MTV has done the totally thinkable and added the worst category they possibly could have added to the upcoming Video Music Awards: Best Lyric Video. Right, because what lyric videos needed was more validation that they’re a thing that’s different from a regular music video.
Mashable reports that the first nominees in this prestigious category are the videos for Katy Perry’s “Birthday” by Katy Perry, “Really Don’t Care” by Demi Lovato, “Mmm Yeah” by Austin Mahone featuring Pitbull, “Problem” by Ariana Grande featuring Iggy Azalea and “Don’t Stop” by 5 Seconds of Summer. Nice job guys, throwing 5SOS in there to make me impressed but IT WON’T WORK.
Congrats, congrats, very nice all. But these are not lyric videos. These are music videos and should be regarded as such. MTV just added a category they should have called Video of the Year II Oh Wait These Aren’t That Good but instead they lied and called it something else. In a way, this is a step back and they’re returning to the early years of the show, when they doled out awards for things like the Best Concept Video.
Proof? 4/5 of the nominated videos in this new category include the actual artist in question, which pushes them from the category of lyric video and into the category of music video, according to the rules of noted lyric video expert Kate Dries. AHEM: