Source Details

{
    "source_type": "extension",
    "content_hash": "c56c2decc19809d66e806164df01677d1b208a6ecc9d6a083634579834804479",
    "submitted_via": "chrome_extension",
    "extension_version": "1.0.18",
    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/27\/arts\/music\/best-and-worst-moments-mtv-video-music-awards.html?emc=edit_nn_20260928&nl=the-morning&segment_id=227179",
    "parsed_content": "AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTBest and Worst Moments of the 2026 MTV Video Music AwardsMadonna ruled on Sunday night as the ceremony tried to recall VMAs of the past.Listen \u00b7 9:47 min Share full articleMadonna performed \u201cDanceteria Afterhours\u201d alongside Charli XCX on Sunday night.Credit...Stewart Cook\/CBSBy Jon ParelesLindsay ZoladzLeila Sheridan and Elena BergeronSept. 27, 2026See more of our coverage in your search results.Encuentra m\u00e1s de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de b\u00fasqueda. Add The New York Times on GoogleAgrega The New York Times en Google What year did the MTV Video Music Awards celebrate on Sunday? It wasn\u2019t exactly 2026. The annual awards show was broadcast from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on CBS and MTV, the cable channel that stopped calling itself Music Television in 2010 and now relies on reality shows and movies. The ceremony was downright nostalgic for the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. That was when MTV was still a career-maker and gatekeeper for pop. In not always subtle ways, the show asked, remember when MTV mattered?Its opening number was by this year\u2019s most-nominated star: Madonna, whose career bloomed in tandem with MTV in the 1980s and who was performing at the awards for the first time since 2003. There was a tribute to George Michael, another staple of 1980s and 1990s MTV. The surviving members of Nirvana, whose high-school anarchy video clip for \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit\u201d catalyzed a punk resurgence in 1991, received the Video Vanguard Award from none other than Chuck D. of Public Enemy. The host was Snoop Dogg, who first appeared on the awards show in 1994 when MTV was helping to mainstream hip-hop. And at least one award \u2014 a newly created one, for Artist Director \u2014 was guaranteed for Taylor Swift, an MTV constant since 2009 and the recipient of the most Video Music Awards through the years. She racked up one more: the 2026 video of the year for \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia.\u201dMadonna also took home new awards, including those for artist of the year, dance (her \u201cConfessions II \u2014 the Film\u201d video) and collaboration (\u201cBring Your Love,\u201d with Sabrina Carpenter). She reminisced about performing on the first MTV Awards and being told, after wardrobe problems, that her career was over; clearly it wasn\u2019t. But the award presentations were only brief interludes between the show\u2019s main events: production numbers that strove to outdo video razzle-dazzle with live effort. Here are some key moments from the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards. \u2014 JON PARELESBest reason for the show: MadonnaIt had been 23 years \u2014 that\u2019s more than Sombr\u2019s lifetime! \u2014 since Madonna last performed at the MTV Video Music Awards, when she scandalized the easily scandalized world of the early aughts by smooching Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. This year, thankfully, she did not return quietly. Madge opened the show with a lengthy, star-studded medley of songs from her latest album, the triumphant \u201cConfessions II.\u201d She was joined at first by a charming and always on point Sabrina Carpenter, for a serviceable if somewhat disjointed rendition of their duet \u201cBring Your Love.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe performance peaked in its second half, when Madonna and Charli XCX emerged from a set designed to look like a grimy club bathroom (one of many moments during the telecast when I found myself muttering, \u201cthis is on CBS\u201d?) and performed their newly released remix of the \u201cConfessions II\u201d highlight \u201cDanceteria.\u201d Madonna held court as a wonderfully random, if-you-know-you-know group of intergenerational celebrities made blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-\u2019em cameos: Debi Mazar, Julia Garner (once slated to play Madge in a scrapped biopic), the aforementioned Sombr, Fab 5 Freddy, Tony Ward, Andrew Watt (costumed as Keith Haring) and was that \u2026 Seth Rogen? Yes, it was.Perhaps to make up for that 23-year absence, she just kept getting awards all night. Best collaboration, for the Carpenter team-up. Artist of the year. Best dance video, which she accepted from an amused Charli XCX and Troye Sivan. All in all, she seemed to have been onstage more than the night\u2019s ostensible host, Snoop Dogg. The prospect of Madonna having so much live airtime on CBS might have made the censors nervous, but the most shocking thing she did was begin one acceptance speech with a dad joke: \u201cFirst of all, I would like to thank my fingers, because I can always count on them.\u201d At the end of their joint acceptance speech, Carpenter said it best, gesturing toward her unpredictable duet partner and simply concluding, in baffled awe, \u201cMadonna!\u201dBest prop: Pat Smear\u2019s cigaretteImageFrom left, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear accepted the Video Vanguard award.Credit...Francis Specker\/CBSThe surviving members of Nirvana took the stage to accept the Video Vanguard lifetime achievement award \u2014 for impact on videos and pop culture \u2014 in an orderly choreography. Dave Grohl and Pat Smear, wearing leather jackets, flanked Krist Novoselic as he delivered a dutiful speech honoring Kurt Cobain as \u201cone of the greatest artists of all time.\u201d Only Smear\u2019s lighting and puffing away on a cigarette hinted at the playful chaos the band brought to the awards in the \u201990s. Smear\u2019s gesture, and his wordless amusement, made him seem like a time traveling punk, smirking at the future he\u2019d been plopped into and wondering \u201cwhat happened here?\u201d \u2014 ELENA BERGERONBest S.N.L. parody: Taylor Swift\u2019s \u2018Patient Zero\u2019Introduced by her friend and co-star Dakota Johnson, Taylor Swift accepted the inaugural Artist Director Honors award and debuted the video for \u201cPatient Zero,\u201d from her newly expanded album, \u201cThe Life of a Showgirl: The Encore.\u201d A cross between a sterile car commercial and a sexless \u201cFifty Shades of Grey,\u201d it stars Johnson as the wife of an abusive husband (Colin Farrell), who blames her mysterious illness on drinking. Johnson is haunted by the ghost of Farrell\u2019s former partner, played by Swift, whose tragic fate is revealed through flashbacks in a plot-twist ending that serves as a warning for Johnson to get out. The darkly slick look and self-serious vibe seemed like it would be interrupted at any moment by a laugh track. \u2014 LEILA SHERIDANAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTWorst everything: the George Michael tributeSombr warbled through \u201cFather Figure\u201d; Raye, Teddy Swims and Adam Lambert karaoked some truly iconoclastic hits (as well as \u201cCareless Whisper\u201d) and \u2026 the less said about the performance the better. \u2014 ELENA BERGERONBest Anachronism: Sienna SpiroImageSienna Spiro won best new artist at the VMAs.Credit...Francis Specker\/CBSThe English songwriter Sienna Spiro, named best new artist, turns 21 on Sept. 28, but she cultivates a vintage 1960s look, styled like a latter-day Petula Clark or Dusty Springfield. Her stage set was a giant turntable; she sang a torchy, lovesick ballad, \u201cGreat Expectation.\u201d But her obvious musical model is more recent. Spiro has absorbed \u2014 and mastered \u2014 every tearful inflection, every tremolo and swell and break and sighing decrescendo, from Adele. That pop niche was waiting to be filled. \u2014 JON PARELESBest Mass Movement: Yung Lean and Gener8ionImageThe Swedish rapper Yung Lean delivered an unruly but precise performance, one of the night\u2019s best.Credit...Stewart Cook\/CBSYung Lean arrived onstage looking like he had just left detention for picking a fight. Dressed in a suit without a jacket, blood drops staining his shirt and a black eye on his face, he stole a Moon Person from backstage, threw a chair to the ground and tossed the statue into the crowd. Then he joined a choir of about 50 school-aged boys on bleachers in front of a red-brick schoolhouse, recreating the video \u201cStorm,\u201d a collaboration with Gener8ion, that imagines a lawless, teacher-less British boarding school in 2034, with Lean as ringleader and schoolyard bully.Licking a melting, bright blue ice cream cone, Lean rapped from the center of a set of bleachers with the schoolboys surrounding him snapping their bodies in different directions to create an angry sea of movement. When he stepped down at the end of the performance, Lean licked a gob of the ice cream and spat it at the camera, smearing it across the lens before walking off.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTUnruly, yet precise in its strangeness, it was one of the night\u2019s most captivating performances, with a fully realized world that felt bigger than the VMA stage. \u2014 LEILA SHERIDANBest farewell: to Dolly PartonWho\u2019d have thought that an MTV extravaganza would end up extolling Dolly Parton twice? Kacey Musgraves appeared early, singing \u201cI Will Always Love You\u201d in a straightforward, self-effacing homage to Dolly Parton\u2019s modest original. Then, collecting the show\u2019s final award, for video of the year, Taylor Swift was winding up to thank \u201cone person\u201d who turned out to be not her new husband, but \u201cthe ultimate showgirl, Dolly Parton.\u201d Swift praised Parton\u2019s vivid storytelling and translated to MTV terms, \u201cListening to her songs, it was like watching the best music video you have ever seen in your life.\u201d \u2014 JON PARELESAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-28T03:52:57+00:00",
    "author_name": "Jon Pareles, Lindsay Zoladz, Leila Sheridan, Elena Bergeron",
    "site_name": "The New York Times",
    "section": "Arts",
    "publisher": "The New York Times Company",
    "ai_headline": "Best and Worst Moments of the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Madonna Dominates 2026 MTV Video Music Awards with Multiple Wins and Performances",
    "ai_excerpt": "The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, broadcast from the Peacock Theater, featured Madonna as the most-nominated star and a strong nostalgic theme for past decades. The ceremony included tributes, new awards, and memorable performances, with Madonna taking home several honors.",
    "ai_subject_tags": [
        "MTV Video Music Awards",
        "Madonna",
        "Music Awards",
        "Pop Culture",
        "Nirvana",
        "Taylor Swift",
        "George Michael",
        "Snoop Dogg"
    ],
    "ai_context_type": "Review",
    "ai_context_details": {
        "tone": "analytical",
        "perspective": "neutral",
        "audience": "general",
        "credibility_indicators": []
    },
    "ai_source_vector": null,
    "ai_confidence_score": 0.9999999999999999,
    "ai_extraction_metadata": {
        "extracted_at": "2026-09-30T10:05:18.997627Z",
        "ai_model": "gemini-2.5-flash",
        "extraction_method": "automated",
        "content_length": 9306,
        "metadata_prompt_body_chars": 9306,
        "metadata_prompt_truncated": false,
        "url": "https:\/\/nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/27\/arts\/music\/best-and-worst-moments-mtv-video-music-awards.html",
        "existing_metadata": {
            "author_name": null,
            "published_at": null,
            "domain_name": "nytimes.com",
            "site_name": null,
            "section": null,
            "publisher": null
        },
        "openai_refusal_gemini_fallback": false
    }
}

{
    "extracted_at": "2026-09-30T10:05:18.997627Z",
    "ai_model": "gemini-2.5-flash",
    "extraction_method": "automated",
    "content_length": 9306,
    "metadata_prompt_body_chars": 9306,
    "metadata_prompt_truncated": false,
    "url": "https:\/\/nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/27\/arts\/music\/best-and-worst-moments-mtv-video-music-awards.html",
    "existing_metadata": {
        "author_name": null,
        "published_at": null,
        "domain_name": "nytimes.com",
        "site_name": null,
        "section": null,
        "publisher": null
    },
    "openai_refusal_gemini_fallback": false
}