With a record eight MTV video music awards (and most all-time with 24), Beyoncé turned the contents of water coolers worldwide into lemonade.
[caption id="attachment_40829" align="alignleft" width="300"] Beyonce at 2016 MTV video music awards. Image via justjared.com
at 2016 MTV video music awards. Image via justjared.com[/caption]The debate raged online: Is Beyoncé God, or what? Queen Bey took the not-God side with a background pointing out: “God is God. I am not.”
As if that would sway her legions of fans.
But who but God or Beyoncé could get Vevo to unite with MTV to distribute videos of VMA performances online?
As Variety reported Monday after Sunday night’s VMAs:
“The music video platform started to publish videos of the VMAs early Monday morning, making them available for streaming both on its own website and through its own apps as well as on YouTube.com and the sites and services of other Vevo distribution partners. Videos are being made available to internet users around the world, save for a few performances that may not be available due to artists or labels opting out.
“This is the first time MTV and its parent company Viacom have struck a partnership deal with Vevo. In many ways, it’s a sign for how much the relationship between the two companies, and the music industry in general, has changed.”
Typical of the reaction was Rolling Stone’s:
“Ashes to ashes, dust to MTV. Everybody at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards who wasn’t Beyoncé looked embarrassed to be there – and quite honestly should have been. It was like the old joke: ‘Besides that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?’ Because Beyoncé Wilkes Booth stormed into an award show that was a festering plague swamp of poodle vomit, planted her flag and set the whole thing on fire with a 16-minute stomp through the Lemonade songbook, one of the most blood-chillingly great live performances in award-show history.”
Other heavenly praise for the Queen of Pop.