Hey, MTV — you got these 5 VMA nominations all wrong
From last summer's Anaconda to this spring's Bad Blood, this morning's VMA nominations surveyed a year where stars upped their games in making music videos that we actually wanted to talk about — and talk about, and talk about some more.
There's just one problem: neither one of those videos were the best things Nicki or Taylor made this year. And they're not the only stars whose best work got snubbed by the VMAs in favor of lesser videos of theirs.
We surveyed this morning's VMA nominations to find the biggest offenders, videos elevated by their gimmicks or buzz over more deserving clips from the same artist.
1. Taylor Swift
Award: Video Of The Year
Nominated for: Bad Blood
Should have been nominated for: Blank Space
Apologies to Bad Blood, but a few explosions and a zillion famous faces doesn't a Video of the Year make. Blank Space and its winking "crazy ex-girlfriend" sendup is far more deserving; set in a Versailles-esque mansion and costumed in preppy finery (remember: she did date a Kennedy), Taylor runs through the various girlfriend archetypes she's been saddled with in the press — from the quirky girl riding bikes to the elegant, silver-gowned enchantress — before going postal and wrecking her cookie-cutter ex's car.
Blank Space is funny and self-aware, and like any quality music video, doesn't rely on stunts (both the physical kind and the casting-all-your-famous-friends kind) to entertain.
2. Nicki Minaj
Award: Female Video
Nominated for: Anaconda
Should have been nominated for: Feeling Myself feat. Beyonce
By this point, Nicki's Anaconda video is cultural shorthand for "booty." But is it actually good? The video's twerking-in-the-jungle concept was noteworthy if nothing for all the eyebrows it raised, but aside from that genius Drake cameo, Anaconda delivers a lot of the same antics we've seen from Nicki before.
Feeling Myself didn't explode upon its arrival the way Anaconda did (its TIDAL-only release didn't help), but it's the better video, a technicolor Coachella fantasy where Nicki and Bey feed each other cheeseburgers and roll around in kiddie pools wearing fur coats.
And while Anaconda will be filed away with 2014's glut of booty anthems, Feeling Myself stays fresh by sticking with a classic concept, one that's always fun to watch: two megastars goofing off like best friends.
3. Florence + The Machine
Award: Rock Video
Nominated for: Ship To Wreck
Should have been nominated for: What Kind of Man
Ship to Wreck is a fun watch, as Florence Welch smears herself with makeup and blows like a whirlwind through her closet. But doesn't Florence — in all her cloaked, witchy wonder — deserve something more cinematic than a glorified rom-com self-improvement sequence?
What Kind of Man does Florence + The Machine's sweeping, dramatic music justice with a sweeping, dramatic tale of a doomed love story, complete with costumes, old-timey accents, choreographed dance sequences and a bloody car accident. It's a video that matches, not downplays, the intensity of her music, and it's just the kind of spectacle that the VMAs usually fall for. Not this time?
4. Ed Sheeran
Award: Male Video
Nominated for: Thinking Out Loud
Should have been nominated for: Photograph
If there's such thing as wedding-bait, it's Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud video.
Ed cheesily dancing with a girl in a white dress to a song that's already on a million and one wedding playlists? In a video that's the physical embodiment of a bridal Pinterest board? No thanks.
Actual adorable home footage of baby Ed? That's more like it.
5. Ariana Grande
Award: Best Collaboration
Nominated for: Love Me Harder feat. The Weeknd
Should have been nominated for: Break Free feat. Zedd
Meet the two sides of Ariana Grande. There's adorable, baby-diva Ariana, who we see rolling around in dark rooms (while wearing kitten ears, obviously) in the utterly forgettable video, with an an equally unremarkable appearance from The Weeknd. (Hence our moment of confusion when this video was nominated for Best Collaboration...we forgot he was there.)
And then, there's Weird Ariana; the girl who licks trays of donuts and allegedly enjoys getting carried like a baby. It's weird Ariana who's out in full force in Break Free, and the video is infinitely more entertaining for it, as she runs around middle school play-style sets with aliens and stunts in a spaceship wearing full Martian Spice attire.
She's so clearly in her element that the song's title is wryly fitting. Nobody's making you wear those ears, Ariana! Break free!
Perhaps Zedd's featured production credit on Break Free wasn't enough to qualify the video for the Best Collaboration VMA (though the producer does show his face at the end). Instead, we're stuck with Love Me Harder, another pulseless, shadowy VMA nom that we forgot about yesterday. Long live Weird Ariana!