Idolator

There was a Best Ringtone award? What in the world does that have to do with music videos?

Ringtone of the year? Oooh, well, it sure seems like a chic position to take, vaunting the ringtone over the album or whatever as the primary musical consumer item, but effin hell, AFAICS ringtones are as removed from what MTV does nowadays as albums.

Let's just say it's safe to say MTV doesn't merit any celebration until they go bankrupt.

Although I can't find the noms for best video game soundtrack, I'm going to go on the record and say Guitar Hero doesn't count. It's a game of only songs. The soundtrack is the game. Other than that, I have no idea what game could be nominated. Saints Row?

The elimination of the technical awards is a real loss. But then, so is the actual playing of videos on MTV, period. (Sorry to dredge up that old gripe again.)

Video Vanguard was an especially interesting award that made the VMAs worth taking seriously. Although MTV annoyingly tended to reward artists who happened to appear in the videos rather than the directors who shaped their vision, auteurs like Julien Temple, Mark Romanek and Hype Williams did pick up the award some years. I also thought it poetic that Duran Duran received the VV award about four years ago, as a belated acknowledgment of their importance to early MTV (the VMAs didn't start till 1984, just missing DD's heyday).

VV could come back, though - they've skipped it several times in the last 15 years.

So, if that's what's gone, what the hell's left?

Oh, right: really stupid categories.

No Grand Theft Auto and no real Guitar Hero game means there wasn't really much to nominate.

A shame about the Viewer's Choice award though. What's Chris Connelly supposed to tell me to text message about before and after every commercial now?