Pictured: 5 Seconds of Summer at the 2014 ARIAs. Photo by Nathan Atkins.
The MTV VMAs have come and gone for another year, and as always they’ve left people with a lot to talk about. Most notably has been Kanye West‘s attention grabbing 13 minute speech as he accepted his VMA Vanguard Award, in which he declared he was going to run for President in 2020*, expressed his regret for crashing Taylor Swift’s award speech at the 2009 VMAs and… well, read the full speech over at the MTV Website in case you missed it yourself.
Taylor Swift was the big winner of the night, taking home four of the famous “Moonmen” for Video of the Year, Best Female Video, Best Pop Video and Best Collaboration, for her track “Bad Blood” with Kendrick Lamar. Fetty Wap was named the Artist to Watch, an award that the likes of Tyler, The Creator and One Direction have won in past years.
Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars won best Male Video, Nicki Minaj won best Female and Fall Out Boy won best Rock video.
Australia’s 5 Seconds of Summer were the sole Australian winners for the night, taking home – appropriately – the “Song of Summer” award. Best Choreography went to OK GO who, let’s face it, should really win all their music video awards, and Jason Fijal took home Best Art Direction for Snoop Dogg’s video “So Many Pros”. Snoop also popped up in the show for one of the many skits with host Miley Cyrus.
Though the existence of the VMA’s is a little confusing considering MTV no longer airs music videos, like, ever, it was undoubtedly a nice break from the slew of reality shows that have turned the US network into something completely different… with everyone from Justin Beiber to The Weeknd and Nicki Minaj performing during the show. But we digress!
And the winners were…
VIDEO OF THE YEAR
Taylor Swift ft. Kendrick Lamar – “Bad Blood”
BEST MALE VIDEO
Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars – “Uptown Funk”
BEST FEMALE VIDEO
Taylor Swift – “Blank Space”
BEST HIP HOP VIDEO
Nicki Minaj – “Anaconda”
BEST POP VIDEO
Taylor Swift – “Blank Space”
BEST ROCK VIDEO
Fall Out Boy – “Uma Thurman”
ARTIST TO WATCH presented by Taco Bell®
Fetty Wap – “Trap Queen”
BEST COLLABORATION
Taylor Swift ft. Kendrick Lamar – “Bad Blood”
VIDEO WITH A SOCIAL MESSAGE
Big Sean ft. Kanye West and John Legend – “One Man Can Change the World”
SONG OF SUMMER presented by Samsung Galaxy Tab S2
5 Seconds of Summer — “She’s Kinda Hot”
PROFESSIONAL CATEGORIES
BEST ART DIRECTION
Snoop Dogg – “So Many Pros” (Jason Fijal)
BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
OK Go – “I Won’t Let You Down” (OK Go, air:man and Mori Harano)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Flying Lotus ft. Kendrick Lamar – “Never Catch Me” (Larkin Sieple)
BEST DIRECTION
Kendrick Lamar – “Alright” (Colin Tilley & The Little Homies)
BEST EDITING
Beyoncé – “7/11” (Beyoncé, Ed Burke, Jonathan Wing)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Skrillex & Diplo – “Where Are U Now” with Justin Bieber (Brewer)
*Potentially this is a concept record in the making… “Early Inauguration”?
