A LOWDOWN ON VMA 2018

Marked by dull performances, unexpected wins, and missing stars, the award ceremony left the audience unsatisfied

With most of music industry’s top acts absent — from Beyonce to Bruno Mars — the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) 2018, on Monday, lacked star power, and some of the winners turned heads — for the wrong reasons.

Exhibit A: Camila Cabello beat Drake, Mars, Cardi B, Ariana Grande, and Post Malone for artist of the year. “I can’t believe this is for me,” Cabello said onstage. Neither can we. Cabello achieved the unthinkable later in the show when she took home the top prize — video of the year — for Havana. It was

the night’s most shocking moment, and MTV seemed to send out a message: You’re punished for not showing up and rewarded for attending.

Grande won best pop and Post Malone took home song of the year. Drake, last year’s most successful musician, didn’t win a single award. JayZ, Beyonce, Rihanna, and Kendrick Lamar were restricted to technical wins such as editing, art direction, cinematography, and visual effects.

The show hit another low when Jennifer Lopez, Cardi B, and DJ Khaled won best collaboration for Dinero — a song that has peaked at No. 80 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart — besting the record-setting hit Meant to Be, by Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line, and Mars and Cardi B’s anthemic Finesse remix.

Then there was the Aretha Franklin tribute, a moment Madonna made, well, all about Madonna. The pop icon rambled on about her early struggles, finally informing the crowd that she sang Franklin’s (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman at an audition that became a breakthrough for her. At least MTV played a clip of Franklin, who died last week.

The evening lacked oomph with several of its performances falling flat. The lone political moment of the night was when Logic was joined onstage by young immigrants wearing T-shirts that read, “We are all human beings” to protest the Trump administration’s separation of children from their parents after they illegally crossed the US-Mexico border.

PHOTO: REUTERS PHOTO: JAMIE MCCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES/AFP Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande; (right) Noah Cyrus and Lil Xan at the VMA 2018 Shawn Mendes performed his anthemic hit In My Blood at the event

PHOTO: CHRIS PIZZELLO/INVISION/AP LR: AJ McLean, Brian Littrell, Howie Dorough, Kevin Richardson, Nick Carter of Backstreet Boys

PHOTO: CHRIS PIZZELLO/INVISION/AP PHOTOS: THEO WARGO/GETTY IMAGES/AFP Ryan Tedder (left), of One Republic, and Jennifer Lopez (below left) were among the performers at the MTV Video Music Awards 2018, held in New York City (USA)