MTV Europe Music Awards!!!!

21:01. Here we go! A warning label re: foul language?!? Bring it on!!

21:03. A huge choir, clad totally in white, sings a cappella "Dirty". X-tina's out dressed like a nun, and suddenly, everybody strips down and gets dirty. Trashy (leather panties and chaps?), and not in a good way. I bet X-tina's still fuming over getting left out of the Britney/Maddy kiss controversy/hype. Her kiss with Madonna wasn't as good anyway. As an aside, Pink said that she wouldn't have done it because she's nobody's bitch. OK. Pink is way more androgenous than the Post-Teen Whores, so there'd be no thrill in watching such a moment anyway.

21:07. This is a really glitzy show, there's laser light and sparkling all over the building. Far more pizzazz than the more basic stage/crowd setup of past years. Sean Paul and Beyonce do "Baby" boy with another cast of zillions. There have been two performances thus far and literally about 75 people on stage.

21:11. X-tina outfit count is at II (unless you count the nun and the leather cowgirl as two, then it's III). I love the method of presenting awards from the islands in the crowd. Much like the Brit Awards from earlier in year, it's very "of the people, for the people".

21:14. JTim wins for Best Album. What's with these testimonials before the nominees are announced? It's a cool idea in theory, but everything flashes by so quickly, I can't keep track.

21:15. "Local hero" Shirley Manson gets maybe one-eighth the pop that JTim got.

21:16. I am really lost with this testimonials thing.

21:17. Best Dance goes to Punjabi MC, which has to be considered an upset considering all the big heavy hitters in this category (Chem. Bros., Moby, Jr. Sr., Oakenfold). Moby keeps saying that he doesn't think he's dance. Well, only the dance community gave a crap about him from 1990-2000, so why he'd want to crap on the fans that stuck with him for years, made him into one of the few true megapersonalities in the genre, listened to him go on about animal rights and other social issues for years, and generally kept his career healthy until he could break through and star in his own videos wearing a spacesuit alongside c-list celebrities, is beyond me.

21:19. Michael Stipe gives a very Stipe-ish mini-speech about rock bands still meaning something and how vital music is still around these days, as he introduces the White Stripes. Note that it's only rock music that people get defensive about with the whole "losing it's significance" bit. You never hear anyone say "they talk about how there aren't any vital bands out there, that they aren't as important as bands in the old days, but this band proves them wrong, here are Massive Attack"! Or "they say that rap music has lost it's conscience since the glory days of PE and BDP, but this band proves that rap is still about more than bitches and hos, here are the Roots". The lingering assertion that 'only rock music = important music' will probably take another 20 years to peter out.

21:23, Vin Diesel sucks up to the Scottish crowd by singing an air while wearing a leather kilt. He annouced the start of voting for Best Song and then splits for another venue. Xtina and Beyonce's tunes crush the others in this category. Beyonce's "Crazy In Love" is the most original-sounding pop tune of the year, but "Beautiful" will be played on every station on the radio dial from now to forever.

21:32. III. X-tina comes out with another ridiculous outfit and rips the press for always criticising what she wears. Maybe if she didn't look like such a cheap whore skank then they wouldn't write those things. Oh, hang on, she doesn't give a f*** what they think. The problem with criticism is you have to take it both ways. In X-tina's case, she can't use the press to write nice things about her transition for pop tart teen to mature adult songwriter, but then piss on them when they don't like her outfits and claim that they don't know what they're talking about. Either make a concerted effort to listen or ignore them. Anyhow, Andre 3000 comes out wearing a striped shirt that no white person could possibly get away with after 1982. Beyonce wins for Best R&B, and X-tina should take notes on her outfit -- that's how to wear something revealing and sexy without looking skanky.

21:40. So much hype over Black Eyed Peas, but when your dopest beats are delivered by JTim's beatboxing, you ain't got much going for you. However, JTim's beatboxing was surprisingly good.

21:42. How is X-tina a fan of Jane's Addiction? What was she, seven when "Ritual" came out? Perry Farrell is nutty, but he falls under the Whiteboy Not Cool : Jewish Exception (from the MTV Awards in September). And the a great thing about European awards shows are the short acceptance speeches. No rambling!

21:47. The Tartan Army renditions are almost as entertaining that the original songs. More so, in the case of Evanescence.

21:52. V. I can't keep up with this show. There's so much happening so fast. X-tina's costume changes for instance. As soon as I write that, she's shown backstage diva-ing it up. She takes ANOTHER shot at the press, which is just dumb when you're in Great Britain. You're asking for it over there -- the tabloids are internationally infamous for a reason. They're smarter than you.

21:57. A wierd MJ clone (not the basketball player) introduces Dido, who provides the singalong ciggy lighter moment of the evening.

22:03. Best Hip Hop goes to Eminem. Europe has got their nomination process together and includes different artists in different categories, as opposed to MTV US which had seemingly had all the same people nominated in every category. It's not hard: decide if they're Pop, R&B, or Hip Hop, just make a decision so that more people get nominated. It makes for a far better show. Eminem accepts via tape, and shows yet again why he is the king of acceptance speeches. He feigns (?) not knowing what the award is for, then he jokes about being given the White Rapper award for the fifth year in a row, and calls everyone a cracker while he eats crackers.

22:04. VI. It's off to the 2nd venue with VinD, with a first-ever Flaming Lips + Chemical Bros collaboration, in which Wayne Coyne sings like a normal person! Did 10 000 people really flock out to the streets to see these guys? They love what they see, though.

22:10. VD refers to Sean Paul's music as reggae instead of dancehall, is this an understandable mistake or not? I don't know. The Tartan Army's "Get Busy" is one sad atempt, since all they can say is the "shake that thing" line.

22:16. VII. X-tina has the dumbest looking big blond wig ever. Oh, hang on it's OK, it's just a prop for introducing The Darkness. The singer looks like Peter Frampton on the cover of "Frampton Comes Alive", which makes sense since this stuff rocks like it's 1975. Whether that's a compliment or not depends on how one feels about 1975, which is therefore left as an exercise for the reader.

22:21. Chingy gets NO reaction, even less than Shirley Manson. Somehow, JTim and Sean Paul are considered "New Acts". SP wins, and although he isn't exactly new, he is the best of this nominated bunch. Wasn't "Gimme the Light" a hit in Europe last year?

22:27. VIII. The Best Video testimonials have almost no connection to the nominees. It's not even close, I had no idea who was getting nominated while watching them. But at least they're nominating the most interesting videos, rather than riveting the nominations onto the most popular artists. Missy, White Stripes, UNKLE, rub elbows with your token artsy nomination for the night, Sigur Ros' "Untitled 1". It obviously has no chance of actually winning. Hell, I didn't even know there were any videos made from the last SR album. Most people probably aren't aware that SR made another album. Most people in the audience probably don't know who SR even are.

22:28. Holy crap, Sigur Ros are the winners! Even Minnie Driver can't believe it. The crowd is stunned and has no idea what to do. This was like Anna Paquin winning Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars. Nobody expected an apparent "outsider" to win, and the reactions were those of confusion and bewilderment more than disappointment or envy. I remain so shocked that I can barely pay attention to Kylie's delicious performance.

22:42. IX. Easily her best outfit yet. A humanitarian award is given to the president of Burma, who is under house arrest by the Burmese army. She will be given her award once she is freed. This was a nice gesture. How come we never hear about this Burmese conflict in North America? I think the media there would rather make up stories about Arafat's perceived imprisonment rather than than report on the true innocents.

22:48. Missy's performance takes a back seat to the rapping and dancing happening around her. The new track features impeccable production, a hellaciously fat bass line, all the makings of another huge hit for her. Having said that, I still can't understand the big deal about Missy herself. I think she's a case of the Emperor's New Clothes -- as with Janet Jackson, her career would be gravely wounded if not for her producers making her sound so fantastic.

22:51. Best Female is X-tina, who accepts while wearing X. Fix! Fix!

22:56. Speaking of producers, JTim accepts the Best Male award from the guys who produced his record. Good for Chad and Pharrell, getting to share the stage with him for this one.

23:06. Travis play a decent mid-tempo rocker. These types of songs aren't their strong suit. The weepy songs are but those aren't really suited for this type of show (although Dido did manage to pull it off earlier). On the other hand, Fran Healy has thankfully given up with that dumb mohawk. They're playing the last few notes of the song and suddenly, there are naked people everywhere, cameras cutting all over the place and disorientation reigns. Wha?

23:11. Coldplay win for Best Group and accept via tape in an elevator whose door keeps trying to close on them. Unfortunately, it's one millionth as funny as it sounds.

23:14. Kelly Osborne sees it fit to rip on the "X-tina as diva" dart-throwing gag from earlier in the show, and the crowd turns on her in about 0.5 seconds and nearly boos her out of the building. Any segment that involves Kelly Osborne getting humiliated is a big thumbs up in my book. Particularly when she brings it on herself. JTim wins yet again, this time for Best Pop. He's cleaning up like he did at the MTV VMA's.

23:17. And now, it's the most surreal musical moment of the century thus far, as Kraftwerk make their first ever live TV appearance, and it's on MTV to boot in front of thousands of screaming kids. Kylie introduces them and gives them the major influence props. She can't help but state the case lightly, since this is just a three hour show. There's still four of them up there, which is obviously unneccessary in the laptop era, but Kraftwerk's live mystique is so tied up in the visual impact of having four performers that there isn't much of a choice, even if we all know that it's Ralf, Florian, and Two Guys That Don't Mean a Thing (athough in former robot Wolfgang Flur's engaging autobiography, he wrote it was like that all along, from Ralf and Florian's perspective of course). The video screens are simply stunning, with everything in black and green; streamlined, panning graphics sliding by in all directions; all of it perfect for the slick vibe of "Aerodynamik". And then it's over, just like that. MTV Germany immediately airs a pre-show presentation to Die Artze for Best German Group. Amd after all the reclusiveness, the refusals to collaborate with Bowie or with film projects, the seventeen years between albums, the parcity of interviews, and the decades of Mythic Man Machine uber-inflation, they finally relented and appeared on TV. And of course, it's underwhelming, because myths are always better heard and not seen. Like Ted Williams tipping his cap in Fenway Park after 50 years of steadfast refusal, or Inigo Montoya killing Count Rogan and being unsure about what to do with the rest of his life, there's the endless mountain of expectation, followed by the brier execution of the act, followed by ... nothing.

23:30. XII. And Vin Diesel's back? Just one song on the second stage. Apparently there was also more from the Lips, Chems, plus Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Jane's Addiction. Screw this show, broadcast that instead! And Best Song goes to ... I'm getting the feeling that JTim's got the momentum tonight and he's gonna steal it ... but mass voter sanity comes through in the end as Beyonce rightfully wins.

23:36. Pink La Rock Chick in a skintight devil's suit is infinitely more interesting than Pink the Cookie-Cutter R&B singer. I like the edgier direction she's taken, particularly on a song like "Just Like a Pill".

23:39. XIII (unless I lost count somewhere) !!! The last segment is nothing more than X-tina modeling her thirteenth and final outfit, and then it's goodbye. For the show overall, the short and choppy segments means that nobody's up there long enough to start sucking (except for Kelly Osborne, but her appearance was loads of fun for reasons already detailed). Literally NOTHING was bad, not one performance, presenter or speech. But while watching the credits roll and seeing the clips from earlier in the show, I notice I've already forgotten about a lot of the stuff and need to check my notes to jog my memory. There were no lows, but there were no truly supercool moments or perfomances, of which there were several on the US show. This show was uniformly pop, whereas the US show had pop, rap (which ruled) and rock (which sucked for the most part). Plus, watching the Good Charlottes and Linkin Parks blow chunks provided me with a sadistic pleasure of watching them get outclassed and outwitted by every rap and R&B artist. Thus, the MTV Europe Music Awards was certainly a very good show, but at no point was it a great one.