Initially I was inclined to pretend this never happened, but the whole thing is just so ludicrous that I had no choice but to acknowledge the fact that Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd joined Miley Cyrus for an onstage duet Saturday night of "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1." Yes, that's Wayne dressed like an orange obsessed comic book villain and holding a big helium balloon  saying "____ YEAH" (where does one obtain a ____ YEAH balloon?) sloshedly muddling along while Miley and her band of crack musicians drained the life out of that Flaming Lips classic. And yes, that's Miley Cyrus, singing like she has gumballs in her mouth and performing in a t-shirt with her face splashed across the front and back as the vast majority of her audience starred blankly ahead. Who does that? 

Not even Steven Drozd can save the day; of course his keyboard strains are tasteful and emotive, but Miley's band is so milquetoast he underplays it, denying her already zoned out fans some of his patented ear candy. Not that I entirely blame him, considering those people paid American money to watch a former Disney star warble along poorly to abjectly cheesy countrified pap... wearing a t-shirt probably on sale at the no doubt abundant merchandise stands. Why should he tingle their ear drums with his sweet sonics? Being boring, most probably would have no idea what was happening and freak out anyways.

But is this it? Has Wayne and Co. finally jumped the shark? Considering they did that at the outset, way back in the early 90's when they did "She Don't Use Jelly" on Beverly Hills 90210, the Flaming Lips have effectively proofed themselves against that charge, or at least have raised the bar higher than a blatantly self serving duet with Miley Cyrus. Maybe they'll find some new fans among her flock, fans who would then eventually and inevitably realize that Miley Cyrus is actually TERRIBLE, and defect. We can only hope. If nothing else, it's another context to appreciate just how truly woeful she really is. Just watch out, Wayne and Miley liberally and gratuitously drop the F bomb before and after their performance.

When Miley Cyrus released the much-anticipated Bangerz last week, I was initially struck by how positive the reviews were. Entertainment Weekly, The A.V. Club, and Rolling Stone all raved over the album, claiming that Miley had successfully transitioned from a child star to a legitimate pop music force. After weeks of every blogger in sight taking shots at Miley, a ton of people were suddenly jumping on her bandwagon. Then, Jeff Miers of The Buffalo News came and brought everything to a screeching halt.

To call his review of the album scathing would be drastic understatement. He rips the album several new ones, basically declaring it the most shallow mile of dogshit ever released into the atmosphere. If Miers is to be taken at his word, Bangerz makes Rebecca Black's "Friday" look like fucking Pet Sounds. At a time when many critics are taking the side of Team Miley, you might say Miers came in like a wrecking ball (sorry, I couldn't resist).

While there are several things about the album that Miers loathes, what he seems to despise most about this album is its disposability. There's nothing deep about this record, it's just a bunch of anonymous vapid dance tunes that anyone cold have recorded (note: I haven't heard the entire album so I can't speak to this). It was interesting to see a pop music critic take an artist task for being vacuous when it seems like people care about less and less these day. There's plenty of anonymous vapid music clogging up the airwaves, and most people seem to be pretty okay with it.

When thinking of this in terms of Miley's new album, the title Bangerz seems more revelatory than it might have intended to be. It is quite simply an album of club bangers. Songs that sound good on the dance floor, but often leave you cold when you listen to them on your headphones. The thing is, this describes a huge chunk of mainstream pop music in 2013. Think about it; how many times have you heard someone defend liking a crappy song by saying "yeah, but I can dance to it?" I think I have heard that argument dozens of times by now, and that's just from people defending "Tik Tok."

So, people like shallow music as long as they can dance to it. This, admittedly, is not a new phenomenon. But what's interesting is that we seem to be entering an era when music with no intelligent thought or message is preferred over music that actually tries to say something. Quite simply, we are beginning to resent sincerity. When an artist tries to say something meaningful, we are likely to say "fuck you for trying," and get back to our Katy Perry album.

In a way, this is somewhat understandable. When a musician is overly sincere, and their message doesn't connect with you, it's easy to be put-off by them (see: "Accidental Racist"). This is probably why I'm not big on Mumford & Sons. I can tell these guys desperately mean everything their saying, and their generic bluegrass/folk hybrid means the world to them, but it does nothing for me (okay, except for "White Blank Page" because it sounds like Elvis Costello circa Blood And Chocolate).

Still, even if they're not for me, I'm willing to at least appreciate their efforts. These days, I think we mock bands for trying too hard and praise those who don't try at all. I've heard "We Can't Stop" and "Wrecking Ball" numerous times, and I like them considerably more than Jeff Miers, but I still get where he's coming from. We're reaching a point where sincerity is mocked, and vapidity is praised, and it's a shame. I'd rather see an artist go for something deep and fail than try for nothing and succeed. Hopefully, in the coming months, artists will be a bit more willing to embarrass themselves with sincere, honest music, and we'll be a bit more willing to suffer them gladly when they fail.

When I started writing this, we were in the late afternoon hours of the first day of Miley Cyrus #RatchetGate (thanks ?uestlove), and the first hours of this media/social media meltdown have been one for the books. We had the outrage of the public scolds, talk about the death of Hannah Montana, and the impact on the children, a media firestorm that enabled the media to show clips of the offending performance repeatedly, the feminist critique, and vital discussions about race and white appropriation of black culture on Twitter. My initial reaction was amusement because the whole thing was remarkably skeevy and unsexy for a pale imitation of what Britney and Christina had done a decade prior, but my second reaction was "whoa Nellie, that's pretty racist."

Blame Public Enemy, Ralph Ellison, City Honors, AP English teacher Mr. LaChiusa lending me The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, or #BlackTwitter, but my racist radar went off during Miley's Twerkfest. The stereotypes, the sight of Miley playing ringmaster to a circus of black women, the minstrel show put on and officiated by the former Hannah Montana, and the outright appropriation of "hood" (her word) culture for the former child star's coming out as a sexualized pop diva... the whole thing was rigoddamndiculous. But predictably white folks like Mika Brzynzski got their Tipper Gore on, leaving the more outrageous offense and timely issue to the folks on #BlackTwitter, while other white folks thought Miley's performance was A-OK.

I'm not suggesting that those white folks are racist, but shit, this isn't helping. This hasn't been a banner year for race relations in this country, and for white feminists, the Tipper Gore set, and the rest to be frankly oblivious to flagrant racism (in the form of a spectacle no less) presents further proof that we've got a looooong way to go before it's Kumbaya time. Thankfully New York Times critic Jody Rosen stepped up early to give Miley shit for her racism for Vulture (The 2013 VMA's Were Dominated By Miley's Minstrel Show), but otherwise it seemed like most white folks missed it. Jeff Meirs almost touched on the racial issues at work at the VMA's... in MTV's Justin Timberlake hagiography, but otherwise didn't go there in favor of a larger critique of pop culture.

But here's the kicker, near the end of Rosen's piece:


Now Miley Cyrus's hipster bonafides are certainly up for debate, but the concept of hipster racism is distressing and depressing. Yes. Congratulations white folks, you're killing hip. It was bound to happen, really, anytime you get that many white people together, that something fundamentally uncool would happen, and killing the concept of hip appears to be it. Because racism isn't cool and it certainly isn't hip; in fact racism is the exact opposite of the concept of "hip." Shit, what is hip if it isn't being hip in the original sense... as in down with black folks and black culture? Whether as an expression of rebellion to the "square" status quo, a show of solidarity with the oppressed, honest appreciation of another's culture, or Talking Heads doing a cover of Al Green's "Take Me To The River" on More Songs About Buildings And Food, hip was about communication, secret communication, and building bridges. It wasn't about being an ironic racist, or being casually blind to outright racism, which is definitely not as bad as outright racism but again, it's not helping.

Presumably in between dominating pickup games of basketball and trips to Vitamin World, Buffalo's The Spin Wires found time to pump out their second bro-pop cover with Miley Cirus’ “We Can’t Stop.” As you may remember, Spin Wires released a cover of Icona Pop’s “I Love It,” two months ago, which garnered close to 40,000 views/listens on YouTube. “We Can’t Stop” is the next entry in their series, “Manly Covers.”  

The clip continues the motifs set in the “I Love It,” video, complete with lifting weights in rhythm and downstairs goofin’ in the studio. The Spin Wires are very fun, lead singer Tyson Prince’s sing-screams are very similar to the Offspring's Dexter Holland and the band’s dance-poprock style is Franz Fedinand-y. Check out the video below, where the trio does pushups, drinks Canadian beer, receives wet-willies, and has an overall blast.

Lady Gaga's disembodied head sings a song, and it's time for the party to begin.

All award shows are basically about the spectacle more than the awards, but that's never more true than with the MTV Video Music Awards. No one remembers who won anything at the 2003 VMAs, but everyone remembers Madonna kissing Britney. This show is just about watching famous people do crazy shit. And the 2013 edition did not disappoint.

First off, let's talk about the absolute trainwreck that was Miley Cyrus. She awkwardly twerked, and super-awkwardly pretended to masturbate with a foam finger. It was at this point that Robin Thicke came out and sang a snippet of "Blurred Lines." Once this happened, 2 Chainz and Kendrick Lamar came out, but it was far too late to salvage the performance. Miley's failed attempt at both singing and dancing were so pathetic that she retroactively let Britney Spears circa 2007 off the hook.

I love that the NSYNC reunion lasted for about 30 seconds of what was primarily a tribute to Justin Timberlake's solo career. It's his world, and those other four gentleman are simply squirrels trying to get a nut. It was nice of JT to give them a shout out in his acceptance speech though.

I could have used a bit more crazy from Kanye. His performance of "Blood On The Leaves" was suitably intense, but I missed the special effects that marked his performance of "New Slaves" on SNL a few months back.

What made less sense, Shailene Woodley introducing Miley Cyrus, or Jared Leto introducing Kanye? I'll go with Leto, because I honestly can figure out what the hell he was even doing there.

Last night was a rather depressing reminder of how irrelevant rock is to mainstream music right now. I'm pretty sure the only guitars of the night were provided by Bruno Mars backup band. Apparently, when neither The Black Keys or the Foo Fighters make an album, that means rock is invisible.

How about that Bruno Mars light show, eh? Has he been hanging out with Wayne Coyne lately? I dug his new single, too.

Daft Punk were only on to present? Super lame. They should have picked Colbert instead.

Can we all agree that Kevin Hart talking about Lady Gaga's ass was just funny? Please?

One Direction did not have the best song of the summer by any stretch of the imagination. But they do have the most rabid fanbase, so this was to be expected.

What was with the one dude in One Direction wearing a Joy Division t-shirt? Like he has anything to be gloomy about it....

That Katy Perry finale was beyond cheesy. Not as bad as Miley, but still. Can the dudes in Survivor sue her? God I hope so.

Why did MTV insist calling "Roar" her "biggest hit ever?" It hasn't been out long enough to really be a hit yet. Plus, "I Kissed A Girl" and "California Gurls" were both way bigger. I guess they just figure that repeating something enough times will make it true.

Another fine mess, MTV! Can't wait for next year.