Sep 5, 2008, 1:32 GMT
Los Angeles - Watch at your own peril. Britney Spears is set to open MTV's Video Music Awards Sunday night, a year after her overhyped, overweight and undercoordinated comeback performance became one of the entertainment debacles of the year.
Britney in her heyday...Lee Roth / RothStock / PR Photos
This year it's unclear what Spears will do to open the show. But thankfully she appears to be in a better mental state than she did a year ago, and has even been nominated for three awards for the clip to her single Piece of Me for Best Female Video, Best Pop Video and Video of the Year. The latter category is considered the most prestigious and will pit Spears against the Jonas Brothers' Burnin Up, Chris Brown's Forever, The Pussycat Dolls' When I Grow Up and Shut Up and Let Me Go by the Ting Tings.
The 25th anniversary of the awards show comes as music videos have become something of a rarity on the station founded to showcase them. MTV now screens a staple diet of reality TV shows, while music videos are largely relegated, if that's the right word, to internet sites like YouTube and MySpace.
But producers plan to use the show to celebrate the art of the music video with acts like the Jonas Brothers, Pink and rapper T.I. acting out 'live music videos' in and around the Paramount lot where the event takes place. For example Pink will perform her hit single accompanied by a gang of scorned women, shimmying down a fire escape and setting off a huge brawl.
The elaborate arrangements are designed primarily to overcome the disappointment caused by last year's Britney bomb, which ironically helped reverse a 5-year decline in the show's ratings. But according to MTV executives, the show is meant to represent's MTV's continued loyalty to the music video art form, which still appear on MTV formats like Total Request Live.
'We are there. We are in the music video business,', MTV executive Dave Sirulnick told the Los Angeles Times. He pointed to a new summer series FNMTV, which is hosted by Fall Out Boy frontman Pete Wentz, who debuts fresh music videos every week before viewers discuss them on the show's website.
'The musicians we work with are really excited that we've elevated the status of music videos once again, and that's led directly into this year's VMAs theme,' Sirulnick said.
Helping stoke the edgy nature of the show is the wacky British comedian Russell Brand, who will host the ceremony. Presenters will include a wide cross-section of today's hot and sometimes controversial young stars like Lindsay Lohan, Kanye West, Miley Cyrus and even Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps.
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