To begin, I will be outright honest and admit that I tuned into MTV’s 2008 Video Music Awards last night in hopes of seeing Britney Spears make a [second] comeback performance, despite the comments from her people saying that she definitely would not appear. So I held out until the end of the show, surprisingly allowing myself to concede to an awards show I was clearly out of touch with (the only video I had seen prior to the night was “Piece of Me”).

With that being said, I was still very much excited by all of the performances throughout the night, save Christina Aguilera‘s sad excuse for one.

While there is no doubt that her latest Goth-inspired reinvention and “Genie in a Bottle” tribute were hot, I could not believe that such a veteran pop star would be so bad at lip syncing! If Katie Perry, Haley Williams, or Leona Lewis opted to rest their vocals last night, they definitely fooled me! Christina was a different story.

Shortly after her number, Kid Rock took the stage and took a jab at the new mother: “There’s no dancing, no lip-syncing. This is all real—we play like cold, hard cash.”

Even folks at Rolling Stone went so far as to say that this performance gave Britney’s 2007 atrocity a run for its money!

I suppose this all wouldn’t be nearly as funny for me if I had not have caught her pre-show interview, where she promoted her greatest hits album, pointing out how she’s been doing this for a decade already. Right, ten years and that’s what you give us, Christina?

Well, I suppose she really didn’t want to be outdone by her rival.