Back when we were just writing swear words on our parent’s walls in crayon, MTV did provide us with some light musical relief. Alongside the mundane pop dross, there were some gems to be found. The programme most likely to fill you with a mix of Scandanavian indie and wobbly acid grooves was 120 Minutes. Only problem was that it was broadcast in the early hours of Sunday morning.

So for the insomniacs, 120 Minutes was a mix of uncommercial sounds and experimental videos that wouldn’t have been broadcast during the day. Just look at certain Sqaurepusher and Mogwai promos.

In an age where music is being broadcast to a wider audience via the internet, you’d expect MTV to do the same. But no, they instead decided to shun the show for moronic programming which, over time, has diluted the channel to such an extent that hardly any music videos are played. But this hasn’t stopped the network from holding its annual VMA ceremony.

As per any award ceremony like, you can usually predict the nominees without any genuine surprise. The only real music award with any degree of honour attached to it was The Mercury Music awards as they vaguely attempt to hunt out a deserving winner as opposed to a commercial selling achiever. But with a list comprising of previous winners and nominees with the usual outsiders who stand no chance due to their obscurity in the public domain (sorry Ghost Poet), we’re not inspired. British electronic music has made a resurgence over the last year, but it has been sadly overlooked, apart from Katy B. But she attended the Brit school, so her nomination is of no surprise.

The nominees are all artists who currently have records out or have released something within in the last few months. Similar names keep on cropping up that include; stage invading Kanye West, pyrotechnic tits Lady Gaga, worst excuse for a rock band ever – Mumford & Sons and painfully annoying Katy Perry.

But whilst we sound like pensioners with our hearing aids set to ‘complain’, not being able to understand what the yoof of today listen to, the hecklerspray bedsit does have an unsavoury love for Nicki Minaj. It might be our naïve thinking, but here in Blighty, she doesn’t appear to have such a massive following like in Uncle Sam’s burger munching US of A.

She is one of the new wave of female rappers that’s taken the baton from musicians like Lil Kim and generally made hip-hop/rap fun, accessible and engaging. Observe:

It remains to be seen if Minaj will walk away with a trophy that’s wrapped in tinfoil. If the VMAs continue to be based on popularity rather than quality, then you’ll end up seeing bucktoothed hip-hop chipmunk Chris Brown walk away with some gongs.

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So, the arbitrary picking of winners for the things they’ve done at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles has been and gone. Taylor Swift and Kanye West sang about, well, Kanye West at the show and we can only assume that cocaine dealers and the providers of toilet cisterns had a wonderful time of it at the glittering bash.

However, the night well and truly belonged to Lady GaGa who scooped more awards than anyone else. She also accepted some awards while dressed as the off-cuttings on a butcher’s slab.

More importantly (for fans at least), is the news of GaGa’s new album title which she announced while accepting an award, which saw her bursting into song and presumably thrilling her gay followers with her knowing campery. God knows we all need some campness in our dreary lives now and again.

The singer made the announcement at VMAs in LA last night (September 12th) when she collected her award for Video Of The Year. If you’re wondering, it was for ‘Bad Romance’.

Lady Gaga said:

“I promised that if I won this, I would announce the name of my new album. It’s called ‘Born This Way’.”

She then broke into a melodramatic number and sang:

“I am beautiful in my way / Because God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track / Baby I was born this way.”

That sounds like it’s going to be a surefire hit with the gay clubs doesn’t it? It’s got just the right dose of tragic defiance that the camp community love so dearly and GaGa is always willing to provide it.

Anyway, GaGa bagged seven awards and, should you be interested, here are all the winners in one big list:

Collaboration: Lady Gaga featuring Beyonce, “Telephone”

Female video: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”

Male video: Eminem, “Not Afraid”

Hip-hop video: Eminem, “Not Afraid”

New artist: Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris, “Baby”

Pop video: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”

Rock video: 30 Seconds to Mars, “Kings and Queens”

Dance music video: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”

Art direction: Florence and the Machine, “Dog Days Are Over”

Choreography: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”

Cinematography: Jay Z and Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind”

Direction: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”

Editing: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”

Special effects: Muse, “Uprising”

Breakthrough video: The Black Keys, “Tighten Up”

Video of the year: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”

MTV has announced the nominees for the 2010 Video Music Awards and Lady Gaga leads the pack with 13 nominations, the most ever received by an artist in a single year in the history of the show. Record breaking! An additional 5 nominations for her collaboration on Beyonce’s ‘Video Phone’ has the unstoppable popper nommed two and even three times in several categories!

I bet some of you reading this are absolutely bewildered by this news, eh?

Well, sadly for those who don’t like her, she’s the closest thing we’ve got to an all conquering popstar so it is advised that you go and make some ‘she’s got a dick’ comments on some irony based forum you post on or something.

Anyway, for those giddily clapping with excitement (along with the sneaking feeling, one you refuse to completely acknowledge, that Alejandro was a bit crap and she seemed to lose her momentum) GaGa is rather thrilled also.

GaGa said:

“I’m so honoured for all the little monsters and self-professed freaks of the universe, to have more VMA nominations in a single year than any artist in MTV history. Ironically, I’m even more proud it’s an unlucky number – 13.”

“A long time ago the world told me and my little monsters we would never be heard, together we changed the rules. God put me on Earth for three reasons – To make loud music, gay videos and cause a damn raucous. Thank you, MTV!”

In addition to her own nods, GaGa is also named in five of Beyoncé’s nominations for their ‘Video Phone (Extended Remix)’ collaboration – making a total of 18 mentions in the shortlist.

The 27th annual Video Music Awards show will broadcast live from the Nokia Theater In Los Angeles on Sunday, September 12 at 9:00PM ET.

Here’s Lady Gaga’s full list of VMA nods below:

Best Collaboration: “Telephone” & “Video Phone” (Extended Remix)
Best Female Video: “Bad Romance” & “Video Phone” (Extended Remix)
Best Pop Video: “Bad Romance” & “Video Phone” (Extended Remix)
Best Dance Music Video: “Bad Romance”
Video Of The Year: “Bad Romance” & “Telephone”
Best Art Direction: “Bad Romance” & “Video Phone” (Extended Remix)
Best Choreography: “Bad Romance” & “Telephone” & “Video Phone” (Extended Remix)
Best Cinematography: “Bad Romance”
Best Direction: “Bad Romance”
Best Editing: “Bad Romance”
Best Special Effects: “Bad Romance”

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Make no mistake, Britney Spears is the MTV VMAs, whether she’s writhing with a snake, kissing Madonna with tongues or obliterating her entire career forever.

An MTV VMAs show without Britney Spears isn’t an MTV VMAs show – it’s just an excuse for Chris Brown to wobble around like his knickers are filled up with puffer fish. So imagine how thrilled we are to learn that Britney Spears will not only be appearing at this Sunday’s MTV VMAs, but actually opening them!

It’s wonderful news, and the perfect chance for Britney Spears to erase the painful memory of her stumbling around and failing to mime to her own song at last year’s show. Now she gets to replace that with a new memory of her having a giant panic attack onstage and ending up lying in the fetal position, rocking backwards and forwards, yanking fistfuls of hair out of her scalp and screaming abuse at a monster that only she can see.

We’re guessing.

Say what you like about Britney Spears but she isn’t a quitter. Nope. She definitely isn’t a quitter. Britney Spears never quits. Not even when it’s blindingly obvious to everyone that quitting would probably be the most dignified and medically sensible thing she could do. No way, that’s not Britney Spears.

Case in point – Britney’s embarrassingly lacklustre performance at last year’s MTV VMAs. The hair was bad, the dancing was sloppy, the abdominal muscles were crayoned on and – although the feeling of sad desperation was actually quite convincing – the whole thing was so bad that people were calling it Britney’s lowest moment of all time.

But Britney’s not a quitter. Contrary to a statement by her own manager last week, Britney Spears has just announced that she’s going to take to the stage once more and dramatically open the 2008 MTV VMAs on Sunday. Reuters reports:

“MTV has long played an important role in my career,” Spears said in a statement. “How can I not be there to kick off their 25th VMAs? I’m excited to open the entire show, to say hi to my fans and to be nominated.”

Now, you might think that Britney Spears has lost her mind for opening the MTV VMAs – after all, she hasn’t performed in public at all since last year and she’ll be under more scrutiny than ever before on Sunday – but you have nothing to worry about.

Last year’s trainwreck? That was the old Britney Spears. On Sunday you’ll see the brand new Britney Spears, a woman who’s spent the last year being kept in a mental asylum and constantly getting reminded that she’s a dangeously unfit parent. See? Nothing to worry about.

We don’t know what Britney Spears has planned for the MTV VMAs on Sunday – details are being kept tightly under wraps at the moment – but we honestly hope it goes well for her. Our advice to Britney Spears is that if she wants to make people love her again, she should remind them of why they loved her by doing something genuinely popular that she’s already done before.

That’s right, we want Britney Spears to take her knickers off and divorce Kevin Federline again. It’ll go down a storm, trust us.

What better way for Britney Spears to take a huge step towards getting everything back on track than to hook up with Russell Brand?

There are many, many better ways. Surely. Hooking up with that mad-haired berk isn’t going to help her claw back the piles and piles of sanity the girl seems to have lost over the last couple of years.

Let’s be totally honest – it’s going to damage her more than she already is, and that’s before she’s even spoken to the man who dresses like a particularly stupid pirate.

But hecklerspray didn’t get in fast enough with our warnings, leaving poor old crazy Britney Spears free to appear alongside Russell Brand in some MTV promotional adverts for the upcoming Video Music Awards.

It still isn’t confirmed if Britters herself will be in attendance at the awards as she hasn’t got permission off her dad yet, but hopefully the blow to her psyche that surely occurred when she met the TV and radio ‘funny’ man will have been too much, forcing her to stay at home on the night. The other option doesn’t even bear thinking about, frankly.

For now, the only thing we can say with so-called ‘facts’ backing us up is that there have been a few promotional skits released and… well… they’re quite good, really.

Brand is still an irritating prannock, but he does at least have the good sense to make a joke of the fact that no one in the US knows who he is – and believe us, oh American readers out there, you don’t want to know who Russell Brand is – whereas Britney is actually quite charming, seemingly happy to poke fun at herself.

Does this mean we’re allowed to make fun of her again? Or is it still too serious an issue, that she’s gone mental and her life has fallen to pieces and all that gumph? No? Still not cool? Okay – just checking.

Did we mention there’s an elephant in the videos? Yes – in an all-too-subtle move on the part of the ad creators, they’ve decided to quite literally tackle the issue of the elephant in the room. And it’s actually borderline clever, the crafty little buggers – obviously it’s still blatant enough for the MTV’s core demographic to get the joke (it’s referring to Britney’s performance at last year’s VMAs, you fools!), but at the same time it’s pretty brave on their part.

We should stop writing with hangovers, it makes us too nice.

Russell Brand is an arsehole, Britney Spears went mental let’s all point and laugh… ahh, that feels better.

Anyway, a couple of the ads are below for your viewing pleasure. They’re bound to raise at least a smile, and it’s good to see Britney looking less like a skank-harpy of death (twice in a month). She leaves that honour to Brand.

Zing!

Trouble is Kid Rock's middle name. Actually it isn't – it's probably Jeb or Enos or Clawfoot or something – but that doesn't matter because Trouble is also Kid Rock's best friend, wife, vicar and Meals On Wheels delivery operative.

Kid Rock is addicted to trouble, and it doesn't matter if it's the sort of trouble that involves physical violence or the sort of trouble that involves making dreadful redneck heavy metal that sounds like it should exclusively soundtrack cross-eyed, chipped-tooth monster truck rallies. But sometimes Kid Rock's penchant for trouble gets him into, um, trouble – like when Kid Rock decided to use the live, globally-televised MTV VMA awards this year to start a fight with Tommy Lee. However, despite everyone in the world seeing Kid Rock and Tommy Lee slapping each other like babies during the awards, police have announced that Kid Rock won't be charged for the brawl, mainly because they need all their MTV VMA manpower to try and pin a charge of Miming With Intent To Appal on Britney Spears.

Eventful occasion, this year's MTV VMA awards. Really MTV should be proud of itself, because it managed to fill this year's awards with Britney Spears being terrible and Shia LaBeouf blabbing the new Indiana Jones movie title and Kanye West shrieking like a nitwit and still end up with a rubbish show. But at least it went down swinging, much like Kid Rock and Tommy Lee, who decided to spend much of their screen time swinging their arms at each other like a couple of yokels trying to swim up a waterfall.

Why Kid Rock and Tommy Lee fought is beyond us. Tommy Lee did try to tell us, but his account was like listening the the violent thoughts of a teenage council estate single mother screaming at her children so we'll just assume it was about Pamela Anderson instead. After the fight it was Kid Rock who was cited for misdemeanour battery by police – a charge which carries a sentence of up to six months in jail – but now Las Vegas police have decided that nobody is actually going to get charged with anything as People reports:

Kid Rock will not be charged in the fight with Tommy Lee at the MTV Video Music Awards, Las Vegas authorities said Monday. "The Clark County District Attorney's Office will not pursue a battery charge," Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Bloxham tells Extra. "It should be noted that Tommy Lee has requested that there be no prosecution relating to the incident and there were no injuries to either person."

So all's well that ends well, even though we're putting Tommy Lee's kindness down to a desire to team up with Kid Rock and bundle Pamela Anderson's new husband Rick Salomon together, because Pamela's ex-husbands need to stick together. Also, don't worry if you missed the initial Kid Rock/ Tommy Lee fight at the MTV VMAs, because it's starting to look like Kid Rock wants to hold dramatic reconstructions of the scrap at every Waffle House in the land at the moment.

Read more:

Kid Rock Won't Face Charges In VMA Fight – People