Well I’m not sure they do, but what they have is a video awards show. I know because they are heavily advertising it on FX, the History Channel and whatever else I was flipping through in my amateur channel surfing. Mind you, I don’t watch enough tv to comment on commercials, plus I’m one of those people who usually gets up during the commercials, but I did see this particular one, and this particular one struck me. Why? Because I had my tv cranked (I was waiting for Divergent to start) and this particular commercial starts kicking into Whole Lotta Love. Whole Lotta Love … that … makes me pay attention. Set to that very loud Whole Lotta Love, MTV’s commercial (see link below) featured pretty horses running (you know I love horses), pop stars dancing to the beat of the song, then proclaimed that on August 24, MTV’s video music award show will air.
I’ve had the tv on a fair amount in the last two days, you know, after digging it out from three weeks of construction where it was covered in plastic sheeting, and so I saw many more commercials promoting the MTV video music awards show. But none of those that I saw afterwards featured Whole Lotta Love. I checked Youtube to try to find it. No luck, so I thought it was a fluke. I checked MTV’s own website, and after sitting through twelve of their commercials (the word twelve underlined, in bold and italicized because it was misery getting through that many), the familiar riff from the beginning of Whole Lotta Love begins to play. Sure enough, it was no fluke; MTV really did use Whole Lotta Love. Oh and to make this relevant to something other than how distracted I become when I hear Whole Lotta Love, I thought I’d tell you all what I learned from those other twelve commercials I saw. So here goes.
The VMA’s (no, I really didn’t know that’s what MTV calls them before “the twelve commercials”) will open the show with the pop song called Bang, Bang, a fast-rising and catchy pop collaboration between Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj (for my audience, those are two pretty pop singers and one pretty rapper, respectively). MTV is proud of that; they say the show will “open with a bang.” After, they will present their categories, along with performances that will include giving a special award to Beyonce. The major contests are for best video by a female — Problem (Ariana Grande featuring Iggy Azalea); Partition (Beyonce); Fancy (Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX); Dark Horse (Katy Perry featuring Juicy J), and Royals (Lorde); can I say, “go Lorde”, and for best video by a male – Sing (Ed Sheeran); The Monster (Eminem featuring Rihanna); Happy (Pharrel Williams); All of Me (John Legend), and Stay With Me (Sam Smith); “go Pharrel.” The nominees for best rock video are: Until It’s Gone (Linkin Park); Do I Wanna Know (Artic Monkeys); Fever (The Black Keys); Demons (Imagine Dragons); Royals (Lorde). None of the commercials for those categories have Whole Lotta Love blaring through as a soundtrack, too bad, but still I noticed just a tiny sample of Bonham’s drums at the beginning of what becomes a marching drum soundtrack for the commercials for “best female” and for “best male” (mind you, I’m not sure there is a commercial for best rock video). That tiny bit of Bonham added to that first commercial I saw on my now-freed-from-construction tv … makes me wonder…
Certainly Whole Lotta Love doesn’t matches the tenor and characteristic of anything this show is presenting, but after watching those twelve commercials and the Whole Lotta Love commercial, what stays in my mind is MTV’s promotion that their show will start with “a bang.” So I wonder if perhaps, just maybe, someone at MTV, someone somewhere, wishes MTV could truly open the show with a bang. I can imagine the producers talking to the sound board in the background-microphones. Tonight they will say: “cue, Bang Bang.” But what if that someone, that someone somewhere, wishes the words were, “cue … Whole Lotta Love?” What if this use of Zeppelin directly in that promo I saw first and almost subliminally in those commercial for best female and fest male video is an omen — an omen that our mainstream music could actually rock once again, rock like that? Until then, we have what we have, and in what passes, for now, as the rock category, I’m deciding between my girlie Lorde and Linkin Park. Oh and if you’re interested, MTV’s “VMAs” are tonight, Sunday August 24, at 9:00 Eastern.
Commercial featuring Whole Lotta Love:
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/vma/videos/vma-2014-wtf-horses/1066968/#id=1728572
Commercial for best video by a female performer:
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/vma/videos/vma-2014-wtf-best-female-video/1066980/#id=1728572
Link to videos for best rock performance:
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/vma/2014/best-rock-video/