The V.M.A.s Are This Weekend. Does Anybody Care?

Cannonball with Wesley Morris

The New York Times

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.8 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s been a long time since MTV was appointment viewing. And yet, billions of people are still watching music videos on the regular — on YouTube. Where does that leave a decades-old awards show dedicated to the craft? Wesley invites Niela Orr, a culture critic, on the show to discuss what makes an unforgettable video and to review this year’s nominees to see which ones should go home with the moon men. Yes, they still give ’em out.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Cannonball.
0:14.1	Today.
0:15.3	Streaming kill the video star.
0:20.4	I'm not happy to say it, but it's true.
0:24.9	The VMAs are this week.
0:28.2	The Video Music Awards.
0:29.6	Did you know that?
0:31.8	Do you care?
0:33.1	Does anybody care?
0:34.7	Well, I'm going to try to make you care because it's a weird and interesting time for
0:40.2	the music video.
0:41.5	The place where they used to live, MTV, music television.
0:46.2	They gave up on these things, I don't know, 20 years ago.
0:49.4	But like a billion people are still watching them on the regular on YouTube, which, by the way,
0:58.2	might be a better place to go watch this episode if you aren't there already because
1:01.9	we're going to go deep, real deep, watching these things.
1:04.8	And there are clips, video clips on YouTube.
1:09.2	So, I'm going to talk about the state of the music video with my pal and fellow critic Naila Orr,
1:15.2	and we're going to look at the video of the year nominees, because some of them are really good.
1:25.3	Naila, hi.
1:27.1	Hey, Wesley.
1:29.1	Welcome back to Cannonball.
	...

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