Shecky’s

Sure, with all of the brain-frying reality shows like “Teen Mom” and “Jersey Shore” clogging up its schedule in lieu of music videos, it’s easy to forget that MTV originally stood for Music Television. But for one night out of the year, MTV harkens back to its music-loving roots with the Video Music Awards, and each year, music stars flock to the VMAs stage to put on a show well worth plenty of water cooler chatter and blogosphere buzz the next morning. To show all those Biebers and TaySwifts performing tonight how it’s really done, here are the top 10 most epic VMAs performances ever, the ones that made our jaws drops, made us do a double take and, yes, even made us go Gaga.

- Christina Izzo

Lady Gaga- 2009

After wearing 50 pounds of raw meat on the red carpet, you wouldn’t think that Lady Gaga would be able to shock the audience twice at the 2009 Video Music Awards, but leave it to Mother Monster to do just that when she took to the stage for a jaw-dropping performance of her hit “Paparazzi.” The singer left her blood, sweat and tears on the stage—literally! After the usual Gaga-esque spectacle of the singer and her back-up dancers writhing around the floor, rolling around in wheelchairs and theatrically jumping atop grand pianos, Ms. Gaga staggered across the stage wailing the song as (faux) blood began to drop down her ribcage and cover her all-white outfit and the stage. She then was hoisted by one-hand in the air, staring lifelessly into cameras as blood ran down her face. Weird? Yes. Morbid? That too. Bloody fantastic? Definitely!

Image credit: mtv.com