DUSSELDORF, Germany – American pop singer Taylor Swift walked away with four prizes at MTV’s Europe Music Awards on Sunday, including Best Video for her 10-minute All Too Well.
Double-award winners included rapper Nicki Minaj for Best Song and Best Hip-hop, and French DJ-record producer David Guetta who picked up Best Electronic award and Best Collaboration.
The event, broadcast on MTV from Duesseldorf in western Germany, honoured musicians from Brazil to South Korea.
It featured an appearance by Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, winner of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which performed Stefania in an arena glowing with Ukraine’s national colours of blue and yellow.
Swift, wearing a dress of bejewelled mesh, won Best Artiste, Best Pop, Best Video and Best Longform Video.
“I felt like I learnt so much about how making film can be a natural extension of my storytelling,” the 32-year-old said as she accepted the Best Longform Video award.
In All Too Well, she draws inspiration from 1970s Hollywood and recounts a fraying romantic relationship that disintegrates, leaving behind only a scarf and memories.
“It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well,” she sings.
Minaj’s winning song, Super Freaky Girl, incorporates the 1981 hit Super Freak with the lyrics: “I can lick it, I can ride it while you slippin’ and slidin’.”
Thailand-born Lalisa “Lisa” Manoban of K-pop girl group Blackpink won Best K-pop, with Blackpink winning the Best Metaverse Performance Award.
South Korea’s BTS, the global K-pop sensation, won the Biggest Fans category for the fifth consecutive year. Another K-pop boy band Seventeen won the Best New award.
The hosts for the show were British pop star Rita Ora and New Zealand film director Taika Waititi, who married this year. Ora herself won for best look.
Dusseldorf has a musical heritage as home to the pioneering German electronic band Kraftwerk, which influenced generations of pop and dance musicians with mesmerising tracks such as Autobahn. The city also hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2011.
Screaming teens watched the stars walk down a red carpet before the event was broadcast from the PSD Bank Dome.
English musician Julian Lennon, son of late The Beatles singer John Lennon, said as he entered that he had not seen a concert in years and was looking forward to it.
Rock band Muse, which won the best rock award, said they were dedicating their victory to the people of Ukraine and Iran.
Kalush Orchestra’s frontman Oleh Psiuk, donning a pink hat, said before the performance that he hoped more Ukrainian bands would be present in 2023. REUTERS
