Adele Makes History

Adele's performance of "Someone Like You" at the 2011 VMAs was a breath of fresh air. Let's face it -- she always seems to put most current female singers to shame.

Luckily for the British singer, that performance resulted in "Someone Like You" jumping from No. 19 to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week. This is the biggest jump in the chart's history without releasing a single.

"Someone Like You" was released on Februray 22, 2011 and has sold 275,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Adele's first single from 21, "Rolling in the Deep," has sold 5 million copies and is currently the top-selling song this year.

Adele performing "Someone Like You" on the 2011 MTV VMAs.

The VMAs: Best and Worst Moments (Mostly the Worst)

"The VMA's. One day a year when MTV pretends to still care about music," Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine posted on Twitter.

That was how many felt as they watched the VMAs on Sunday.  Needless to say, the cast of the Jersey Shore were in attendance as if they had some sort of relevance to music. But in the end I suppose the cast has the last laugh -- MTV airs their show all day instead of music videos.

After observing Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj's ridiculous outfits, it seemed as though they were not only competing for a Moonman, but also who could dress more like Lady Gaga. This seems to be the general theme in recent years at all award shows.

To everyone's surprise, Gaga decided to open the show dressed as male alter-ego, Jo Calderone, with a cockamamie five-minute monologue that most people didn't seem to even understand. She redeemed herself with an exceptional performance of "You and I" featuring Queen guitarist Brian May, but as many expected the shtick to end after her performance...It didn't.

Gaga presented Britney Spears with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award after an insipid tribute, in which MTV clearly made little effort. Gaga, still in character as Jo Calderone, awkwardly did not leave the microphone at first for Britney to make her speech. When it was finally Britney's turn to speak, her very brief acceptance speech quickly turned into reading the teleprompter to introduce Beyonce. It was at that point Beyonce performed, revealing her baby bump, and just like that everyone forgot about Britney Spears.

One of the few memorable performances was when Adele nailed "Someone Like You." That girl has some raw talent and is living proof there's room for women with actual talent in mainstream music.

Last time I checked, part of a singer's performance required singing. Chris Brown barely made any attempt whatsoever to even lip-sync! Are there really that many simpletons out there that believe that his excellent dancing negates the fact he isn't singing? This is not Dancing With the Stars.

REUTERS

Then there was an actual real, deserving tribute--Russell Brand made a very lovely speech about Amy Winehouse. "When a talent like Amy Winehouse comes along, it effects everybody," he said. "And as a consequence, we are drawn to her." Tony Bennett then showed footage from recording a duet with Amy, which was followed by Bruno Mars' performance of "Valerie."


As expected, the popularity vote kicked in once again at the VMAs as Katy Perry accepted the award for Video of the Year, beating out Lady Gaga, Adele and a few other artists that were clearly more deserving. "I feel like I'm doing something right when I sing this song," Katy said. Well, she's not singing right in tune, that's for sure.

The show ended with quite a pointless performance by Lil Wayne. He began with "How to Love" in an auto-tuned speaking voice--a pathetic attempt at singing. As much as I would have loved to hear Lil Wayne degrade women while simultaneously having his pants fall to the ground, the majority of his second song "John" was silence due to MTV editing out cursing.

As always, the VMAs prove to be currently one of the most insignificant music award shows with no credibility whatsoever.

Also see: VMA Preshow Revolves Around 'Jersey Shore'
Also see:  Tyler The Moron at the VMAs

Here's a full list of all VMA winners:

Video of the Year: Katy Perry - "Firework"
Best Female Video: Lady Gaga - "Born This Way"
Best Male Video: Justin Bieber - "U Smile"
Best Collaboration: Katy Perry featuring Kanye West - "E.T."
Best Hip-Hop Video: Nicki Minaj - "Super Bass"
Best New Artist: Tyler The Creator - "Yonkers"
Best Rock Video: Foo Fighters - "Walk"
Best Pop Video: Britney Spears - "Till the World Ends"
Best Video With A Message: Lady Gaga - "Born This Way"
Best Choreography: Beyoncé - "Run the World (Girls)"
Best Visual Effects: Katy Perry featuring Kanye West - "E.T."
Best Art Direction: Adele - "Rolling in the Deep"
Best Editing: Adele - "Rolling in the Deep"
Best Cinematography: Adele - "Rolling in the Deep"

Beyonce performing "Love On Top"

Adele performing "Someone Like You"

Russell Brand and Tony Bennett pay tribute to Amy Winehouse.

Tyler The Moron at the VMAs

Los Angeles rapper Tyler, The Creator is someone I never heard of until VMA night, but he most definitely sounds like an uneducated moron.

During his VMA preshow interview, he stated, "I might kill myself" when asked what his reaction would be if Bruno Mars won Video of the Year. Aside from how unbelievably juvenile of a response that was, it's quite asinine that a new artist deems himself worthy enough to disrespect a talented, more experienced artist.

Tyler, The Creator's VMA Preshow Interview

Bruno Mars performed a cover of "Valerie" as part of a tribute to Amy Winehouse during the VMAs. Tyler later on tweeted, "F--k I Hate Bruno But That Was Really Good." Both Bruno and Tyler lost Video of the Year to Katy Perry, but Tyler snagged the award for Best New Artist. His speech was as follows:

"F--k that. F--k that shit. Yo, I'm excited as f--k right now.  I wanted this sh-t since I was 9. I'm about to cry. I didn't write a thank you speech, but I don't know. F--k. To all the kid's that's watching, you can do this sh-t yourself because f--kin'...Thank you."

 Well said!

Tyler, The Creator wins Best New Artist.

Also see: VMA Best and Worst Moments (Mostly Worst)
Also see: VMA Preshow Revolves Around 'Jersey Shore'

VMA Pre-show Revolves Around 'Jersey Shore'

MTV

The VMA pre-show's main focus this year seemed to desperately revolve around the Jersey Shore cast. Shocking.

Even after the cast's pointless interview and an unnecessary trailer for Season 4 of the Jersey Shore was aired, the camera constantly cut to shots of the cast posing on the black carpet during interviews with actual nominated artists.

Foo Fighters' singer Dave Grohl seemed confused as his interview was awkwardly cut short after one minute, since MTV needed to air some kind of prerecorded Jersey Shore skit. "Yeah! Jersey Shore Package!" Grohl exclaimed sarcastically.

VMA preshow interview with the Foo Fighters.

During the VMAs, Snooki, J-Woww, Deena and Sammi presented Best Female Video with 85-year-old actress Cloris Leachman. Lady Gaga won the award and accepted it as her alter-ego Jo Calderone, completely disregarding them. 

Jersey Shore cast and Cloris Leachman present Best Female Video.

It always seem as though it is The Land of Make Believe where everyone pretends for one day that MTV supports music. In addition, this year everyone also pretended Jersey Shore was actually relevant to music.

MTV felt it was so important for the cast to be in attendance that they were all flown by private jet. According to Vinny, "Being on a private jet is not that bad, except it didn't have Wi-Fi."

When the Jersey Shore cast is considered the most important guests at the VMAs, it's time to throw in the towel.

Also see: VMA Best and Worst Moments (Mostly Worst)
Also see: Tyler The Moron at the VMAs

Rise Against Bullying

Chicago punk rock band Rise Against has been creating a buzz lately with their video for "Make It Stop (September's Children)." The song is the second single from their sixth album, Endgame.

In the video, three homosexual children are bullied almost to the point of suicide, but then realize the positive impact they could have in the future.

"The song was written inspired of the teen suicides in the month of September 2010, who were bullied for being homosexual," singer Tim McIlrath explains. "It deals about how people are treated from homophobic bullying and feeling so tormented that they feel there's no place for them in the future and that killing themselves is a better option."

"Make It Stop" has also been nominated for a brand new VMA category, "Best Video With a Message."

Thumbs up for this video -- It's so realistic that it actually gave me chills.

A Tribute to Lip Syncing

It has been confirmed that the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards will be paying a tribute the ever-so-talented Britney Spears. How well-deserved --You earned it, Brit.

The guys in Milli Vanilli should seriously write a book called If We Only Waited Ten More Years. For some unknown reason I will never understand, it is now pathetically accepted for artists to lip sync live. People seriously spend hundreds of their hard earned cash to watch a pretend live performance. Computers have the capability of correcting even the severest pitchiness on albums, which means anyone can be a singer...anyone. So, let's celebrate by paying tribute to one of the best known lip syncers...Britney Spears!

Have no fear -- MTV producers said they are trying to fit in a tribute to Amy Winehouse as well. You know, just an afterthought. I mean, who gives a shit about Amy Winehouse? It's only the year of her death in addition to the fact that she wrote all of her own music and had an exceptionally beautiful singing voice, thus making her fully credible as a talented singer/musician... but, but... Britney dances in shiny outfits!

Amy Doyle, executive vice president of Music and Talent for MTV, told Billboard.com, "We said 'let's challenge ourselves to do something unique'."  Isn't it unique enough that MTV continues to hold an awards show honoring music videos they don't even air nor support?  (Also read: I Want My MTV [From 30 Years Ago]!)

The VMAs will air live from LA's Nokia Theater on August 28. Since MTV will be paying a tribute to Britney's high points, let's reflect on this terrible performance (of many), coincidentally from another VMAs in 2007.

2011 MTV VMA Nominees Announced

Katy Perry

The nominees for the 2011 MTV VMAs were announced last night. Katy Perry, Adele, Kanye West and Bruno Mars received the highest amount of nominations -- a whopping nine for Katy Perry. Eminem, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj are all tied with 3 nominations.

MTV, which formerly stands for Music Television, still continues its tradition of giving out awards for the best music videos when the station devotes an hour or so at most in the middle of the night to actually playing these videos. It's a shame Snooki didn't come out with a music video this year.

Vote for your favorite video in each category here.