In recent years, Rihanna has been the queen of the rap/sung collaboration. Her successes include “Live Your Life” with TI, “Run this Town” with Jay-Z and Kanye West and, most recently, “Love the Way You Lie” with Eminem.
While her first mainstream outing in the hip-hop field, the “Airplanes” collaboration with BoB, was not as successful as the Rihanna-Eminem song, “Paramore” frontwoman Hayley Williams nonetheless established herself as a musical presence outside of the pop/punk and modern rock realms. Not everything had to be guitar-driven angst in the mold of “Misery Business” and “Ignorance”–Airplanes, in fact, made for her highest-charting recording to date.
Rihanna might have nonetheless won the radio battle this summer, but when it came time to perform on the stage of the 2010 Video Music Awards, Williams won the war.
Although Rihanna’s delivery during the show-opening number with Eminem was gorgeously emotional, her vocals were nothing if not slightly shaky. Williams, however, gave won of the most effortlessly successful vocal performances of the night when performing in a medley with her own band Paramore, “Airplanes” partner BoB and breakout pop star Bruno Mars. In addition to the BoB song, Williams also performed her band’s “The Only Exception.”
Paramore fans will note that this was far from the best evidence of Williams’ stage presence–the pint-sized singer definitely packs a punch when performing in her more familiar rock genre–and while not flawless, it definitely showed off her vocal prowess, ranking her near the top of the performance list that included some of music’s most commercially-successful names.
Williams won’t necessarily walk away from the night as the talk of the town–far more focus will be on the Taylor Swift and Kanye West performances, the mainstream introduction of Florence + The Machine, Lady Gaga’s awards dominance and host Chelsea Handler’s inability to deliver any humorous material–but it again proved why the Paramore lead-singer is the real deal.
