Did you watch the VMAs last night? Did you see the amazing Janet Jackson tribute to her brother? Or Kanye once again making headlines for something other than his music (more on this later)?

If you missed all of this, you probably also missed the following commercials. And who cares about commercials, right? Well, Rhapsody was a major sponsor of the VMAs and we’re pretty darn proud of our work with some amazing artists to create commercial content that strikes the right balance between promoting the product and celebrating the artist.

First up was this :30 second spot leading into the main event with music from Green Day and their current single, “21 Guns.”

Once the VMAs got underway, the boys from Green Day put on a live performance and completely freaked out building security by inviting anybody and everybody up on stage. The mob would then thrust Billy into the air as Green Day closed out “East Jesus Nowhere.”

During the next commercial break, Rhapsody aired the following ad highlighting our exclusive artist promotion from earlier this summer. This ad, created with our talented friends at Droga5, includes more than 50 references to Green Day’s rise to stardom.

The VMAs continued without incident from then on. Ummm, no, no it did not. Kayne’s interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech nearly brought Twitter to a grinding halt. Taylor, a young woman with the poise of a seasoned entertainment veteran, carried on with a performance of her hit single, “You Belong With Me.” Immediately following the performance Rhapsody aired our third spot of the night. And here’s where things get REALLY interesting.

In the voice over for the spot viewers hear the words “This moment belongs to Taylor Swift.” Hmm, interesting! Let’s go ahead and put this rumor to rest. IF the “Kanye Incident” is part of a larger PR stunt by our friends at MTV, it’s news to us. Here’s a look at that commercial.

And last, but certainly not least, was a closing performance from Jay-Z with Alicia Keys. Rhapsody just wrapped up an artist promotion with Jay-Z where his album could be heard exclusively from Rhapsody in advance of it hitting the streets. In support of this promotion, we again worked with our friends from Droga5 to create a commercial that has been viewed more than 650,000 times on our YouTube channel alone!  The response to this commercial has been nothing short of incredible – check it out for yourself:

Kudos to the marketing and advertising folks here at Rhapsody, RealNetworks and Droga5 – keep up the good work!