his year’s VMA nominations were announced yesterday, shocking and pleasing fans around the world by presenting an all-female shortlist for the coveted Artist of the Year category.
Beyoncé, Doja Cat, KAROL G, Nicki Minaj, Shakira, and Taylor Swift are all competing in the leading category. This is the first time we’ve seen an all-women shortlist since the Artist of the Year prize was launched in 2017.
“VMAs said women stories matter!” said one music fan on Twitter. “Haven’t been this ok w a nom list in literally years.”
“Women SWEEPING the #VMAs as they should because they been carrying this past year in music on their backs,” said another.
But the excitement around this all-female line-up is arguably misdirected: though 2022 featured a male-heavy selection of nominees, the Best Artist category in 2021 was almost completely dominated by women.
Up to this point – and not counting this year’s nominations – there have been 17 female nominations and 20 male for the Artist of the Year award. This year’s nominations edge the split towards women: now there are 23 female nominations, 20 male, with a 53 per cent, 47 per cent split. Men and women have had an equal share of the wins, too: Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber and Bad Bunny have won, as have Camila Cabello, Ariana Grande, and Lady Gaga.
Nevertheless, this year’s VMA nominations still mark a major win for women. In the Video of the Year category, all the nominations are women or non-binary artists; Doja Cat, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, Olivia Rodrigo, SZA, and Taylor Swift are all up for the gong, alongside a nod for Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ collaboration Unholy.
In the Song of the Year category, the majority of nominees are women (other than Steve Lacy, who has been nominated for Bad Habit, and Rema, who has collaborated with Selena Gomez on their song Calm Down).
Similarly, the Best New Artist category is made up of five women and one man, while in the Best Pop category all the nominees are women or non-binary artists, other than Ed Sheeran. Meanwhile, it should be noted that this year nearly all the nominees for the Best Rock category are male; Best Hip-Hop has a fairly even split, as does Best Alternative, Best Latin and Best R&B.
The results seem to prove that the VMAs made the right decision in 2017 when they introduced new genderless categories. At the time, the decision split music fans: some believed it was a step that should have been made years earlier (the Grammys shed their gender categories in 2011). At the end of the day, this group argued, if an artist is good enough, they’ll win. Why should gender come into it?
Others at the time were worried that the change would disadvantage female artists. They felt that women ought to have their own categories because women have to overcome more hurdles than men as they pursue their careers. In general, their route to the top is harder, so they should be protected and judged accordingly, fans argued.
The VMA voting system is also crucial to understanding the importance of this year’s list of nominees. The winners of the major categories are chosen by fans, who vote for their favourite acts via MTV’s website. This means that the winners are often the artists who have the most active fanbases: Beyoncé has the most wins overall, followed by Madonna, then Lady Gaga, then Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift holds the record for winning the Video of the Year award the most times.
It’s why some have argued that the award show is a popularity contest, rather than a music contest: director Joseph Kahn, whose video for Eminem’s Without Me won in 2002, said to The New York Times, “I’ve won the best video of the year before… And I can tell you it was not the best video of the year. Ultimately, let’s face it… The V.M.A.’s are not about directing achievement; they’re about who’s the most popular.”
But the nominees themselves are chosen by MTV, which seems to suggest a shift – at least on a surface level – towards making sure that women get a better chance of winning the major categories.
“I don’t know if anyone is paying attention right now, but women are done with old white men making decisions for them and are taking control,” said one music fan on Twitter. “Barbie – #1 Movie… VMAs – All women nominated for the first time ever.”
And while, of course, we don’t know the make-up of the boardrooms behind these major projects, it’s undoubtedly true that some women’s stories are getting more airtime – and making money, too.
The VMAs have always been about the spectacle: when the MTV awards first started in 1984 they were seen, as The New York Times put it, as “almost a spoof” of the more serious Grammys. Each year the VMAs bring the drama and the fun: Nicki Minaj’s “Miley what’s good” has arguably gone down in awards folklore, as did Kanye West butting into Swift’s acceptance speech in 2015 to announce that Beyoncé should have won instead.
“The Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys have trouble staying abreast of the times: too prim, too venerable, too stage-managed, too institutionalized,” said Vulture in 2016. “But the VMAs, while certainly no stranger to scripted business, have the potential to manifest a chaos and excess peculiar to American culture.”
With this in mind, and though this year’s VMA nomination list is undoubtedly a complex beast, the fact that one of the most relevant music award competitions in the world is recognising women for their work can only be a very good thing.
The VMAs will take place on September 13, 2023