The biggest winner at this year’s VMAs didn’t take home a single award. Miley Cyrus bagged the only prize that counts: Chatter.
By letting her tongue lay lazily out of the side of her mouth like a dog on a hot day, and grinding her crotch like a sex worker who’s seen happier times, Cyrus titillated and appalled millions — a sure-fire formula for modern success. Don’t believe me? Check Twitter.
During Sunday’s show, Miley’s “performance” with Robin Thicke was the most-tweeted-about stint of the night, with more than 306,000 messages sent per minute. That tally beat, by nearly 100,000 tweets-per-minute, the second most commented-on performance, by Justin Timberlake, the night’s ostensible winner.
Miley’s “tweet-appeal” more than tripled the number of 140 character messages sent during last year’s entire VMAs. Her tally even left in the dust the number of blurts emitted during the Super Bowl blackout back in February — by some 80,00 messages per minute, no less. Remember, that flub was considered, by some, as tweet-worthy as a terrorist attack.
Ms. Cyrus also became the night’s “most mentioned” star, inspiring 4.5 million allusions, compared to Timberlake’s 2.9 mil. (Gaga earned a relatively lackluster 1.9 mil).
In terms of hard sales, Cyrus likewise soared on impact. Her just-released new single, “Wrecking Ball,” (from her upcoming album, “Bangerz”) jumped to the top of the “Movers and Shakers” hit song list on Amazon. That list measures the fastest ascent of a song in the nation.
This, despite the fact that Cyrus didn’t perform that song on the show, but instead chose to animate her long-running hit, “We Can’t Stop.” Already the song had made waves, with its allusions to snorting cocaine and partying yourself senseless. The video for “Stop” had become the fastest clip ever to reach 100 million views on Vevo. Small wonder Cyrus decided to take its central image to the tenth power for her VMA display.
Where the original clip featured a seemingly looped teddy bear lumbering around a party, the stage version featured an army of them, teetering distractedly, like squeeze toys for stoners.
Coupled with Miley’s not-quite womanly looks, the whole performance had a particularly disquieting air. If some consider Robin Thicke’s clip for “Blurred Lines” “kinda rapey,” Miley’s show seemed “kinda kiddie-porny.”
Which, of course, scores a bull’s-eye on the supremely prized outrage-o-meter. It doesn’t seem to matter that her moves appear more than a tad desperate, not to mention obvious. Cyrus has been trying to “grow up” for years now, going back to her “kinda incesty” photo shoot with her dad in Vanity Fair. But the new songs represent her first manifestation of this trend in the music.
Already, Cyrus has talked about wanting to take the “Bangerz” CD (out Oct. 8) in the direction of hip-hop’s “Dirty South” sound. It has become her first album affixed with a Parental Advisory, via pre-order. The CD will also be her first off the kiddie label of Hollywood, having migrated over to the grown-up RCA imprint.
It’s a route taken by earlier stars, most obviously by Britney Spears, when she wanted to go from teen-scamp to the Madonna-of-her-moment. Cyrus’ transition creeks just as badly. Luckily for her, self-consciousness and cravenness count for nothing against what really matters: dominating the conversation.
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