Miley Cyrus' VMA performance

[riley]

It's all about the buzz and that is what Miley wanted to create. Good or bad she accomplished what she wanted get them talking, press good or bad is press (I think in a bad way but just my opinion) . She knew exactly what she was doing and so did Gaga showing up in the red carpet like she did in her demure black dress. They all got everyone talking and that was the goal. Watching the news, I don't understand all the buzz about Miley or Taylor Swift for that matter (once again my opinion). Not a Gaga fan but she is way better of a singer than both of them.......

[Miguel]

I also truly appreciated her treatment of Haley. I hadn't thought much of Lady Gaga as a person (one way or another) until then.

As did I.

I followed Lady Gaga then about as closely as I follow the Kardashians now. Which is to say I didn't, but couldn't avoid hearing of her because she was in the headlines. So all I knew about Gaga was that she did outrageous things to get attention, had a big following of young people and was seen as somewhat evil by some religious types.

So, when she appeared on Idol, I was struck by how caring and level-headed she appeared.

I read earlier today that the boos heard for her at the Video Music Awards were part of the act. But the boos heard for One Direction were authentic.

Backstage, the boys ignored the diss and thanked fans. But she of the seashell thong didn't stand for it.

"Don't you dare let those people boo you," Lady Gaga reportedly told the band, according to E! News. "If I did hear what I heard out there, I just want to tell you that you deserve every bit of success that you have. I want to leave right now. I don't want to stay anymore because I don't want to be in a room where people are booing."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/env...8833.story

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It's a talent level thing.

...Same as Madonna and Gaga and Katy. (Although I don't think I'd ever consider Katy trashy. She's more of the "look at the cute sexual innuendo I'm making. TeeHee* type, to be honest.)

I didn't see Katy's performance, but the tweets on Twitter indicated she was lip syncing and is a poor live performer. People seem to forgive her for it though.

As likeable as she may be, I think it's a shame someone like Haley is sitting at home while a music awards show highlights performances from people who can't sing as well.

[mercfan3]

I didn't see Katy's performance, but the tweets on Twitter indicated she was lip syncing and is a poor live performer. People seem to forgive her for it though.

As likeable as she may be, I think it's a shame someone like Haley is sitting at home while a music awards show highlights performances from people who can't sing as well.

Katy is certainly more of a personality. She also knows how to write pop music. (It's catchy...it's so catchy.) Although she actually started off as that indie alternative pop rock type, with a guitar. Alanis Morissette was her biggest influence outside of christian music. So much irony there..

She didn't lipsynch, she sang to a backtrack, which everyone at the VMA's did (except for maybe Bruno and Macklemore & Mary Lambert/JHud.) and she had the excuse of being outside and under a bridge. I don't know that Katy should have closed the show, but her performance was certainly better than a majority of artists. (Granted, there was such a gap between Timberlake and everyone else...And then another gap between Gaga and everyone else..)

Actually, I thought she sounded significantly better than she typically does.

But I agree with the sentiment that it's a shame that Haley was sitting at home.

And Katy's story with record companies is much worse than Haley's. She wasn't an instant success. So that's actually a reminder to be patient. Like Katy, Haley knows how to write catchy pop music. (Whether that's a direction she wants to go in is another question..) And at the end of the day, that's what gets you mainstream success.

[john]

Yeah, looks kinda trashy. Mercfan3 summed it up for me: Ugh.

[john]

Camille Paglia: Miley, Go Back to School
Cyrus’ derivative stunt reveals an artistically bankrupt music culture

By Camille Paglia Aug. 27, 201387


“Disgusting!” “Raunchy!” “Desperate!” So went the scathing reviews that poured in after once wholesome Disney star Miley Cyrus’ recent bizarre performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Bopping up and down the catwalk in hair-twist devil’s horns and a flesh-colored latex bikini, Cyrus lewdly wagged her tongue, tickled her crotch with a foam finger, shook her buttocks in the air and spanked a 6-ft. 7-in. black burlesque queen.

Most of the media backlash focused on Cyrus’ crass opportunism, which stole the show from Lady Gaga, normally no slouch in the foot-stamping look-at-me department. But the real scandal was how atrocious Cyrus’ performance was in artistic terms. She was clumsy, flat-footed and cringingly unsexy, an effect heightened by her manic grin.

How could American pop have gotten this bad? Sex has been a crucial component of the entertainment industry since the seductive vamps of silent film and the bawdy big mamas of roadhouse blues. Elvis Presley, James Brown and Mick Jagger brought sizzling heat to rock, soul and funk music, which in turn spawned the controversial raw explicitness of urban hip-hop.

The Cyrus fiasco, however, is symptomatic of the still heavy influence of Madonna, who sprang to world fame in the 1980s with sophisticated videos that were suffused with a daring European art-film eroticism and that were arguably among the best artworks of the decade. Madonna’s provocations were smolderingly sexy because she had a good Catholic girl’s keen sense of transgression. Subversion requires limits to violate.

Young performers will probably never equal or surpass the genuine shocks delivered by the young Madonna, as when she sensually rolled around in a lacy wedding dress and thumped her chest with the mic while singing “Like a Virgin” at the first MTV awards show in 1984. Her influence was massive and profound, on a global scale.

But more important, Madonna, a trained modern dancer, was originally inspired by work of tremendous quality — above all, Marlene Dietrich’s glamorous movie roles as a bisexual blond dominatrix and Bob Fosse’s stunningly forceful strip-club choreography for the 1972 film Cabaret, set in decadent Weimar-era Berlin. Today’s aspiring singers, teethed on frenetically edited small-screen videos, rarely have direct contact with those superb precursors and are simply aping feeble imitations of Madonna at 10th remove.

Pop is suffering from the same malady as the art world, which is stuck on the tired old rubric that shock automatically confers value. But those once powerful avant-garde gestures have lost their relevance in our diffuse and technology-saturated era, when there is no longer an ossified high-culture Establishment to rebel against. On the contrary, the fine arts are alarmingly distant or marginal to most young people today.

Unfortunately, the media spotlight so cheaply won by Cyrus will inevitably spur repeats of her silly stunt, by her and others. Image and profile now rule the music industry. At a time when profits are coming far more from touring than from CD sales, performers are being hammered too early into a marketable formula for cavernous sports venues. With their massive computerized lighting and special-effects systems, arena shows make improvisation impossible and stifle the natural rapport with the audience that performers once had in vaudeville houses and jazz clubs. There is neither time nor space to develop emotional depth or creative skills.

Pop is an artistic tradition that deserves as much respect as any other. Its lineage stretches back to 17th century Appalachian folk songs and African-American blues, all of which can still be heard vibrating in the lyrics and chord structure of contemporary music. But our most visible young performers, consumed with packaging and attitude, seem to have little sense of that thrilling continuity and therefore no confidence in how it can define and sustain their artistic identities over the course of a career.

What was perhaps most embarrassing about Miley Cyrus’ dismal gig was its cutesy toys — a giant teddy bear from which she popped to cavort with a dance troupe in fuzzy bear drag. Intended to satirize her Disney past, it signaled instead the childishness of Cyrus’ notion of sexuality, which has become simply a cartoonish gimmick to disguise a lack of professional focus. Sex isn’t just exposed flesh and crude gestures. The greatest performers, like Madonna in a canonical video such as “Vogue,” know how to use suggestion and mystery to project the magic of sexual allure. Miley, go back to school!

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/27/pops-dr...z2dDy22Iar

Another piece from Time http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/27/does-an...their-mtv/

[Tusk]

By Camille Paglia Aug. 27, 201387


Unfortunately, the media spotlight so cheaply won by Cyrus will inevitably spur repeats of her silly stunt, by her and others. Image and profile now rule the music industry. At a time when profits are coming far more from touring than from CD sales, performers are being hammered too early into a marketable formula for cavernous sports venues. With their massive computerized lighting and special-effects systems, arena shows make improvisation impossible and stifle the natural rapport with the audience that performers once had in vaudeville houses and jazz clubs. There is neither time nor space to develop emotional depth or creative skills.

....and people wonder why Haley hasn't gone all in to try to be the Super Mega POP Star. The above is what would have awaited her. "make improvisation impossible and stifle the natural rapport with the audience".....

better to follow your heart and let your instincts be your guide...

[Miguel]

From MJ's:

Sinead O’Connor Has a Message For Miley Cyrus

Sinead O’Connor, the Irish singer/songwriter responsible for such 80/90s hits like “Nothing Compares 2 U” has been through it all when it comes to the music business. She was a major star at one point, endured major backlash when she ripped up a photo of the Catholic pope during an appearance on SNL, and eventually left show business to join a progressive convent and live a spiritual life.

From that vantage point, she has some sage advice for young Miley Cyrus, who has been creating a media frenzy of her own after twerking suggestively on the VMAs and swinging naked on a wrecking ball for her latest video.

Miley told Rolling Stone that the music video for “Nothing Compares to 2 U” inspired her “Wrecking Ball” video, which prompted Sinead to advise the young singer to beware of slimey male record executives who do not have your best interests at heart.

I cut and pasted the entire thing from Sinead’s blog...

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I wasn’t going to write this letter, but today i’ve been dodging phone calls from various newspapers who wished me to remark upon your having said in Rolling Stone your Wrecking Ball video was designed to be similar to the one for Nothing Compares… So this is what I need to say… And it is said in the spirit of motherliness and with love.

I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping.

Nothing but harm will come in the long run, from allowing yourself to be exploited, and it is absolutely NOT in ANY way an empowerment of yourself or any other young women, for you to send across the message that you are to be valued (even by you) more for your sexual appeal than your obvious talent.

I am happy to hear I am somewhat of a role model for you and I hope that because of that you will pay close attention to what I am telling you.

The music business doesn’t give a shit about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted.. and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.

None of the men oggling you give a shit about you either, do not be fooled. Many’s the woman mistook lust for love. If they want you sexually that doesn’t mean they give a fuck about you. All the more true when you unwittingly give the impression you don’t give much of a fuck about yourself. And when you employ people who give the impression they don’t give much of a fuck about you either. No one who cares about you could support your being pimped.. and that includes you yourself.

Yes, I’m suggesting you don’t care for yourself. That has to change. You ought be protected as a precious young lady by anyone in your employ and anyone around you, including you. This is a dangerous world. We don’t encourage our daughters to walk around naked in it because it makes them prey for animals and less than animals, a distressing majority of whom work in the music industry and it’s associated media.

You are worth more than your body or your sexual appeal. The world of showbiz doesn’t see things that way, they like things to be seen the other way, whether they are magazines who want you on their cover, or whatever.. Don’t be under any illusions.. ALL of them want you because they’re making money off your youth and your beauty.. which they could not do except for the fact your youth makes you blind to the evils of show business. If you have an innocent heart you can’t recognise those who do not.

I repeat, you have enough talent that you don’t need to let the music business make a prostitute of you. You shouldn’t let them make a fool of you either. Don’t think for a moment that any of them give a flying fuck about you. They’re there for the money.. we’re there for the music. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. The sooner a young lady gets to know that, the sooner she can be REALLY in control.

You also said in Rolling Stone that your look is based on mine. The look I chose, I chose on purpose at a time when my record company were encouraging me to do what you have done. I felt I would rather be judged on my talent and not my looks. I am happy that I made that choice, not least because I do not find myself on the proverbial rag heap now that I am almost 47 yrs of age.. which unfortunately many female artists who have based their image around their sexuality, end up on when they reach middle age.

Real empowerment of yourself as a woman would be to in future refuse to exploit your body or your sexuality in order for men to make money from you. I needn’t even ask the question.. I’ve been in the business long enough to know that men are making more money than you are from you getting naked. Its really not at all cool. And its sending dangerous signals to other young women. Please in future say no when you are asked to prostitute yourself. Your body is for you and your boyfriend. It isn’t for every spunk-spewing dirtbag on the net, or every greedy record company executive to buy his mistresses diamonds with.

As for the shedding of the Hannah Montana image.. whoever is telling you getting naked is the way to do that does absolutely NOT respect your talent, or you as a young lady. Your records are good enough for you not to need any shedding of Hannah Montana. She’s waaaaaaay gone by now.. Not because you got naked but because you make great records.

Whether we like it or not, us females in the industry are role models and as such we have to be extremely careful what messages we send to other women. The message you keep sending is that its somehow cool to be prostituted.. its so not cool Miley.. its dangerous. Women are to be valued for so much more than their sexuality. we aren’t merely objects of desire. I would be encouraging you to send healthier messages to your peers.. that they and you are worth more than what is currently going on in your career. Kindly fire any motherfucker who hasn’t expressed alarm, because they don’t care about you.

[cherelann]

^^^

Very well said Sinead and thanks for posting Miguel...

[Miguel]

I hope Miley gives Sinead's words as much consideration as she put into writing them. The motherly perspective is there and what Sinead wrote indirectly put Miley's mother to shame. I would hope in private Miley's mother has questioned her decisions.

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Tori Amos a couple of weeks ago:

Men in music and the movie businesses turn 50, get a paunch, look as rugged as the Marlboro man and attract younger women. Women get lines on their faces and become rugged too, the Marlboro woman, which is fine but not an aphrodisiac.

I won't talk about Miley Cyrus at the VMAs, but I will say women have sexualised themselves and made great art, which they may get flak for, but it's powerful. But if you sexualise yourself and you're not making art, you are just sexualising yourself. Everyone's embarrassed. It's not very good, is it? You're just pooping on yourself.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/se...-interview

[My Alter Ego]

^^Miguel, I, too, hope that Miley both reads and absorbs Sinead's very powerful message.