MUSIC: VMA winners + performances + DIRT

And the Winners are...

Best Group: Fall Out Boy

Best New Artist: Gym Class Heroes

Female Artist of the Year: Fergie

Male Artist of the Year: Justin Timberlake

Monster Single of the Year: Rihanna's "Umbrella"

Most Earth-Shattering Collaboration: Beyonce + Shakira

Quadruple Threat of the Year: Justin Timberlake

Video of the Year: Rihanna's "Umbrella"

The Best Choreography, Director, and Editing awards were not presented live or mentioned on the site for some odd reason.

MTV promised to revamp the VMA's this year by giving you multiple performance venues and collaborations you would not forget. Of course the one everyone was most interested in was Britney Spears'. It seemed like everyone in the audience was paying attention. Rihanna was amused by the strippers. Chris Brown mouthed to his friends that it was "hot." Not to mention, Diddy and 50 Cent were mesmerized. Needless to say she was lip synching and it seemed like she didn't even bother to over exert herself by dancing energetically. Well, at least she didn't fall. Sarah Silverman came on right after her and of course made a few jokes at her expense. Jamie Foxx could not stop laughing when Silverman referred to Britney's kids as cute little mistakes and even 50 Cent had a sense of humor when she thought it was adorable that he was still alive.

The best performance, however, was given by Chris Brown who had a sort of marionette/mime theme that turned into a crowd-pleasing dance-a-thon. The way the stage was set up, there were round tables connected to it that artists surrounded. They could not help but pat him on the back when he finished jumping from table to table and doing his homage to Michael Jackson's moves. Even Justin Timberlake felt the need to say during his acceptance speech that "whatever the hell he just did" made him feel old. The close 2nd best was definitely the collaboration between Travis from Gym Class Heroes, Lil Wayne, Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy, Brendon Urie from Panic at the Disco, and newcomer Eugene Montross. It was one for the books. If you think that mix is unusual, Rihanna sang "Shut Up and Drive" while Stump and his band played and sang back up. Plus Neyo sang "Clothes Off" with Gym Class Heroes. But I think close 2nd for the artists was Alicia Keys who got a standing ovation from Beyonce Knowles and a respectful salute from Chris Brown.

Most performances were really close-nit scenes in suites and less huge productions, probably because more and more artists are trying to have cozier venues, like Fall Out Boy who did club tours this year (and not cause they couldn't fill an arena) and Justin Timberlake who turned his huge stages into more personal performances. Kanye West performed "Stronger" while walking around the party in his suite. It felt like an impromptu music video.

WATCH all the performances here! (many of which weren't shown on TV)

As for the much-wanted DIRT, Kanye and 50 Cent pretended to hate each other while they presented the Best Collaboration award, but defused any drama when Kanye comically tip-toed to be taller than him. But the real dirt was sadly that Kid Rock knocked Tommy Lee the f*ck out because of...Pamela Anderson? I don't know. Those rock stars are so tempermental.

More dirt as the bloggers dig it up...