No pop star was too old for this year’s VMAs

Justin Bieber showed up to accept the artist of the year prize Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards wearing baggy jeans and a three-sizes-too-large sport coat that made him look like Tom Hanks’ character after he turns back into a kid at the end of “Big.” Which made a weird kind of sense — even if Bieber’s win didn’t — given that this year’s edition of the cable network’s annual bash was all about old people and young people trying to find some common ground. Almost as soon as she’d arrived, Madonna took her leave from the VMAs stage so that Bieber and the 18-year-old the Kid Laroi could do a peppy rendition of their streaming smash “Stay.” That’s pretty much how it went all night, with various figures from MTV’s past — Cyndi Lauper, Tommy Lee, Wyclef Jean, David Lee Roth — turning up just long enough to elicit looks of confusion from the teenagers in the audience before throwing to performances by acts whose videos MTV would play today if MTV still played music videos. “I look like a worm — that’s dope,” Doja Cat said accurately when she and SZA picked up the award for best collaboration for their slinky “Kiss Me More.” Other Gen Z faves in the mix included Machine Gun Kelly, who smashed his guitar during “Papercuts” and shouted out “the emo kids” as he took the best alternative prize, and Lil Nas X, who re-created his delightful “Industry Baby” video in a prison-shower scene featuring dancers in bedazzled pink boxer briefs. A couple of veterans actually did get to perform Sunday, including Busta Rhymes — as growly and kinetic as ever in a medley of his turn-of-the-millennium hip-hop hits — and the Foo Fighters, who sounded taut and muscular in a propulsive take on their deathless “Everlong.” The Foos were at the VMAs to receive something called the Global Icon Award, and as they issued their thank-yous, frontman Dave Grohl took a second to shout out “all of the people at MTV past and present” who’d supported the band over its 26 years in business.