Taylor Swift and Eminem both made history at the 2024 VMAs, which were held at UBS Arena in New York on Wednesday (Sept. 11).
Swift won seven awards, which brings her career total of Moonpersons to an even 30. This enables her to sprint past Beyoncé as the top winner in the show’s history. Eminem won two awards, which allows him to pull ahead of Peter Gabriel as the top male winner in the show’s history.
A lot of the awards went as expected. Coming off a historic run of success in the past two years, it was likely that Swift would maintain her dominance, as she did. Eminem’s win for best hip-hop and SZA’s win for best R&B were also no surprises. Both artists topped the Billboard 200 with their most recent albums. Tyla’s “Water,” a top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, was also a strong bet to win best Afrobeats.
It was also no surprise that women did well overall in the voting. This is the seventh year in a row that a woman has won best new artist; the sixth year in a row that a woman has won video for good; the fifth year in a row that a woman artist has won song of the year; and the fourth year in a row that a woman has won best Latin. The last male artist to win the Video Vanguard Award was Ye, then still known as Kanye West, in 2015.
But that doesn’t mean there were no surprises on the show. Here are the biggest snubs and surprises at the 2024 VMAs.
The pop star won VMAs most iconic performance for her remote performance of “Roar” which closed the 2013 show. She performed the song at Empire-Fulton Ferry Park in Brooklyn. It beat such memorable VMA moments as Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” from the inaugural 1984 show and Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady” and “The Way I Am” from 2000, where the rap icon was joined by 100+ Eminem lookalikes.
All four artists were shut out, despite receiving four nods each. GloRilla even performed “Yeah Glo!” on the show.
We all know that K-pop is hot, but did you realize it was this hot? A K-pop group has won best group, an all-genre category, six years in a row. Seventeen won this year. Blackpink won last year. BTS won the four years before that. Quite plainly, this is clearly not a niche market.
Given Swift’s awards blitz, it’s somewhat surprising that she didn’t take song of the year, as she did last year with “Anti-Hero.” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” beat “Fortnight” for song of the year, but “Fortnight” beat Carpenter’s follow-up hit, “Please Please Please,” for song of summer. (If “Espresso” had competed for song of summer would it have won that award too? Discuss amongst yourselves.)
Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” won best alternative. The song was a multiformat smash, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 4 on Adult Contemporary, No. 31 on Rock & Alternative Airplay and No. 33 on Alternative Airplay. The VMAs probably could have slotted it in pop, rock or alternative. If it had been nominated for best pop, Boone would have been the only male artist in what this year was an all-woman field.