Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon On VMAs: MTV ‘F*cked The Dog’

Justin Vernon, the bearded, flannel-wearing hipster’s bearded flannel-wearing hipster we all know and love as the musical juggernaut Bon Iver, is on the record as not being a big fan of MTV, so it probably shouldn’t come as any surprise that he didn’t care much for last night’s VMAs. But just in case there was any doubt, Vernon took to his blog this afternoon to make his thoughts absolutely clear.

here are great moments in awards shows. bruno mars sounded really good doing ‘valerie’ for amy winehouse. i don’t think anyone is bummed that adele is killing everything. her voice was real and focused when i went thru and watched highlights from tonight. kanye and jay z are always murdering. beyonce is pregnant. yes this is awesome as sh*t, culturally speaking. but can i just ask, the reader, us, we … as non-rhetorically as possible: don’t we seem dumb? didn’t MTV lose the fight against themselves? Didn’t Rock’n’Roll STOP? Why are the lights so bright? isn’t our talent as artists enough? Why do we try SO hard? Does a moonman mean what it did back then? Should we feel pumped when we get one? Should our mom’s cry? I am not even thinking about it that hard. I will close my eyes in 90 seconds and have total peace… But, seriously. Why are we waving around so much? Why do we NEED this sh*t so bad? Why don’t we just have MUSIC? DO music? soul? I don’t know. I don’t mean to criticize. Anyone. Actually. Except for MTV. You might have had a very large opportunity to be stabilize your self as a global presence of culture and art about 15 years ago and you f*cked the dog. Sorry. Im with my girls on this one. Its becoming increasingly clear as I think about it more and more, that the dollars, if they ARE apart of why you are doing something… they are apart of why you are doing something. that’s fucked to me. that’s the absence of spirit, glue, fabric of what makes us a person. it distracts us from what we could be doing: WORK. on EARTH. Better say this: Forget what I say. If you even read this, you’ll probably say to yourself, who is this ass saying sh*t? It doesn’t matter what i say. it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. But this one last thought: What would Bill Hicks say?

Meanwhile, MTV scored its highest VMA ratings ever last night, and Beyonce announcing her pregnancy on the show was the most talked about topic in the history of Twitter. So I doubt MTV gives a sh*t about what Justin Vernon thinks — they’re laughing all the way to the bank while we all hate ourselves for enabling them.

To make yourself feel better and/or to provide a soundtrack for you to get baked to tonight, here’s Bon Iver and James Blake collaborating to make a pretty song together: “Fall Creek Boys Choir.” Enjoy…

(HT: Pitchfork)

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