Happy Halloween all you ghouls & goblins out there – we’re busy mainlining caramel & doing lines of pixie sticks today, but while we’re out you can enjoy a few of your favorite (and not so favorite) musicians dressed up to match the occasion. We’ll be adding more throughout the day, so don’t get your embalming fluid all frothy if you don’t see so-and-so dressed up like whats-his-name! Leave a comment or hit us up on Twitter to tell us what we’re missing.

Foo Fighters as Zombie, Witch & Devils

Joshua Homme as “Arabic Flavor Flav”

Jack White as Willy Wonka (an Antiquiet original)

Pearl Jam as Devo

Snoop Dogg as The Count after ONE! TWO! THRRREE BONGLOADS!

Weezer as Bugs

Katy Perry as an Emo Skeleton

Neil Young holding a pumpkin. That’s enough for us.

Kurt Cobain as Barney & Pat Smear as Slash

Hayley Williams as a Zombie

Kay Perry as Freddie Mercury

Pink as a Clown

Lady Gaga as a retarded snow fairy dominatrix monster

Ice-T & CoCo as Mad Scientist & Bodacious Wonk-Eyed Breast Shelf

Michael Jackson as Michael Jackson circa 2011

Britney Spears as a deflated balloon filled with mayonnaise and tied to an aged castoff from Toddlers & Tiaras

Adam Lambert as a Vampire

Flaming Lips (fans) at Ghouls Gone Wild

Ice-T & Pink pics: Wenn

In the track below, Kanye “I almost spazzed at another award show” West adds two new verses to Katy Perry’s 4th single from her shiteous album, Teenage Dream. The song, featuring lines like “kiss me, infect me with your love & fill me with your poison” is a hot sack of what the fuck, but Kanye’s verse is an entertaining one. Feel free to stop it at thirty seconds, because shit gets ugly real quick after that.

“They callin’ me an alien, a big-headed astronaut / Maybe that’s because your boy Yeezy get ass a lot” – That’s why they pay him the big bucks, folks. Eat your goddamned heart out, Shakespeare.

Meanwhile, West’s collaboration album with Jay-Z, Watch The Throne, is set for a March 1st release. Let’s just focus on that.

Reason #1: Boobs.

Reason #2: Giant Cupcake Boobs.

Reason #3: Absurdity. Right around the time that Lady Gaga’s new video for Alejandro hit the scene, featuring Gags getting gangbanged in a nun outfit or something, Perry stirred some shit on the twatterwebs, stating: “Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke.”

Because this isn’t cheap or anything:

Seriously.

And here’s that Gaga video, while we’re funding your spank bank:

And not that it needs to be said, but Snoop Dogg will do fucking anything for a buck.

She’s no Meghan McCain, and in fact you really can’t see anything escandaloso besides some bare back, but hell, I’d take a semi-topless picture of Katy Perry in a Santa hat over dead air any day, even if the girl’s just an overblown Russell Brand fuck doll.

I mean, if you’ve got taste in music, if you take the art form seriously, it was a vapid shitshow of pure pantomiming and derivation, with the possible exceptions of inspired performances by Muse and Lady Gaga.

However if, like wrestling fans that don’t mind that wrestling is fake, you find yourself tickled by choreographed dance numbers and can shrug away the fact that Beyoncé’s lips weren’t even moving during her “amazing performance” of Single Ladies, then you were surely blown away by Janet Jackson’s surgical dance tribute to Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift’s massively overproduced and post-processed paradoxical staged subway performance, as well as Pink’s ridiculously overwrought trapeze act, in which she couldn’t have possibly actually voiced a single note, and avoided a wardrobe malfunction only through divine intervention. Seriously, she had nothing but a sticker on her left tit.

I suppose we find ourselves somewhere in the middle, trying to stay objective and fair about the efforts put in, but thoroughly aware of their ultimate meaninglessness, and extremely limited relevance. Tomorrow, no one will care about any of it. But today, the biggest story on the internet is (once again) Kanye West’s latest pinnacle achievement of professional-grade douchebaggery.

Let it not be said that I can’t appreciate good old fashioned immature rock star grandstanding; most of my favorite artists delight me by being supreme pricks and exactly the type anti-role models the laws of nature demands that they be. But there’s a time and a place for it, Goddammit.

Taylor Swift won a moonman for best female video for You Belong With Me; a significant crossover achievement for the young country singer. Halfway through her acceptance speech, Kanye West, hollywood’s answer to Joe Wilson, came up from behind, snatched the microphone from her hands, and proclaimed that Beyoncé had “one of the best videos of all time!” The broadcast completely trainwrecked as Kanye repeated his claim, shrugged his shoulders and walked off, and MTV abruptly cut to a pre-taped skit featuring Tracy Morgan and Eminem.

His diabolical stunt was so disgusting, Puff Daddy was later booed for simply mentioning Kanye’s name.

I’ve always defended Kanye West’s egomania. I usually say if you got a problem with it, go listen to Will Smith. But ‘Ye is on his own on this one for several reasons, not least of which being the fact that he’s dead wrong.

The Single Ladies video was inferior not only to You Belong With Me, but to every other video nominated, and even Beyoncé’s other videos. The song itself may have been ubiquitous and year-defining, but this was an award for best video, and the Single Ladies video had no business being in the running. It’s nothing more than a single sequence of three dancers shot against a plain background, shamelessly ripped off of a Gwen Verdon performance. One of the best videos of all time? Not by a longshot. It wasn’t even Beyoncé’s own best in ‘08. The video for If I Were A Boy was filmed at the same time, and the latter got the lion’s share of the budget and artistic attention shared between the two.

Kanye later apologized, in all capital letters of course, on the internet. But saying “no disrespect” in a blog post after some shit like that is kinda like Michael Vick slipping PETA a sawbuck.

The irony is that Single Ladies wound up winning the even more “prestigious” award for video of the year, making Kanye’s outburst completely unnecessary in addition to being completely inappropriate.

Nineteen year old Taylor Swift was visibly astonished and emotionally derailed by Kanye’s actions. When the cameras panned to Beyoncé sitting in the audience, even she seemed uncomfortable and offended. When B took the award for video of the year, she graciously brought Swift onstage to complete her speech.

Given the ultimately happy ending, MTV’s fondness for staged controversy, and the obviousness of the idea of the go-to party crasher taking down the most shocking target imaginable, many are suggesting that everyone was simply in on the bit, as usual.

We’re not sure we’re buying that. We know Taylor’s a good sport, but the always-poised slice of ass was still shaking like a leaf when Beyoncé brought her back out. It’s hard to believe she was playing along. And anyway, it doesn’t change the verdict for Kanye; if he agreed to parody himself for attention or cash at the expense of everyone involved, that means he showed disrespect not only to everyone present, but also to the one person on the planet he hadn’t previously: Kanye West.

Besides, MTV didn’t need a big gag this year; They had a golden goose named Michael Jackson, with the full support of his family, of course. And they were exclusively premiering not only the trailer for the forthcoming Jackson performance film This Is It, but also the brand-new extended trailer for the new Twilight movie, New Moon. In terms of bill and production value, this year’s VMAs made last year’s look like bingo night down at the Elks’ Lodge.

This Is It actually looks pretty damn cool by the way, despite kinda being necrophilism.

And hey, speaking of necrophilia, fucking Madonna made an appearance. She delivered a speech, a sort of eulogy for Michael. There were a couple sincere moments that hit the nail right on the head; particularly her closing remark, and her assertion that in being robbed of his childhood, Jackson was dealt the most severe handicap you can possibly start life with. However, it was nothing that Oprah, Elizabeth Taylor, and Brooke Shields haven’t already said better, and every damn moment in between was excruciatingly awkward, creepy, and self-indulgent. Where the fuck was Kanye West then? That’s when we needed an interruption. I would have loved to have watched Kanye steal the mic from Madge and shout some crazy shit out of his fish stick loving mouth, before a panicked cut to commercial.

So by the end of the night, Kanye had emerged as the villain, and Michael Jackson had provided the backstory. But while Taylor and Beyoncé had key supporting roles, it was Lady Gaga that came out as the night’s star.

The 23 year old screwball was nominated for nine awards, and won two, including best new artist. Right from the start, she was consistently a center of attention. She arrived in a limo with Kermit The Frog, so absurdly overdressed she could barely hobble, and hardly move her head. In fact, the sight immediately brought to mind a classic moment in 2000 where Johnny and I witnessed Little Richard being escorted by two huge handlers out of the Palladium in Hollywood, an inch an hour, across the sidewalk towards an SUV, propped up in what seemed to be some sort of post-stroke state of paralysis.

Gaga continued to deliver the crazy throughout the night- each time the camera hit her, she had some new, completely ridiculous and jaw-droppingly unweildy get-up on. For her live performance, she was dressed up like the bride of Old Gregg, covered in blood. Later she made appearances dressed as what appeared to be a member of The Emperor’s Royal Guard with his helmet on backwards, as well as some sort of eskimo scarecrow.

For the second consecutive year, Russell Brand was a completely inappropriate host, and I mean that several different ways. The crowd in attendance wasn’t very into his trouser-centric routine, and I can’t imagine the viewers at home being any more comfortable. He had some zingers, but his delivery was once again an odd compromise between understated British sarcasm, and the breathless, screaming American hyperbole he was assigned to. When you mix those two together, the sarcasm comes off as plain insincerity, and the enthusiasm comes off as mockery. Brand is probably laughing on his way down to the bank, but he’s a terrible choice on MTV’s part.

Green Day’s hyped-up performance was underwhelming, as was Jay-Z’s duet with Alicia Keys on Empire State Of Mind; while Hov has still got what it takes to blaze a stage, it’s been a long time since Keys has done much to maintain the benefit of the doubt we all granted to her in 2001, just for knowing how to play an instrument.

I experienced a bit of bittersweet déjà vu watching Kid Cudi and Wale’s possibly enjoyable tribute to DJ AM cut short by incoming commercials, as DJ AM & Travis Barker’s performance with Lupe Fiasco got the exact same treatment last year, despite being a highlight performance.

Last and least, we know Joe Perry doesn’t have anything better to do since Steven Tyler broke his hip and got cataracts or whatever, but watching him back Katy Perry’s godawful performance of Queen’s We Will Rock You kinda felt like watching the legendary guitarist of Aerosmith play second fiddle to a talentless pop fad that’s about to be yesterday’s old news.

OK, technically this wasn’t a ‘best of ‘08′ list, but Rolling Stone published a list of ‘the 100 greatest singers of all time’ as voted on by a “blue-ribbon panel of 179″ musicians. Missing from the list: Mike Patton, Ann Wilson, Layne Staley. Total bullshit, and Phil Anselmo agrees with us. Now, if the list was otherwise filled with vocalists superior to these icons, we could understand. But many vocalists of far inferior capabilities made it on; including Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and Bruce Springsteen. Christina Aguilera made #58- way ahead of Mariah Carey.

Rolling Stone also published their list of the best singles of 2008- 100 of them- and named Beyoncé’s Single Ladies #1. The song’s only been out for two months, and it sucks. I’m not just saying that because it’s a pop song. Let’s face it- in America, two singles dominated 2008 above any others- Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl, and Britney Spears’ Womanizer. If you ask us, Womanizer is far less annoying- and a far superior composition. And the sooner Katy Perry’s inevitable disappearance from the charts comes, the better. But either would have been acceptable at the top of a 2008 singles list. And with Beyoncé at the top instead, Rolling Stone can’t defend on grounds that the list was based on quality rather than dominance or popularity.

Some of the songs that made the list: Google Me by Teyana Taylor (I did, you suck), Candy Shop by Madonna (but Four Minutes didn’t make it?) M.I.A.’s Shells (but not Paper Planes), Cobrastyle by Robyn (huh?), Video Girl by the Jonas Brothers (but not Burnin’ Up or Love Bug), Warwick Avenue by Duffy (but not her only almost non-shitty song, Mercy), a ton of songs noone’s ever heard of, and a few songs that might be almost arguable. What the fuck are they smoking at Rolling Stone?

By the way, Womanizer didn’t make the list at all. I don’t care what you think about Britney, If you’re going to put together a list of the biggest or best 100 singles of 2008 and skip Womanizer, you’re either high, or you’re a hipster with your head up your own ass. Rolling Stone put Britney on two magazine covers this year, so I can’t imagine they’re taking a stand against the mainstream.

Speaking of Hipsters, Pitchfork called Fleet Foxes’ Sun Giant the best album of 2008. Issue #1- it’s not even an album. It’s a five song EP. But OK, I get it. Hipsters will be hipsters and call some faggy folk band’s four track demos the best of the year while simultaneously recognizing Lil’ Wayne’s Tha Carter III as #11 (because the top #10 needs to be irony-free of course). Their list was so predictable, NME punked it.

On the other side of that fence, Entertainment Weekly agreed with Rolling Stone that TV On The Radio’s Dear Science was the best album of the year. I’d say it’s overrated, but this late yelp of hype isn’t really being echoed by any masses. By the way, Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce was EW’s #2. Yeah.

Portishead’s disappointing Third made several best-of lists, for the sole reason that they’re Portishead. Meanwhile, anyone that gave a nod to Vampire Weekend is just believing the hype, because that’s all there is to that band.

As I said, we’re going to start making our calls for the best albums of the year beginning the day after Christmas. But I guarantee you that TV On The Radio, Vampire Weekend, and fucking Beyoncé will be nowhere near our list. Stay tuned.

Britney Spears was opening. But not performing. But maybe she was? There was a video floating around on the ‘net, of Britney practicing her dance moves. For a tour? No dates scheduled… Ooh, for the VMAS!? Yeah, of course! Top secret surprise performance from Britney! Perfect! Let’s not tell anyone!

Right. Super top secret. Until a video appeared online. No, it didn’t just appear- it was LEAKED!! Damn those leakers, spoiling all the big surprises!! Which one of you dirty dirty internet pirates leaked this one?

Fucking MSN. One of the VMA sponsors.

Hi there folks, it’s Viacom. Just wanted to clear something up, because I know this shit can get confusing: Only we and our corporate sponsors can glorify the leakage of top secret music and videos that you aren’t ‘allowed’ to hear or see just yet. I know we do it all the time to build hype. But If you do it, we’re going to fucking press charges.

Part of the reason I tuned in, I shit you not, was the idea that we’d get to see Britney’s comeback. Everyone was alluding to it. It was all set up. And I kinda wanted to see it.

But she didn’t perform. She stumbled through three or four sentences announcing the show was beginning, and then accepted three awards. Granted, Piece Of Me is one of the better pop songs / videos to come out in the past year, and she wasn’t up against anyone too threatening, but the whole Britney thing stunk to high heaven of a gigantic, patronizing, cardboard apology for exploiting her so shamelessly last year.

The next morning, everyone was talking about how great Britney looked, how she wasn’t attacking anyone with umbrellas, how triumphant her comeback was. They gut punch her in front of a crowd for ratings in 2007, but when they’re even more hard-up in 2008, they make her the star, for standing up straight. It made me uneasy.

A particularly curmudgeonly Bob Lefsetz fired off one of his famous letters before I was even halfway through. It hit a couple nails right on their heads:

“This show couldn’t be more whored out. Is Verizon V-Cast a band? God, I didn’t know you could suck a cell phone company’s dick, but MTV is doing its best. To think we used to revere bands, not brands.

What, do they think it’s 1950? That kids revere the rock, the one in the Paramount logo?  Viacom owns both, MTV and the movie studio… Even little kids know this. But I think the real reason they didn’t have this in a real venue is they’re afraid they wouldn’t be able to sell it out, or in the alternative, the audience would be uncontrollable, wouldn’t exclaim on cue.

…Voting for Video of the Year is not playing, it’s ripping the audience off for the texting fee.”

Meanwhile, our own Johnny Firecloud provided a very… Firecloudian commentary, for CraveOnline:

“Did they really call this unforgettable? Who’s going to remember a SINGLE song performed or even featured on the awards show, except maybe Kid Rock’s All Summer Long? The channel that was supposed to bring music to television instead turned it into a flashy commodity for visual titillation- not for the ears, not for the heart, and certainly not for the soul. It’s eye candy now. All of it. Their product is barren of spirit, void of substance and a sickening mockery of the ocean of unrecognized quality these folks so gleefully ignored to celebrate their quick-shot bursts of marketability.”

He’s right. Rihanna sucked, and so did Pink. I only remember them because their tits almost came out. Even master show-stopper Kanye West’s closing performance was underwhelming, and Kid Rock, who blew the fucking roof off the 1999 VMAs with Run DMC and Aerosmith, was indeed only maybe memorable. And that’s largely thanks to Lil’ Wayne. He’s great, but mainly because he’s compared to the other mainstream acts.

Do you remember the 1999 VMAs? I sure as shit do. I can’t believe it was nine years ago already. But I remember it like it was last week because it was truly unforgettable. Last night? Nigga Please. You can’t manufacture it. Nothing last night was anywhere close to this good, despite Joe-C and Bawitdaba:

But with all that out of my system, I think what’s driving me to write this more than anything else, is how the tiny bit of sparkling magic that was to be found at the 2008 VMAs was squandered or ignored. The most interesting act there, DJ AM & Travis Barker, was shown only in glimpses before and after the breaks. You get a fifteen second tease of them performing in front of plastic extras that don’t really give a shit, and then it’s right to your regularly scheduled commercials.

We’ll have to forgive them for backing Katy Perry, who first butchered Like A Virgin for the night’s worst performance, and then did I Kissed A Girl for the second worst. That aside, the night’s best performance, in my opinion, was when Lupe Fiasco got on the mic in front of them with Matthew Santos and they sang Superstar. It was flawless! And then right there, in the middle of the song, they began the lead-out to commercials. The camera panned away from the band, over to a screen displaying corporate logos for Verizon, Microsoft, and Rhapsody. The music continued in the background- and it sounded great- but it was buried under a voiceover that seemed to go on forever, hawking inferior products from Viacom’s pals. It was the most blasphemous offense I’ve witnessed since Avril Lavigne covered Metallica on their VH1 tribute.

The music industry is not being murdered by internet pirates. Cancers brought on by a lifetime of bad habits are catching up as the hourglass runs out of sand. It no longer has the energy or will to live. It’s being starved by the very same hands that used to feed it, because all they care about now is whatever inheritance there is left. MTV was once the revolution. Now it’s just part of the corporation, making money through monopolizing and branding products they don’t care about anymore, completely out of touch with us out here in the audience. We have no sympathy. Viacom chooses to insult our intelligence, and call bullshit like the VMAs “unforgettable” like we’re fucking dumb. They have to know by now that we can get by just fine without them. I wonder how long it will be before they realize they’re fucked without us?

Katy Perry is the spunky daughter of two Christian ministers who enforced a strict, gospel-only approach to music when she was a child. What better way to rebel against the bible thumping curfew-setters than with her own album, full of Avril-inspired nonsense that rages unconvincingly about boys, boys, boys? It’s a fitting tale of road trips with friends a la Britney Spears’ Crossroads, bi-polar ex-boyfriends and coming into one’s self in the most narcissistic, disposable way possible with the help of exactly the kind of people who know just what it’s like to be a teenage girl: producers Glen Ballard and Dr. Luke (both over 50 years old), among others. The latter is nearly singlehandedly responsible for the success of pop-trash icon Avril Lavigne, having co-wrote and produced nearly all of her “hits.” The former, well, his accomplishments are formidable, but for every Aerosmith or Quincy Jones on his resume, there’s a Wilson Phillips and a Paula Abdul.

But that’s neither here nor there. Millions are millions, right boys? The bare facts here are that Katy Perry’s got a smokin’ body (see photos below) and exactly the mix of pipes, attitude and image that justifies her poster replacing idiot Brit mess Lily Allen’s in the main office lobby of Capitol Records’ Los Angeles building, but let’s not be too quick to call this sugary nonsense good. One Of The Boys doesn’t come off convincingly as the glossy rebellion it’s supposed to, instead treading somewhere between the soundtrack to the next low-budget teen-romance flick and the strip club.

There’s an endearing essence to the first impression One Of The Boys offers, but that whole scene lasts all of about 27 seconds. I saw a spider and I didn’t scream / Cause I can belch the alphabet / Just double-dog dare me… it’s once those guitars start rising and the song kicks into gear that it becomes clear what this song, this album, and Katy Perry, for that matter- are all about: cashing in on the newest movement of grrl power, hotter and slicker than that scowling little Sk8er Boi poser could ever manage, but still, somehow, utterly devoid of soul. And that’s a fucking crime, considering her hitmakers have worked with Michael Jackson and Aretha fucking Franklin.

That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas? What 23 year old knows a goddamned thing about the dark side of Vegas? Oh, that’s right, none do (except the whores, that is).

Thinking Of You is grasping, formulaically and unconvincingly, at the heartstrings with a whisper-to-falsetto verse, soaring-chorus and overall delivery that pretty much guarantees its place on future “mood music” CDs at your local Abercrombie & Fitch store. Ballard may as well have given this one to Alanis Morrisette; it sounds just like her anyway.

Mannequin starts like a live Ani DiFranco jam, and there goes that spark of hope again, acting up at the hint that this one could be a redeemer. But then I had to go and listen to the lyrics: I wanna hit you just to see if you cry / I keep knocking on wood, hoping there’s a real boy inside / But you’re not a man / You’re just a mannequin. Pay attention, Miley: chicks’ frustrations with teenage male indifference is an untapped market in the pop world. So put your shirt back on and get writing.

UR So Gay- This one’s bound to elicit smirks from dads passing their tween daughters’ bedrooms this summer, a righteous assault on the eyeliner / girl-pants / fagcore bullshit that’s infested the modern male. I can’t believe I fell in love with someone who wears more makeup than me, Perry croons, incredulous. Points for this one.

Lost- Ever find yourself face-down in a puddle of your own vomit, wrapped around the toilet? Ever been tempted to write a tinkly, pretty song about it? Too late, it’s been done already.

Use Your Love- Holy fucking Christ. I don’t suppose any of you remember that old Outfield song Your Love? You will once you hear this glossy psuedo-cover, with lyrics entirely re-written to center on the female point of view. It’s got spunk, but try pulling any of this shit off without Pro-Tools. The Outfield did it. Katy Perry can’t. The end of the track is bewildering and retarded, with Perry repeating the line I think I’m done fucking singing this song over and over, but if you can get past the over-production and blasphemous rewording the song’s pretty good overall, if only for the nostalgia.

When fat, gay millionaire bloggers with their sausage fingers on the pulse of what’s hot start calling her “one of the breakout stars of the summer,” I guess we’d better get used to seeing Perry’s charismatic nubiliciousness all over the place. That’s all fine and good- she’s hot as hell. Katy also comes across as the kind of chick that can throw ‘em back and trash talk with the best of ‘em, and that wins her points for sure. She seems like she’d be a lot of fun to hang out with.

Just don’t expect us to listen to this shit.