Total Request Live Is Totally Over

I never thought I'd see the day, but MTV's Total Request Live, more commonly known during our middle school days as TRL, premiered its finale event last Sunday at 8:00 p.m. after 10 years of bringing us hoards of screaming fans in Times Square and 20-second clips of music videos.

Original host Carson Daly returned to co-host with Damien Fahey, who took over after Daly left in 2003. Frighteningly, Daly hasn't seemed to age over the past 10 years, even though he constantly (and annoyingly) referred to TRL life as "back in the day."

The finale kicked off with a performance by Beyoncé, a medley of her latest "If I Were A Boy" followed by "Single Ladies" and the song that kicked off her solo career, "Crazy in Love." Her high-energy performance gave the show a great start, but unfortunately it waned from there, reminding us all why the show is going off the air.

TRL premiered in 1998, as our generation's American Bandstand-type show. With 2,247 episodes and regular appearances of celebrities and musicians, the show reached its peak in 1999 and 2000, but ratings declined after the Internet and sites like YouTube became the preferred source for watching music videos that were not in short clips.

We got to see some of the ex-VJs, like Hilarie Burton (now of One Tree Hill fame) and Vanessa Minnillo (now of being Nick Lachey's-longtime-replacement-of-Jessica fame). We also looked out on those glass studio windows into the crowd of freezing Times Square, sign-holding fans crying to be allowed into the studio to breath the same air as the likes of Justin Timberlake and Taylor Swift.

The Backstreet Boys performed "I Want It That Way," bringing us all back to the days when Nick Carter was worshipped as a boy band god. Did you know they're still touring with new CDs coming out? As one VJ commented, "They outlived all the other boy bands, and they outlived TRL!" Fall Out Boy also sang a medley of "I Don't Care" and "Dance Dance," minus Pete Wentz, who was in California with his very pregnant wife Ashlee Simpson. Nelly, Snoop Dogg and Ludacris performed as a trio, and 50 Cent did his classic "In Da Club" followed by a new single, "Get Up." Everyone sounded pretty good, though none of the performances were extremely memorable, and you would think there would have been more for such an historic event in our time as the cancellation of TRL.

There was a sweet little interlude of Miley Cyrus trying to get her famous TRL photo booth picture to look as "badass" as Snoop Dogg's. Precious. Along those lines, we saw a clip of Heidi from The Hills attempting to rap with Nelly from a previous episode. Painful stuff, though Nelly did give her "an A for effort."

The grand finale was not without its random celebrity outbursts. Diddy, who has been on TRL about 40 times now, and always shamelessly promotes whatever CD/movie/TV show/clothing line he's involved with was given 15 about seconds. After trying to form a cohesive sentence about his new fragrance ("It's at Macy's now"), he decided to shout out "Kids! Turn off the lights! Save energy! Turn off the lights!" Glad to see Diddy's gone green. Later on, Daly got Eminem on the phone to talk about his 2002 visit to the TRL studio, which he apparently had no recollection of after babbling incoherently and then realizing all he had to say was how great it was and how he owes it all to TRL.

Christina Aguilera joined the party via satellite camera, looking kind of strange if you ask me, with her too-blonde hair and heavy eye makeup. Daly recalled debuting her first single "Genie in a Bottle," and watching her evolve to the racy "Dirrty" and heartfelt "Beautiful."

Inevitably, the finale of TRL turned into a clip show. We saw their infamously short clips of some of the performances that were deemed most memorable, including Outkast's "Hey Ya," The Killers' "Mr. Brightside," and Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie." And the #1 music video of all TRL time? Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time." A wise choice. Of course Britney, who you could call the icon of the TRL age in general, did not show up.

No matter how much we say we can't stand it now, we have to admit that TRL will forever be a part of our middle school experience. It also is responsible for launching the careers of so many musicians who are now celebrities, like 50 Cent, Britney Spears, and Kid Rock. Where would we be without these morally depraved icons of our pop culture? We owe it all to TRL.