Many of the music videos that have won the top prize at MTV's Video Music Awards are beautiful works of art, and some of them are just plain awesome. However, there are a couple videos that will leave you wondering (at least they left us wondering) what the voters thought was so great about them. Here are the five worst VMA Video of the Year winners.
5. Katy Perry - "Firework" (2011)
I completely understand the message behind "Firework," and fully acknowledge that it's a positive song that has inspired a lot of people, but the video itself is another story. I had assumed that the title of "Firework" was a metaphor for someone who has the potential to be bright, beautiful, and impressive, but according to the video, the song is about people who are literally made of fireworks, or at the very least, are holding fireworks in their pockets and have accidentally lit them. If you're going to make a video in which fireworks are being set off in a delivery room while a woman is in labor, un-ironic positivity is not the tone you should be aiming for.
4. INXS - "Need You Tonight/Mediate" (1988)
There's actually nothing wrong with most of the "Need You Tonight/Mediate" video. The "Need You Tonight" section features the band performing the song with some moderately clever editing tricks, but the "Mediate" section is where things go sour. In homage to the Bob Dylan documentary Don't Look Back, the band casts away a series of cards with words that rhyme with "Mediate," and though there seems to be a political slant to it, it's all so vague and unfocused that you wonder why they even bothered including it at all. There's a good reason why "Need You Tonight" was a number one hit and "Mediate" wasn't.
3. Britney Spears - "Piece of Me" (2008)
You know how they sometimes give out pity Oscars to great actors who had somehow never won before, like Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman? I'm pretty sure that's what MTV did for Britney Spears' "Piece of Me" video. Her "...Baby One More Time" and "Toxic" videos were classics that nonetheless failed to take home the top prize ("...Baby One More Time" wasn't even nominated), so instead they gave the Moonman to this clichéd takedown of paparazzi starring a visibly exhausted Spears. The song itself also pretty awful, and not even backing vocals from Robyn can save it.
2. Neil Young - "This Note's For You (1989)
Like plenty of other music legends from the '60s and '70s, Neil Young wasn't exactly at the top of his game during the '80s. 1988's "This Note's For You" is a pretty ham-fisted attack on rock commercialism, and the video takes it a step further with cameos by Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston lookalikes, as well as a mid-video spoof of pretentious perfume commercials. It was probably funny when it first came out, but not so much now. Apparently MTV banned the video at first due to legal threats from Michael Jackson's lawyers, so giving it the Video of the Year prize was probably some sort of apology.
1. The Cars - "You Might Think" (1984)
The Cars' "You Might Think" video was the very first Video of the Year winner, so the VMA's didn't exactly get off to the best start. It's not as if there were slim pickings that year, either: it beat out "Thriller," as in Michael Jackson's "Thriller," but apparently a masterpiece of cinematic horror pop by an A-list director is no match for a video making light of stalking and voyeurism with a bunch of clumsy computer effects. I know that this was the '80s, and computer effects weren't quite that impressive yet, but this is still the epitome of '80s cheese.
