Yesterday, after our annual tradition of not watching MTV’s Video Music Awards, we saw an article on Metal Injection that made us laugh. “The Most Metal Moments of the MTV VMAs 2015” was, well, nothing. And as was fitting to a channel that barely plays any music any more, there wasn’t a ton of music to be found, and almost none of it was rock. Fall Out Boy won “BestRock Video” for the song “Uma Thurman” even though they’re very much a pop band now, and Twenty One Pilots, who are kind of a rock band even though they don’t have a guitarist, dueted with A$AP Rocky during the awards. If you count Foxy Shazam singer Eric Nally appearing on Macklemore’s “Downtown,” that was the only rock at the whole show. And while we’ve come to expect that in a show that pretty much openly flaunts how vapid it is, the Wall Street Journal also wrote about the lack of rock on the show.
If even the buttoned-up WSJ is even writing about the lack of metal at the VMAs, then you know there’s something up. They have a point, though. Bringing up this week’s Billboard chart, they note that Disturbed and Ghost are in the top ten. Both bands have great music videos out too, but you wouldn’t know that from MTV. The article quotes an Eddie Trunk tweet, and while he’s really not the best spokesperson for current metal, he does have a point. The article also points out that metal isn’t going anywhere either, sales-wise, mentioning albums coming from Iron Maiden, Slayer, Children of Bodom, Deafheaven and Baroness. Not bad, but we’re also looking forward to Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Clutch, and Trivium, to name a few. In short, MTV, isn’t about to bring back rock to their awards show, which continues to decline in the ratings. But if you believe the rumor mill, there might not be a Video Music Awards show after this year.
