Three takeaways from Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards
Sunday night’s VMAs unfolded with glitz, glamour and bling while the top awards went to some of the usual suspects, including Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande. But underneath it all were subtle messages worth decoding. Here are just a few:
1. Country music is no longer an afterthought
The VMAs have been somewhat distantly acquainted with country music, even as the genre has shown signs of surpassing hip-hop in popularity. Last year, two country albums from pop artists, Beyoncé’s "Cowboy Carter" and Post Malone’s "F1-Trillion," reached No. 1 on Billboard’s album charts but earned only a few nods from the VMAs. This year, the VMAs introduced their first-ever category for Best Country — 41 years after the awards show’s launch.
In fairness, MTV was never about country. Born of early-80’s synth-pop and hair metal, the channel always aspired to an edgy, alternative vibe. Hip-hop and grunge fit the MTV mold, but country — wholesome, family-friendly, God-fearing — did not. Fans had to look elsewhere, namely Country Music Television, which launched in 1983 as a boot-cut alternative to MTV.
But the days of musical segregation — when metal stood over here and disco over there — are long gone. Just look at two hits from this year: Shaboozey’s honky-tonk hip-hop track “(A Bar Song) Tipsy" and Morgan Wallen’s auto-tuned slow-jam "Miami" (featuring Lil Wayne and Rick Ross on the remix, no less). Crossover, not tribalism, is the name of the game. In the end, it was Megan Moroney, a 27-year-old singer from Georgia, who won the Best Country award for her album "Am I OK?"
2. The MTV brand is somehow still alive
These days, the acronym VMA may be more recognizable than MTV, the channel that invented the awards. In fact, MTV no longer runs regular music-video programming at all, instead devoting its schedule almost entirely to reality programming and "Ridiculousness," a half-hour collection of social-media clips accompanied by comedic commentary. The channel has clearly bowed to new viewing habits: Most people watch music videos on YouTube and other digital platforms, not cable.
Nevertheless, the MTV brand was so powerful for so many years that the VMAs have managed to stay relevant, or at least reasonably popular. Last year’s ceremony, which aired across more than a dozen cable channels, including MTV and Univision, drew just over 4 million viewers, according to Variety — the show’s biggest audience in four years. (The presence of Taylor Swift, who went in with a leading 12 nominations, might have had something to do with that.) This year’s show aired for the first time on CBS, which could broaden its reach even further.
3. Music still keeps the cultural rhythm
More than movies, more than television, music is the beat of a changing world. The crowd at the VMAs was nothing if not diverse, even among the award-winners alone. Bruno Mars, a pop singer of Puerto Rican and Ashkenazi Jewish descent, and Rosé, a New Zealand native raised in South Korea, won Song of the Year for their punky pop collaboration "APT." Sabrina Carpenter performed her song "Tears" with dancers holding signs in support of trans and queer rights. And Ariana Grande, who claims no marginalized identity at all, won Video of the Year for her short film "brighter days ahead."
"Music is the force that brings us all together, and we’re leaving everything else at the door," host LL Cool J said at the top of the show. His firm tone suggested he might be referring to politics. And while diversity may be falling out of favor in some corridors, inside the UBS Arena it was fully on display for the night. "No matter what you’re bumping on your playlist these days," LL Cool J promised, "pop, country, Latin, hip-hop, K-pop, straight up rock — it’s all here."
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