Is It Too Soon for Rihanna?

From Jacko’s awkward kiss with his then-wife Lisa Marie Presley to Britney dancing with a snake to Miley gyrating in Robin Thicke’s general vicinity, MTV’s Video Music Awards show has always contained a surprise or two. Who knows what everyone will be talking about come Monday morning?

The only thing we know for sure is that Rihanna will be taking home a big honor — the Vanguard Award.

Rihanna seems to have swapped the “traditional” choreography for shock value almost completely in her later videos.

Past MTV Vanguard Awards recipients include U2, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, and the Beastie Boys. The first ones ever doled out by the music channel, in 1984, went to both The Beatles and the late David Bowie. This is some rarified air. And Rihanna will be the latest to personally breathe said air.

Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammys, the VMA ceremony itself has been an alternative to the rigidity and occasional obliviousness that is the Grammy Awards, with the Vanguard going to an artist, or artists, who are continuing to pioneer the medium of making videos. (Yes, music videos are still made, and ostensibly played at some point on the network — though no one seems to be sure when).

Other recipients include Duran Duran and LL Cool J, though — so the question becomes: Where does Rihanna fit in among the uneven collection of past honorees? Alongside Britney Spears, or maybe leaning more toward Kanye West? (By the way, Spears is performing at this year’s show.)

What has she accomplished to deserve the Vanguard Award?

After all, Rihanna is a two-time VMA Video of the Year winner, and at 28 is the youngest solo artist to score 14 No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. She also reached that milestone in the fastest amount of time. Interestingly, Rihanna did not get a Best Video of the Year nod this time around, but her “Work” collaborator Drake did. The video for that song did earn Rihanna a Best Female Video nomination, however.

She has sold more than 61 million albums and 215 million tracks worldwide. The eight-time Grammy Award winner also has 14 Billboard Music Awards, among many other accolades.

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This particular accolade, also known as the Lifetime Achievement Award (at 28-years old?), was renamed in 1991 as the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, and is also frequently bestowed on video directors who have elevated the art form.

Madonna has also received the Vanguard Award. To be sure, “pioneer” is putting it mildly when it comes to Madonna’s video contributions to the network, from her groundbreaking “Like A Virgin” video, and the accompanying MTV Music Award live performance where she writhed around on stage in a wedding gown, to the singer’s controversial “Like A Prayer” video, which included stigmata, cross-burning, and a dream about kissing a black saint.

But does scandal equal groundbreaking, or even “hit”? And if it does, do Rihanna and her “body of work” qualify? Maybe the question isn’t about whether it’s too soon for Rihanna — but whether she deserves it at all.

In her monster 2007 hit, “Umbrella,” a much younger Rihanna merely dances on a soundstage with the titular object used as a prop.

Then there is “Work,” a much more ambitious (and recent) video where the Bahamian beauty is on the sidelines of a dance floor — where bar patrons are moving quite provocatively while openly smoking weed.

Related: Britney’s Sad Strip Show Act

In fact, Rihanna seems to have swapped the “traditional” choreography for shock value almost completely in her later videos, focusing on nipple slips, tats, and slow pokes on big joints instead of intricate routines or even attempts at meaning.

Jay Z makes an appearance in the earlier vid and Drake is featured in her most recent work (pun intended), which can leave purists to speculate that these days the most outrageous things about music videos are the guest stars, as opposed to anything that can remotely be construed as a storyline or message. At least Madonna — and surely U2 and even West with his now-infamous “Famous” video, to name but a few — were smart enough to know shock value was only the tip of the video iceberg, with substance, or something reminiscent of it, visible beneath.

Rihanna’s newest video — for “Needed Me,” by the director who got Selena Gomez to be a bad girl in the film “Spring Breakers,” is basically an episode of “Miami Vice.” In it, our heroine wears see-through clothing and, amid motorcycles and yachts, shoots an inked-up suitor. Fade to black. Cheers to that, indeed.