This past Thursday saw yet another installment of MTV's Video Music Awards; an award show that at one point in time had its finger so close to the pulse that you could swear it was on your neck.  But, over the years, as MTV has degenerated into whatever the hell you could call it now, the once proud hip variety show has become...well...an atrocious cavalcade of commercial interests and assinine behavior.  The VMA's are no more relevant to most music fans than a sporting event.  Bearing this mind, I have taken it upon myself to list my top five reasons why this program is no longer relevant; if only to prove to those who read this that they should avoid watching them, lest they keep encouraging shitty music.

5. The Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards:  Viacom owns both Nickelodeon and MTV, as those who watched Ren & Stimpy will recall (it used to play on both channels for you Youngbloods).  Viacom has, in a sense, just ushered those generations that were brought up on the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards onto the VMA's when they became teenagers.  In fact, many of the same celebrities and performers are often featured on both.  Britney Spears, Rihanna, Chris Brown, and Justin Timberlake have all been on or hosted both shows, which begs the question: aren't the VMA's really for post-adolescents?

4. Reality Television Celebrities:  With the advent of reality television (a niche that MTV pioneered with its program The Real World), the VMA's, which used to be vehemently filled with A-listers, is now populated with a bunch of nobody's famous for acting like assholes or "privately" filming a sex tape.  The VMA's used to be attended by the likes of the Beastie Boys, Madonna, Michael Jackson; real celebrities known around the world.  Now you can't watch the VMA's for five minutes without seeing shots of Kim Kardashian, Snookie (I don't know if that is correctly spelled, but I refuse to look it up), Amber Rose, or a bunch of the Jersey Shore jack-offs; all of whom have absolutely no talent and have done absolutely nothing with their lives except bring shame to their families and piss away money.  Anybody who is anybody phone's it in for the VMA's.

3. The Grammy's:  With Bon Iver winning two Grammy's in 2012, the Grammy's are making a come back.  Thanks to the likes of Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound, Brooklyn Vegan, and of course buffaBLOG, Hiplanta, and our entire 8 blog family, good music is once again making its presence known.  In the digital age great music is much easier to come by; so much so that it can, at times, overwhelming trying to keep up with all of the great releases.  2011 was a banner year for great music, and it is tremendously invigorating to see that talented musicians are starting to get credibility at music's highest level.  The trouble is the VMA's concentrate on pop music, and neglect indie, underground hip hop, and even hard rock scenes that are not only growing in popularity, but putting out music that is standing the test of time.  There is no telling if 5 years from now anyone will even know who Nicki Minaj is, or care.  I mean shit, where did Kings of Leon go?

2. Program Directors:  Springboarding off the last reason, program directors seem to be their own worst enemies.  This is not only a problem that is deeply rooted in MTV, but also American radio as well.  People are drifting farther and farther away from their FM tuners because what they want to hear isn't there.  It started with the advent of Satellite Radio, and has spiraled out of control.  There are now dozens of cloud based streaming radio programs (such as Pandora, Last FM, and Slacker), as well as programs like Spotify which literally allows users to play whatever they want (practically speaking).  Program directors can't keep up with the growing demand for variety on radio stations, so they play the same recycled garbage or whatever the record company promoters are paying them the most to play.  When was the last time you called a radio station to request a song and they actually played it?

1. MTV No Longer Plays Music Videos:  They don't!!  Music video used to be an artform.  It has actually given us talented film directors, such as Spike Jonze, and used to be a brilliant way to give songs depth and imagery, but have devolved at a rapid pace.  As much as I love hip hop music, it is definitely one of the biggest reasons that music videos have less credibility.  Taking a bunch of slow moion shots of you and your boys sitting around a bunch of chromed out cars with ice on and pouring champagne over a bunch of half naked women is NOT artistic at all, nor do I want to watch it.  I am sorry, but that's how I feel (especially given all the video vixen stories).  There are still many artists producing quality videos that are artistic and real (as our Picking Up The Slack For MTV is meant to highlight), but there is no real way for them to get airplay (aside from Youtube).  Even MTV2 is populated with garbage TV now.  MTV is as false a monicker as could be, and it is a shame that they still have an awards ceremony that is supposed to be dedicated to the music video.  To exemplify my point, I have decided to use a Soulja Boy video and a video from TV on the Radio's series of videos from the Nine Types of Light movie (by the way, the Soulja Boy video has over 127 MILLION views which again shows that pop music caters to children).