The 2013 MTV VMAs, Graded and Reviewed: The Good, The Bad, and The Miley

Given how much they sucked, we didn't expect much. D+

Fairly low. C-

Lady Gaga opened up the show as a caricature of the idea of Lady Gaga, something so meta that if you think about it too long, you'll start to earbleed. The show's opening shot—Gaga's face, sticking out of the giant white square on her head—was surreal, and hilarious, and weird, as if MTV and Gaga were telling its audience to be prepared for a year of epic shitshowery. It was a great primer for what was to come, as Gaga, with her clique of dancers—who danced like The Warriors teamed with a bunch of Jerome Robbins-obsessed Cirque du Soliel outcasts—changed outfits three or four times over the course of one song with an explosive new number.

The basic takeaway here? Miley might think she's ratchet, and Macklemore might think he's a gay icon, and Jay-Z may have spent 2013 trying to bring performance art and pop music together, but Gaga has more intuitive genius about fabulousness, Gay America, ratchet-ass shit, and performance art than all three of those people put together on their best days. And she didn't even have to dress up as, like, a wedge of Jarlsberg to demonstrate this. A-

People are still making great music videos, some of which are truly better than ever—we're just not watching them on MTV. And it's time to stop making the argument that MTV doesn't play music videos, because we live in the era we dreamed about as kids: Being able to decide which music videos to watch when, at our fingertips. MTV devoting massive blocks of air time to something we can access whenever we want whether they air them or not would be a stupid decision on their part.

This is not to say Miley's performance was bad. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't great, either. But in a night of zero surprises, Miley coming out, grinding on a bunch of teddy bears, sticking her tongue out, and writhing around in a flesh colored two-piece as she strokes herself with a foam finger was exactly the kind of nonsense the VMAs used to host regularly. It was interesting, and nutty, and bizarre, like a PSA advertising the benefits of frequent mescaline use.

If you think about it too hard—the fact that there were barely any VMA winners of color, or that Miley's appropriation of Twerking is a very weird and racially-loaded thing, or that she was up there with a white R&B singer who preemptively sued the estate of Marvin Gaye because he's worried about Gaye's people suing him for biting the legend's shit wholesale—it can become really, really icky (though it's far less fucked up than those critics choosing to call it a "minstrel show").

So you're better off just not thinking about it, and enjoying it as a weird, bizarre, fun miscalculation that unfortunately dragged both Kendrick Lamar and 2 Chainz into it, too (in light of Lamar's recent "Control" verse, a wasted VMA moment if there ever was one). That said, she sounded great when duetting with Beetlejuice Robin Thicke on "Blurred Lines," a song that sounds three times better when a female voice is in the mix. C+.

The reason Kanye's performance didn't pop off isn't for a lack of energy—he danced like he was in the middle of a particularly violent edition of Yo Gabba Gabba—or for a bad song ("Blood on the Leaves" is an amazing song). But we've seen Kanye's face up close as he thrashes in front of beautiful visuals before, projected on walls and in our living rooms when he debuted Yeezus tracks on Saturday Night Live.

When held against the greatness of his 2010 VMAs performance of "Runaway," this one didn't carry the same weight; even worse were all the censored verses that take away massive chunks of the song. In other words: Yeezus just dozed again. C+

In the past 15 years, MTV's only given out seven Video Vanguard awards, as they should. The award named for Michael Jackson should be a big deal—it's one of the few tricks the VMAs have up their sleeve to remind people how critical a pop culture institution MTV can be. So when you give JT his award, which, no doubt, he deserves? You better be ready to pull out the stops.

This was the best Video Vanguard award presentation yet. And that's even considering the miserable sound mix (which at times crackled like it was coming out of a cell phone speaker) and the fact that the much-touted *NSYNC reunion could've been longer.

But while others have given speeches, JT rocked a medley of his bangers, a full song-and-dance knockout routine that started with 20/20 Part 2 jam "Take Back The Night" (which works a lot better live than on a video), and going into all the old Justified and Futuresex/Lovesounds jams-including the infamous JT-on-keys "Senorita" bridge-before giving people the thrill of the night: *NYSNC, back together again.

And yeah, sure, Kevin Hart made some shitty jokes about the rest of *NSYNC being old and possibly winded after their bit part in JT's show. But they did, in fact, go on stage—after not hitting those moves for years—and nail Every. Single. Move. If they were off-step, it didn't show. And they even sounded good. J.C. Chazes hit some high, high notes for a guy who's not hitting those notes on the regular.

Boy band fan or not, the entire thing was thrilling, the kind of head-turning spectacle that VMAs should stand for. And just as quickly as they showed up, they were gone: It's a complaint that was lobbed a lot towards JT's way last night, but he (and they) stuck to one of show business's great maxims: Leave 'em wanting more. And what if we saw more? We might see an off step, or hear a sour note. What we got was straight-up perfect. Closing out with a sharp rendition of "Mirrors"—including full beat-stop—JT closed his set sweaty, winded, and emotionally overwhelmed.

Say what you will about 20/20, or the state of pop music, or MTV: It was a performance that ran the gamut, that took full advantage of almost the entire floor of the Barclays Center, and the kind of thing very, very few performers alive right now could pull off (let alone have the catalogue to do so). JT killed it. If anyone can make the futile case for MTV bringing more "M" into their mix, it's him. A+

As good as Macklemore is for ignorant white kids with bad taste in rap who need to be rapped to about how, while they might not be gay, it's okay if other people are, Lady Gaga performing in a white square and promoting ideas about androgyny is probably better. For the Gays, and for the Straights. Realize, the same network that once changed the face of pop culture and the AIDS crisis with the third season of The Real World when a Latino man came out as gay and HIV-positive now dignifies a straight, sober white rapper beating people over the heads with his messages of tolerance. And again, tolerance is never a bad thing, but this is a pretty low bar for it. At least as far as art and pop culture are concerned.

This song was also a low-note: Why perform this when you have "Can't Hold Us" in your repertoire? At least that's a song that can accommodate something more interesting, like Big Freedia. Or really, anyone other than Jennifer Hudson, who, while not homophobic, once defended accusations of homophobia by pointing out that she didn't condemn homosexuality (as opposed to actually condemning homophobia, which she hasn't done). The song is hamfisted bullshit and the performance was a blustery Hit-the-Bathroom moment. D-

Theory: Nothing has changed big live TV events more than the onslaught of GIFs on the Internet, moving images that repeat themselves like a scrolling sign, not just 1,000 words, but six or seven thousand words, in a few seconds time, over and over and over again. It humiliates the awkward (see: Brendan Fraser at the Emmys) and glorifies the awesome (see: any number of incredible sports plays).

So why should we be surprised when Taylor Swift telling her One Direction ex-boyfriend to "Shut the fuck up" gets Gif'd all over the Internet, or when Rihanna throwing side-eye around during Drake's performance is meme'd in milliseconds? We shouldn't. They know what GIFs are. And while the thought of being Gif'd in perpetuity is enough to make most of us the stripe of self-conscious that could leave us utterly catatonic, these are pop stars, they know what they're doing.

In other words: Taylor Swift knows we want to see her say "fuck."

So she does, and just so happens to when the camera is on her as One Direction is accepting an award (as she knew it would be, of course). Our pop stars are becoming calibrated to being Gif'd, and as such, we need to find a new way to microscope their existence soon, lest they all start playing everyone wholesale more often.

Let's get this out of the way: For a closing performance, it was anti-climactic. But as a set piece—under the Brooklyn Bridge, a boxing ring erected, with Katy taking water from cornermen during the performance—it was kind of awesome. And this is the same Katy Perry who, only a few years ago, wore an aesthetic of Suburban Malls During Christmas, with cotton candy and candy stripes and all this other weird infantile shit for her set decor and costumes. The entire thing was bombastic and fun, sure, but also, kind of creepy: Lisa Frank art is less cloying on binders than manifested in real life.

Either way, it was a Thing, and now Katy Perry's decided to remake herself, and that Thing ended with Teenage Dream (and, no doubt, her marriage to Russell Brand, who was probably totally into that kind of Thing). Now, she's tough-talking, shadowboxing Katy Perry, and "Roar"—a song that sounds like a straight rip of a Sara Barielles track—never made much sense as her first new lead single until now, with Katy belting out the track in full boxing getup, committing completely to the stage show, perfectly on key (or as on key to a pre-recorded track as one can be).

It's a new kind of pop aesthetic, a weird toughness, the kind of reinventive creativity pulled off with panache we should demand from our pop stars more often (as opposed to the way Miley's currently pulling off her reinvention, which: too much, too fast). It's a less devoted change than anything Madonna ever did, but it's wider-reaching than anything Britney ever did. It is, again, sexy in a way the good odds wouldn't have on that many pop stars pulling off, but that's Perry's charm, no? She's just off-kilter enough to stand out. And—much like the rest of this ceremony—it was a low-risk proposition that got an impressive job done, as opposed to low-risk propositions that are uniformly terrible and unexciting (as the VMAs of the past few years have been).

Again, could MTV and Katy have done better? Maybe. But if this was a rebuilding year for the VMAs, it was good enough to leave most people happy. Katy wins by decision. A solid B.

A lot of us here at Complex live in Brooklyn—some of us were born and raised there; others, like me, moved there only a decade ago. And some of us just moved there last year. It's a great place: distinctly different from Manhattan and the New York City of postcards and network TV shows, a little rougher around the edges, and sprawling. If Brooklyn were its own city, it'd be the fourth-largest in America.

Part of the problem with living in Brooklyn right now, though, is that you can't stop hearing about it. Whether it's the umpteenth New York Times trend piece about high rents or Williamsburg, or Jay Z's decision to become our borough's de facto cultural attache/Mickey Mouse, the idea of Brooklyn is beginning to become what used to be known as a Product of Madison Avenue—some bullshit idea, ginned up by hypercapitalists, to sell to the suckers of the world. Look at the recent news that Brooklyn Bowl—one of the most consistently irritating Manhattanite-attracting shitshows in New York City (even if they book great music)—touting their expansion to London and Las Vegas as bringing their "authentic Brooklyn experience" to other places.

Brooklyn Bowl is less of an authentic Brooklyn Experience than the Applebees on DeKalb Ave. Or walking to bring Diddy cheesecake from Junior's.

So of course, it shouldn't surprise anyone that MTV chose Brooklyn to celebrate the music videos they no longer air, in a bid to recapture so much of the relevancy they've suckered themselves out of by pandering to the mouthbreathers who watch Teen Mom 2. MTV's headquartered in Times Square, the perennial horror of locals and the awe of all gap-toothed tourists, and that's okay. That Times Square version of MTV was there for all of our childhoods during TRL. It was there during 9/11 when Carson Daly got Ja Rule on the phone, so Ja Rule could console us all from New Jersey. That Times Square MTV studio has been the home of Jay-Z Unplugged and some very memorable New Year's Eve performances. And we're okay with that MTV, or, we are when it even exists anymore.

But Brooklyn is more VICE than it's ever been MTV. And say what you will about the Brooklyn-based glueheadery at VICE—and their recent $1.4 billion valuation—but they're beginning to represent the zeitgeisty MTV youth culture of yore more than MTV has in a very, very long time. So for anyone who's been paying attention, MTV holding a VMA show in Brooklyn shouldn't surprise them in the least. And so, for so many of us, these VMAs sucked even before they began. Which is why it's amazing that the 2013 VMAs turned out as well as they did.

MTV didn't use Brooklyn in a terrible way. There were no exploitative tributes to its hip-hop history or any Jay Z grandstanding, or any failed Marty-Markowitz-with-a-Rapper pairings. It was just a cheaper, slightly scruffier alternative to stodgier venues like Radio City or even the Metropolitan Opera (where the great Chris Rock-hosted VMAs of 1999 were held). In fact, other than Katy Perry's performance under the Brooklyn Bridge and some hamfisted shoutouts by presenters and performers who couldn't resist themselves—and to be fair, it doesn't matter who you are, shouting "BROOKLYN WHAT'S UP?" to a room full of people is a pretty good time—Brooklyn was barely a side-player.

Honestly, that's for the better. It's less disingenuous than the alternative. MTV trying to shove the Brand of Brooklyn down anyone's throats would've put a fake, localized pall over the proceedings, and the fact that they didn't is reflective of a lot of the decent overall judgment that was put into this year's awards show.

One of the most solid VMAs in years despite a total lack of anything remotely resembling a surprise, or any memorably unscripted moments, or a host. If it's a rebuilding year, it could be the unlikely start of a better direction, but that's going to require more JTs and Gagas and Drakes and less forced-upon garbage like Mileys and Macklemores. Here's hoping it happens: B+