MTV: Memorably Trashy Visuals

There is a special joy inherent in any viewing of the fabulously purposeless MTV Music Awards.

It is derived, I think, from an acknowledgement to oneself that said awards:

1. are devoid of logic, suspense, class and merit (i.e. aren't the Oscars)
2. invariably feature the butchering of good songs - by those songs' original performers, somehow (I'm talking to you, Father of Apple)
3. guarantee at least one impossibly memorable moment for feverish rewind/repeat action on the VCR

Kudos pursuant to point 3 above was last year reserved for the unforgettable performance of a loaded Anna Nicole Smith, whose coquettish rhetorical enquiry "Like mah bo-dy?" at the awards podium, while dragging her slutty hands (no doubt positively drenched in nether fluids) across her chest then clapping them maniacally over her head, got re-played so many times in my house I can't even look at a remote control without my fingers seizing.


"Freakin' genius," says Anna of her surgeon

With that train wreck as a benchmark, the 2005 show couldn't possibly live up to my lofty expectations. But it went down trying.

Aside from that atrocious vocal display from Coldplay, we were treated to an intriguing Spanish language performance from a completely wired Shakira wherein she demonstrated the extent to which her small and humble mammaries are offset by an impossibly dexterous pelvic frame. Now I know what Ripley from Ridley Scott's "Alien" would have looked like had that film been set in Caracas instead of Space.

Gwen Stefani amusingly lost out twice to Kelly Clarkson, then found herself nominated for video of the year - unlike Clarkson!

The prominent use of water for the performances held off-site in the southern states was a stroke of tacky post-Katrina brilliance, as was the choreography of that freshly emancipated diva's performance featuring the sudden plunge of two black dancers into a pool.


My-Thigh-A Carey: subtle as a fist

However, this year's stand-out what-the-fuck-was-that-about moment belongs to Kelly Clarkson.

For someone who is indisputably the best performed and most vocally masterful Idol contestant ever in any country, and who was gifted with the best pop song of the last 4 years at least in "Since U Been Gone", she managed to deliver the most horrendous performance I've ever seen on an awards show since that incident between Cheyenne Coates and a glass of water.

Kelly strayed right off the sidewalk into the path of a train with that shit, somehow channeling the stupendously tuneless screech of Milly Edwards' and Daniel Spillane's constipated lovechild as well as nodules-era Cosima De Vito.

Bitch, please. So you had to run around onstage moshing, which you do in your clip and which is understandably energy-sapping. But still, I hope you're not planning on unleashing that shit on Geelong. Some people have standards, you know?