The VMA's: A Recap

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   The biggest awards show to grace basic cable television, MTV’s Video Music Awards hit the airwaves for its 29th year last night. It aired an hour earlier than had previously been scheduled so that fans could watch both their beloved VMA’s as well as President Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention (Unless, of course, any of these fans are DirecTV subscribers).

   While a small variety of artists from Coldplay to Drake took home their respective Moonman trophies, the night’s honors often seemed to go in the same direction: One Direction, the British boy band teen dreamboat. They were awarded three VMA’s, including “Best New Artist” and “Best Pop Video,” as well as the fan voted “Most Share-Worthy Video” for “What Makes You Beautiful.” The video somehow beat Justin Bieber’s rabid army of Beliebers by a narrow margin of about 1.5 million votes. But after watching the crowd during the band’s performance of “One Thing,” it’s not a huge surprise they took home some of the night’s most coveted awards. While the special guests, the US Olympic Women’s Gymnastics team, were fan girling from their seats, Katy Perry was singing along to serenade seat neighbor and BFF Rihanna.

   Rihanna made the VMA’s her night from her show-opening performance of her single “Cockiness (Love It)” with A$AP Rocky to winning the final and most important Moonman of the night: Video of the Year for “We Found Love.” She also managed to grab one of the most talked about, uncomfortable moments of the night: sharing a smooch with controversial ex, Chris Brown, as she stepped off the stage after accepting her award.

   They may not have been the big winners of the night, but an array of other talented artists also performed on the VMA stage. Longtime MTV veterans, Green Day rocked their latest “Oh Love” to a wild crowd despite singer Billy Joe Armstrong’s hospitalization for undisclosed reasons only earlier this week. Pink went back to her high-flying antics among dancing lips for her performance of “Blow Me (One Last Kiss).” Alicia Keys debuted her newest effort, “Girl on Fire” with help from rapper Nicki Minaj and onstage gymnastics from Olympic darling Gabby Douglas.     
   The most Tweeted about performance of the night was rising star Frank Ocean’s stripped down performance of “Thinkin About You,” which was highly praised by stars such as Lady Gaga and Rita Ora.

   The announcement that Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa were expecting and the fact that Kristen Stewart was expectedly absent from the Twilight cast for the premier of the trailer of “Breaking Dawn- Part 2,” caused spikes in the Twittersphere. Fortunately for the network heads at MTV, but unfortunately for us, there was no significant controversy for which the event will be notorious.

   All-American good girl, Taylor Swift closed out the show with her infectious hit “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” but not before funnyman host Kevin Hart implored the crowd and fans at home to vote in the upcoming presidential election on November 6. Hopefully his words and the underlying tone of the latest presidential conventions will inspire young voters to have a hand in things aside from just the most popular music videos.

Other winners:
Video of the Year: Rihanna, "We Found Love"

Best New Artist: One Direction
Best Female Video: Nicki Minaj, "Starships"

Best Male Video: Chris Brown, "Turn Up The Music"

Video With a Message: Demi Lovato, "Skyscraper"

Best Hip-Hop Video: Drake feat. Lil Wayne, "HYFR"

Best Rock Video: Coldplay, "Paradise"

Best Pop Video: One Direction, "What Makes You Beautiful"

Best Electronic Dance Music Video: Calvin Harris, "Feel So Close"

Most Share-Worthy Video: One Direction, "What Makes You Beautiful"