So, did you catch the 2025 VMAs Product Placement/Commercial Generating Pre-Show?

I didn’t see the actual show. So, I shan’t comment on what I did not see, even though for a client I write for, I did do a little deeper dive into the fashions (if interested, see here). But I really can’t comment, as much as on the little snippets of live music performance I did see, as I won’t really be able to lend much as the artists celebrated by the 2025 MTV Music Awards are all way too young for my liking.

In fact, to be truthful, when this all started in 1984, I was already past the age of liking most of the artists who MTV featured then, or at least the music (video) those artists were making. (Ok, Madonna rolling around on the Radio City Music Hall stage in a bustier and short wedding gown, during the first VMA’s, was at least worth watching).

So, again it’s not fair of me, a crusty old guy to comment on stuff that doesn’t move me.

But I can comment on the pre-show and what moving the VMAS to CBS broadcast American TV seemed to have done to the proceedings.

I am not so naïve to think that any popular music made today does not come with a ton of corporate money funding it. But man, what I saw of product placement and all out endorsement this night, only an hour before the show, was startling. From the constant barrage of Katseye’s “Better In Demin” GAP commercial, Redbull’s parachute moment with Mr. Beast and product placement galore, what it seemed like to me was that there was some pre-show interviews interspersed with lots of commercial time.

Yes, this is the way popular music is made, as much today as ever. And again, I’m sure partnering with CBS did have a lot to do with the breath and spread of all I saw. But boy, did I feel hit over the head as I tried to spy some fashions for the site I linked above and tried my best to recognize at least a handful of folks interviewed.

I know, this is how it should be for me. I recall in 1978 when Fleetwood Mac took the Grammy stage for winning “Album of the Year” for their Rumors album, my folks watching and saying out loud “So, who are these long-haired folks?” And my folks were not nearly as old then as I am now and were (are) much more tolerant about music than me (hell, they turned me on to Simon and Garfunkel, The Carpenters as well as the wonderful scores of Broadway shows, “Stop the World – I Want to Get Off” and “The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd.”  So, I am well past the age that I should appreciate any of this, really.

But I can spot a commercial when I see one.

Also, I noticed, in what was a true icky moment, the few awards given away during this pre-show landed with a dull thud as the winners scrambled up on the interview platform as surprised by their win, with hardly anyone around to celebrate.

Then again, we had to get to another young women twerking commercial and Dunkin product placement. Who has time for stuff like championing awards, or a substantive interview?