As MTV”s 2013 Video Music Awards approach, we”ll countdown to the Aug. 25 ceremony, which airs live at 9 p.m. ET from Brooklyn”s Barclays Center.
Justin Timberlake and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis lead the nominations with six each, closely followed by Bruno Mars, Pink, Robin Thicke, Miley Cyrus and Thirty Seconds To Mars.
Among the artists performing on the show are Lady Gaga, who will open the awards; Timberlake, Mars, and Cyrus.
We”ll look at a different category each day leading up to Aug. 25.
Best Female Video
Rihanna feat. Mikky Ekko, “Stay”
Taylor Swift, “I Knew You Were Trouble”
Miley Cyrus, “We Can’t Stop”
Pink feat. Nate Ruess, “Just Give Me A Reason”
Demi Lovato, “Heart Attack”
We can pretend for a hot minute that anything other than Miley Cyrus”s “We Can”t Stop” will win here, but her wacky video is a shoo-in. Remember, it”s a fan voted away and the clip has already garnered close to 150 million page views on Vevo in two months. But for the sake of argument: Rihanna lets her vulnerability, and a lot more, show in her clip for “Stay.” She spends most of it sitting naked in a tub, until Mikky Ekko comes into the same bathroom with Rihanna no longer there. It”s beautifully shot, but there”s not a lot more to it than that. Not that there needs to be. Pretty much the same thing with Pink”s video for “Just Give Me A Reason”: nice and emotional (this time on a floating bed instead of in a bath) but not strong enough to topple Cyrus. Like Rihanna, Demi Lovato shows herself with very little make-up, which signifies vulnerability, in “Heart Attack,” which is a glorified performance clip with some very cool effects. On “I Knew You Were Trouble,” Taylor Swift wakes up lying on the cold ground from a most un-Swift-like rave. It”s a bit of a change of pace for Swift who takes off with the bad boy after a long voice over and dabbles in dubstep. Not her best, though admittedly intriguing.
Who Should Win: Miley Cyrus, “We Can”t Stop”
Who Will Win: Miley Cyrus: We Can”t Stop”
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