Blowing the Smooth Out of the Summer

MTV may have found the perfect antidote to a tepid season with Miley Cyrus's performance at its awards show. Music,MTV Video Music Awards,Rap and Hip-Hop,Cyrus Miley,Thicke Robin,Pharrell,Eminem,"MMLP2" (Web-Original Program), Pharrell, MMLP2 (Web-Original Program),Music,MTV Video Music Award,Eminem

Imagine for a moment that you are the person charged with orchestrating performances at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. The show falls near the end of summer, and as summers go, 2013 was soporific. For 11 weeks, Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” a lite-funk jazzercize workout that titillates in spite of itself, has been the most popular song in the country. America is lightly snoring.

Still, you think, “Blurred Lines” is a must, a necessary acknowledgment of the sound of the summer. But what to do about Mr. Thicke, an unfettered cornball and, at 36, old enough to possibly be the father of some of the other nominees. He needs to be subverted, minimized, annihilated.