The end of summer brings one of the greatest award shows to our television sets: The MTV Video Music Awards. In past years, we have seen some amazing performances, such as Green Day’s slime filled version of “American Idiot” and the stunning kiss between Britney Spears, Madonna and Christina Aguilera. This year we had some hot and some not so hot performances.

The show started off with the never dull Lady Gaga singing her newest single, “You and I.” She was dressed as alter ego Joe Calderone, which she continued to play all night. I am the first to admit I am a Lady Gaga super fan, but she was just borderline obnoxious during the VMAs. During her performance, Gaga fell to the ground when she slipped on a beer she had spilled on stage.

An outstanding performance of the night was Adele who sang her heart-wrenching break-up ballad titled “Someone Like You”. Jay-Z & Kanye West gave a surprise performance and they were almost attacked by an audience member who rushed on stage, but was escorted off before getting to the duo. Beyonce gave viewers a spell-binding performance. She followed by announcing to the world that she is pregnant with her first child, with husband Jay-Z.

Other performances included Lil Wayne, Pitbull, Neyo and Young The Giant, which I found to be boring and uninteresting.

The worst performance of the night came when Chris Brown delivered a weird dance/lip-sync performance. He came out dancing to “Yeah 3x,” paid tribute to 1993 Wu Tang and then went back in time to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Now, why pay tribute to those two completely random artists? Where was every other year and why a rock song? He continued to dance around the stage and lip-sync. I feel that if you are going to lip-sync, you should not even bother wearing a microphone. Also, you might as well make it a dance performance over a lip-syncing vocal performance. Brown flew through the air like Peter Pan. When all was said and done, Chris received a standing ovation. I just didn’t understand why. It was a terrible performance.

The high points of the night came when Lady Gaga, still dressed as alter ego Joe Calderone, honored Britney Spears with the Michael Jackson Icon Award. Spears was paid tribute by a group of dancers, who danced to her hits like “Baby, One More Time,” “Crazy,” “Oops!…I Did It Again,” “Toxic” and other recent hits.

I was also very excited when Katy Perry took home top honors, winning Video Of The Year for her song about acceptance and being who you are, titled “Firework.”

However, the highest point of the night was when Tony Bennett paid tribute to the late Amy Winehouse, and was honored by Bruno Mars, who sang Winehouse’s song “Valerie.” You may also have heard this song when it was covered on Glee. I liked that they chose to celebrate her life and accomplishments in a happy and exciting way, not sad and gloomy.

Some people who I feel got snubbed are Cee Lo Green’s “Forget You,” which lost to Justin Bieber’s “U Smile” for Best Male Video. Also, Whiz Khalifa who lost to Tyler, The Creator for Best New Artist.

A list of winners who were awarded during the show is as follows:

Best Pop Video- Britney Spears “Till the World Ends”

Best Rock Video- Foo Fighters “Walk”

Best Hip-Hop Video- Nicki Minaj “Super Bass”

Best Collaboration- Katy Perry & Kanye West “E.T.”

Best Male Video- Justin Bieber “U Smile”

Best New Artist- Tyler, The Creator

Best Female Video- Lady Gaga “Born This Way”

Video Of The Year- Katy Perry “Firework”