Awards epitomize all that is wrong with music

The most prominent acts in music are scheduled to gather in Radio City Music Hall in New York tonight for the annual MTV Video Music Awards.

Instead of being a showcase for the talent that future generations will revere, however, it will be a gathering of every walking piece of evidence of the fact that we are living the most disgusting age in music history.

Things had seemed to be getting better in the music industry. While not the most varied block of artists, last year's nominees looked like a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel the industry entered after the deaths of Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.

Korn, who led the VMA pack with nine nominations, was relatively new on the mainstream music scene at the time. The annoying rap-core trend had not materialized yet and the album was original and groundbreak-ing.

Chris Lew

Lauryn Hill walked away with four awards for her critically acclaimed album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," further solidifying her place in history as one of the foremost female performers of our generation.

TLC finally put together all the pieces and put forth their finest effort in their tattered history to garner six nominations.
But acts like that are nowhere to be seen this year.

Think about it. Leading the nominees are N'Sync, Eminem, Christina Aguilera, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and Sisqo.

Or, to look at it another way, a talentless boy band, a white guy seeking only to offend as many people as possible, a 19-year-old who relies on sex appeal instead of talent, two washed-up rock bands way past their prime and a guy who sings about thongs.

It does not get much more pathetic than that.

In addition to the host of lackluster nominees, the scheduled performers include Blink 182, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Britney Spears, Eminem and N'Sync have all been scheduled to perform.

In the past, the VMA has featured some awesome performances. Madonna sang "Like a Virgin" in a wedding dress. Pearl Jam jammed with Neil Young on "Rocking in the Free World" Guns N' Roses performed their epic "November Rain" with Elton John and Jon Bon Jovi. And Nirvana's blasted through the anarchic "Lithium."

There is little hope that any of this year's performers can even come close to, let alone match, the quality of those shows.

Perhaps the one thing that MTV did get right this year was the category for which Blink-182's "All the Small Things" video was nominated. Nestled between videos from Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Destiny's Child and N'Sync, it takes it place not as best rock video or even best alternative video, but best pop video.

Chris Lew is the Diversion editor the Daily Forty-Niner.