VMAs 2018: performances, winners, and highlights

In the days since the death of Aretha Franklin, we’ve seen numerous moving tributes to her legacy, including Ariana Grande’s tremendous performance of “Natural Woman.” But Madonna’s attempt to pay her R-E-S-P-E-C-T to the Queen of Soul at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards was not among them.

Instead, Madonna made Franklin’s “tribute” primarily about Madonna, in an awkward, overlong speech that seemed to leave the audience slightly baffled, if not outright offended.

Though the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards weren’t completely devoid of spectacle, the ceremony ended up being a mix of the baffling and the unmemorable. Aside from some of the performances, the ups and downs were precipitous, as the stacked list of nominees yielded fairly lukewarm wins.

Overall, it was what the ceremony lacked — a sense of cohesion or drama, somebody to properly shepherd an Aretha Franklin tribute, and any of the musical beef that’s made the show so exciting in past years — that stood out. The final Aerosmith-Post Malone performance, complete with pre-punched holes in the fake Marshall speakers onstage, served as a strange cherry on top of the cake.

MTV’s Video Music Awards have a reputation for being a hotbed of scandal and intrigue — Kanyegate! Hey Miley, what’s good! — but this year’s ceremony was, in all honesty, a bit of a snooze. There were few shocks or controversies, and absolutely no one rushed the stage in protest of an award going to the wrong person.

On the plus side, there were at least a few really good performances. For those of us who watched the whole show (me, dumb), the performances were a reward for sitting through some truly horrible sound mixing and more cuts to Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson than you might think were strictly necessary. But for those of us who got to skip the telecast itself (you, an intellectual), let this post serve as your guide to the best performances of the night. Here are the three performances from the 2018 VMAs worth watching; please feel free to skip the rest.

In a performance of his song “One Day” at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards, rapper Logic and Ryan Tedder took the stage alongside hundreds of immigrant children and their parents.

The performance echoed the song’s recently released music video, which also addresses the ongoing immigration and family separation crisis. As hundreds of kids filed onstage to stand behind Logic as he rapped, “We do it for the children,” the emotion of the moment struck home — especially when it was revealed that the shirts the children wore were emblazoned with the words “We Are All Human Beings.”

Though the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards are officially going host-free, the awards ceremony is still set to be a glitzy blast. The ceremony is slated for tonight — Monday, August 20 — and will be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Performers will include Ariana Grande and Panic at the Disco, and the presenter lineup features a wide range of talent, from Tiffany Haddish to the Backstreet Boys. Here’s everything you need to know.

When: Monday, August 20, at 9 pm Eastern/6 pm Pacific (with the preshow kicking off at 8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific). MTV will air the awards live on both coasts.

It’s been a good year for Cardi B. In the past six months, she has performed on Saturday Night Live, earned a slot on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and given birth to her first child, and now she leads the nominations for the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards with 10 nods. Five of those — including one for the VMAs’ highest honor, Video of the Year — are for “Finesse,” her collaboration with Bruno Mars.

Cardi B’s competition in the Video of the Year category includes Beyoncé and Jay-Z, who have racked up eight nominations overall for their collaboration on “Apeshit,” the video for which made waves with its setting in the Louvre and its use of classical Western iconography.