25 years of the Moonman

Last night, MTV celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Video Music Awards with their annual show taking place on the Paramount lot in Hollywood, California, and hosted by Russell Brand, the brash UK comic, who starred in this year's top comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

The show itself was good, there were performances that were top notch, like Rhianna who looked amazing during her performance (and I gotta say Disturbia is my early pick for Best Video at next year's VMAs), also T.I., Kid Rock w/ Little Wayne performing "All Summer Long" and Little Wayne with T-Pain and Leona Lewis. However the bubble gum performances like Pink and Hanson, oh I am sorry The Jonas Brothers, made me immediately change the channel.

Brand was funny in his monologue, not as funny as past hosts Chris Rock and Dennis Miller, but he did provide controversy by making fun of The Jonas Brothers who wear promise rings, proclaiming their celebacy till marriage, a fact that Brand enjoyed ribbing being a intercourse addict. American Idol winner Jordan Sparks, freelanced a retort on Brand and sparked an immediate rebuttal from Brand who promised after the show to wear a promise ring of his own, and said they'll be the new thing.

The winners of the night well surprise, surprise, were mainly of the pop music variety.

The big comeback of Britney Spears sparked Spears to win three awards for her video "Piece of Me", Spears took home Best Female Video, Best Pop Video and the big moonman of the night Video of the Year. Funny, how a year changes things, last year Spears was mocked for her lacking comeback performance and now she wins MTV's highest annual honor, coincidence who knows.

The Best New Artist was won by Tokio Hotel, a new group that I'm unfamiiiar with, but at first glance, these guys look like clowns and what they are is not rock n'roll its rock n'roll light. These clowns share an honor that artists like 50 Cent and Alicia Keys won in previous years, and the competition they defeated for the award, American Idol Jordan Sparks, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Hannah, I mean Miley Cyrus.

Obviously, the band's favor in Europe, benefited them winning this award, otherwise, Cyrus or Sparks would have won the award hands down, personally I think Taylor Swift should have won the Best New Artist.

Other winners of the evening included Chris Brown for Best Male Video , "With You", The Pussycat Dolls for Best Dance Video for "When I Grow Up", Little Wayne for Best Hip Hop Video with "Lollipop," and Best Video nominees The Ting Tings for Best UK Video for "Shut Up and Let Me Go."

On a personal note, the category I am most familiar Best Rock Video, goes to a video that great as it is but is more of a pop-ballad like video, and that was "Shadow of the Day" by Linkin Park. It shames to think that MTV has just shunned everything that was rock n'roll and focus on the bubblegum pop music. I felt that Foo Fighters deserved the honor for "The Pretender," but I guess MTV stayed true to form and chose the video that was the least rock.