I am hyped for these MTVEMA's. So hyped that I watched a show that compiled notable performances from MTVEMA's of years past:

Madonna (2000). A simple and classy run through "Music", with just her plus a few dancers. A throwback to the basics of the "Holiday" video.

Britney (1999). This was just the opposite. Extravagant, featuring a cast of thousands, stop/start cuts between multiple songs, a precision-choreographed dance routines, and Britney's usual (false) reliance on jerky motions = intensity.

Robbie Williams (2002). Robbie is so cool, every motion his body makes while on stage declares "I am a pop star". Future aspiring pop stars need to study tape of Robbie to improve their craft. Fans are drawn to his arrogant strut (everyone loves a winner) but he also shows a sensitive, boyish charm that makes him loveable (unlike, say Liam Gallagher, who has the arrogance and the poses downpat, but is absent in the mama's boy likeability department. I wonder if Robbie was dissecting these sorts of thoughts in his mind when he was following Oasis around during 1994 and everyone thought he was embarrassing himself, career-wise. Seriously, good ol' boy band Robbie puppy dogging it around badass mercurial stars Oasis was, in 1994, a chalk and cheese mixture if there ever was one. Imagine a Backstreet Boy becoming a tour groupie for The Strokes, it was that kind of wierd. America, of course, has also found an affinity for embracing the badder side of their rosy-cheeked boy band heroes -- just look at how J. Timberlake's cred has improved since he went out on his own, grew some facial hair, kissed-and-told vis-a-vis Britney, and became linked with a procession of other hot women).

I don't care if he can't hit the high notes so well, "Feel" is a smashing song. One of his recent concerts was shown on a station called Pro7 a couple of nights ago, I think it was Knebworth because the crowd was soooo huge. I don't think I've ever seen a crowd have so much adulation for a performer, ever. It made "Dave Gahan circa early 1990's" look like "Any Non-Jewish White Presenter, MTV Video Awards 2003". He was nearly breaking down from it all and could barely get through set-closer "Feel". That's the kind of vulnerability that people can't help but cling to. He said all the right things, thanked all the right people, told the crowd how much the moments meant to him and told them how he was getting older (that vulnerability again, you don't hear guys on the wrong side of thirty talk about their age while on stage) and how he longed to grow old with all of them.

A couple of weeks later, he did a 180 and spoke seriously about abruptly ending his musical career, claiming his life was actually quite miserable. I guess it's really difficult coming down from a Knebworth-sized high.

George Michael (1994). I wasn't feeling it with the pandering orchestral ballad "Jesus to a Child".

Eminem (2002). But it was different with *this* solo performance. Eminem held Barcelona in a trance with "Cleaning out My Closet", and was then joined by the posse for the brand new "Lose Yourself". Not a single awards show goes by without an Eminem moment. This one featured a shot of Mr. Mathers' pants falling down past his ass, and his pimping of a then-unknown 50 Cent.

Kylie (2001). Excess done well. This is excess in the form of fun, not excess in the form of "look at me!!" like when Britney does it.

David Bowie(1995). A creepy, spooky, drum n bass tinged "Man Who Sold the World" (only one year after Nirvana's famous remake, and the two versions couldn't have been more different. This was practically Bowie covering himself), two years before Bowie went full-fledged DnB.

H-Blockx (1995). For those who like this sort of thing (cock hard rock rap metal), this still works very well today, in that all of the other crappy bands making this music still sound identical to this in 2003.

Guano Apes (2000). I think we're finishing the show on a German tip. The singer's DIVA shirt (in the VISA design) is the best part, otherwise, this is hard rock hell. Everyone in the band looks like a complete freak, which I gather is the point.

Rammstein (2001). A guilty pleasure with this one. It's like the German KISS, there's fire, costumes, makeup, and best of all, those gruff, caustic accents. It's like in the 80's, when you'd hear a bunch of industrial sung in English, but no matter how many effects were thrown onto it to make it sound sinister, it never sounded as nasty as Laibach just singing with straight German accents (except Laibach aren't German. Oh well. Still nasty, though). If don't have anything nice to say about somewhat, don't just say it, say it while grumbling in German. The mad-for-it Frankfurt crowd made for a fun visual also.