJustine's Twitter coverage and, of course, Beyoncé.
There are only a few people at MTV who have ever interviewed Madonna. And all the people who have interviewed Madonna all have a certain prestigious history with the network: Kurt Loder, John Norris, a high-level producer here and there.
So you could imagine my surprise when, in the middle of my VMA backstage broadcast for V-Cast Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards, a dude in the press department ran up to me and said, "Dude. Madonna. Now."
Whaaat?
The interview went really well. Hell, I'd even say amazingly well. I know this because Madonna's longtime press guru didn't tackle me after our chat veered into zany territory. Watching the tape back, I have to say Madonna seemed to enjoy herself. She was an amazing sport when I asked her a million questions about Lady Gaga. She shared her legendary lightning-fast wit with me. And my producer made her cackle at one point. Score!
But I think I might have creeped her out when I admitted I was obsessed with her 12-year-old daughter, Lourdes. In fact, I know I did. Because Madonna told me.
In my defense, I'm not obsessed with Lourdes in any seedy way. I just find her newly-emerging public persona to be really exciting. She has a funky fashion sense and she just made an appearance in her mom's new video. It seems like Lourdes is dipping her toe into the fame pool. I meant to ask Madonna a legitimate question about Lourdes but instead what came out was, "Are you creeped out that I'm obsessed with your daughter?"
Sorry, Madonna! I promise next time I get to interview you I'll be more prepared and ask you all about your upcoming greatest hits album. But admit it: You had fun with me, right?
Kanye West's stage-crashing appearance at Sunday night's MTV Video Music Awards made the Internet explode with tweets, blog rants and at least one video mash-up. Reactions, condemnations and parodies move as quickly as people can conceive them.
Though West has repeatedly apologized (and finally called Swift himself yesterday, seemingly putting the beef to bed), the Web still hasn't forgiven him, and anybody with access to Photoshop is not going to let him off the hook that easily. West's interruption has created a meme that sees West interrupting any number of events, each time telling somebody that he'll let him or her finish and then talking about how much better something else is. For example, West drops in on Shaquille O'Neal shooting a foul shot and says, "I know you about to miss this free throw and I'm gonna let you finish, but Ray Allen has one of the best free throw percentages of all time!" He also dropped in on the moon landing, telling Neal Armstrong, "I'm really happy for you and I'm gonna let you finish, but Russia had one of the best space programs of all time!" He explains to Dr. King, "Last night I had one of the best dreams of all time!" And he even puts down Edward Cullen, saying, "Edward, I'm very happy for you and I'm gonna let you sparkle, but 'True Blood' has some of the best vampires of all time!"
Of course, like any good Internet meme, it eventually comes back to eat itself, as evidenced by this photo of Kanye interrupting his own interruption. And like any good Internet phenomenon, there's also a fake Twitter account that drops interruptions on various things, like "I'ma rent 'Signs' again but my haircut had some of the best crop circles of all time!" and "Yo @DrakkardNoir I'm really happy for your @DrakesKnee recovery, Ima let you finish but Ben Carson had one of the best surgeries of all time!"
By iJustine
I had the most amazing time attending the MTV Video Music Awards this week. This was my first one ever, and when you watch something like this on TV, you never realize just how much work goes into producing such a huge show. Getting to see everything as it happened was amazing.
Being that most of the time I'd much rather check out the technology behind the show than chat with celebs, I had the best seat in the house. I got to see how all of the screens were created, an inside view of the trucks that produced the show and the red carpet as it was being built.
Another great thing about VMA week was everyone has to rehearse at some point for their performance. Since I was helping host the preshow to talk about the Twitter trends, I was around all the time and got to see one of my favs, Taylor Swift, get ready for her big performance. She even gave me a wave while I was hanging out up on the Radio City marquee!
But my favorite thing was actually getting to interact with you all during the preshow. We were tracking everything that you guys said about the show on Twitter about the show and the reaction was insane! Being able to watch the show in a completely different light was an amazing thing. Some of my favorite tweets revolved around Shakira and Pink wearing the same dress. From on top of Radio City, they looked identical, but I had to take it to the tweets to see if that was the case. I hope you guys enjoyed the Twitter interaction, and keep tweeting!
After spending the previous two years in Las Vegas and Hollywood, the MTV Video Music Awards came back to New York City's Radio City Music Hall, the venue where it all began 25 years ago. It was a memorable evening filled with exciting performances, dramatic dedications and a a pair of stage crashers in Kanye West and Lil Mama. While the final product was amazing — particularly the red carpet set up outside of Radio City — it took a lot of work to get there.
50 stagehands started building the red carpet area at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning (September 12) and put the finishing touches on in time for the red carpet to open at 6:30 on Sunday evening. Along the way, they built a series of platforms, laid down 5,000 square feet of carpet and set up cameras and equipment that required over six miles of cable. All the while, they had to work around occasionally heavy rain and midtown Manhattan road and foot traffic.
The strike was just as efficient. Because the audience had to exit out of the main entrance underneath the marquee, the crew needed to clear out everything from that area during the two hours that the show was airing live. The rest of the area was gradually picked apart by carpenters and electricians, leaving no trace that MTV was ever there. "I was a union carpenter for 20 years," said production manager Adam Stewart. "And this is my fourth VMAs, but in all that work, this is the hardest job I've ever done." Click here for the behind-the-scenes photos of the construction of the red carpet stage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards!
By Matthew Wenzel
That's right. Yours truly was the Moonman on the red carpet at the MTV Video Music Awards Preshow on Sunday night. How did I land that job? I don't want to get into it. But I would like to say that it was a great opportunity not only to work for MTV, but also to hang out with lots of cool people in the audience and on the carpet — and of course the multitude of stars who showed up.
However, every job has its pros and cons. While I did have a lot of fun and walk around the red carpet and make a fool of myself, I was sweating like crazy. It must have been 150 degrees inside that suit. OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it was hot. I also could only see out of the MTV logo on the middle of the helmet, so seeing where I was going (as well as who I was standing near) was tough.
All in all, I had a great time, and would not pass up the opportunity again. My only regret is that most people didn't get to see what I got up to on the red carpet. For example, I had a battle with Jack Black, got punched in the helmet by Perez Hilton and got sniffed by Tre Cool while Green Day posed for a picture with me. None of these silly moments made it to the air, and while I understand that more important things needed to be shown, it still would have been fun to see.
But there's always next year. At least, I hope there is. I think the right people have my number. Are you guys reading this? Call me! Tim Kash told me to get a better job at the close of the show, but I'm down for putting the suit on anytime.
The red carpet at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards welcomed a number of high-profile arrivals to Radio City Music Hall, including Pink's entrance on a fire truck, Cobra Starship's double-decker bus and Taylor Swift's "Cinderella"-esque horse and carriage. One of the great arrivals you didn't get to see on Sunday night was Leighton Meester's approach in a Jaguar convertible. MTV News' Kim Stolz picked up Meester at New York City's London Hotel and cruised through the evening with the top down for a stylish VMA entrance befitting of everybody's favorite "Gossip Girl" star.
Meester's arrival was only the start of her eventful evening. On her way down the red carpet, she stopped to chat with "Twilight" star and fashion correspondent Ashley Greene, who said "You look incredible. I thought you were going to be on the best-dressed list, and I'm sure that you are." Meester was wearing a gorgeous sequin dress by Christian Cota and forward-thinking heels on her feet. Later in the show, she helped Jack Black pray to Satan (as well as present the award for Best Rock Video, which was won by Green Day). Meester looked a little thrown by Black's fake muscles and deep metal voice, but she rolled with the punches and looked good doing it. Check out more photos of Leighton Meester and the rest of Kim Stolz's photo diary here!
Video of the Year Week continues here in the MTV Newsroom. Yesterday we took a look at the latest entry into the Video of the Year portfolio, and today celebrates a clip that is not only for a great song but also has an MTV tie-in and is relevant to an anniversary today. Exactly one year ago, Lehman Brothers, one of the most massive financial services firms in the world, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which profoundly escalated the onset of the current recession and represented the largest bankruptcy in the country's history. The corporation's involvement in the investment of subprime mortgages lead to the loss of billions of dollars and the profound devaluation of the group's stock. It's a crisis that has yet to resolve itself and will probably be felt for years to come.
Lehman Brothers' big crime? They were looking for "Money for Nothing." Dire Straits' signature clip — which featured iconic computer animation and featured the "I want my MTV" chorus — took home Video of the Year at the 1986 Video Music Awards. It beat out a pair of very famous clips (a-ha's "Take On Me" and Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love") as well as one underrated gem (Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere") and one that's totally forgotten (Godley & Creme's "Cry"). That show was a weird one, as it was split between two venues (one in New York, the other in Los Angeles) and was hosted by a consortium of VJs, including Martha Quinn, Mark Goodman and "Downtown" Julie Brown. Dire Straits also took home Best Group Video, but the big winners from '86 were a-ha, who actually scored a total of eight awards that night.
