Pitchfork

So yeah, pretty slim pickings last night. You could watch Mastodon thrashing out "Colony of Birchmen" from last year's Best New Music'd Blood Mountain, though, which is pretty fucking crazy. Foo Fighters backed Gnarls Barkley's Cee-Lo for another cover, of Prince's 1984 Purple Rain classic "Darling Nikki". Justin Timberlake and Timbaland stayed FutureSex-y for a rendition of "Chop Me Up". Kanye West is about to graduate, but he went back to Late Registration's Mayfield-grooving "Touch the Sky" at the VMAs.

Swedish success story Peter Bjorn & John also played several songs, shockingly including "Young Folks". Oh, and Fall Out Boy backed up Rihanna on one of her non-"Umbrella" singles, the "Blue Monday"-reworking cars-as-sex metaphor (no, sorry, not "Ignition") "Shut Up and Drive". You can watch all of these if you don't mind sitting through MTV's lame movie adverts. Remember, we warned you: slim pickings.