VMAs Introduce New Award For Taylor Swift

Back in 2009, Taylor Swift and Kanye West were responsible for what might be the single most famous moment in the history of the MTV Video Music Awards, with apologies to Madonna's bridal dress, Britney Spears' bigass snake, and the Miley Cyrus/Robin Thicke situation. Every year, the people at MTV do whatever they can to get Swift to attend their ceremony. When Swift agrees to show up, she has a bunch of drinks and sings along with everyone else's songs. She becomes the show.

In recent years, certain VMA telecasts have seemed consist of something like 20% Taylor Swift reaction shots. This year's show goes down on Sunday night, and MTV has once again devised an excuse to get Swift into the building: Giving her a made-up award. I'm sure that Swift has been offered the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, which is going to Nirvana this year. She had never accepted it. One day, perhaps.

Instead, MTV is giving Swift its first-ever Artist Director Honors. A press release describes it as "a new award recognizing groundbreaking music artists whose work behind the camera has expanded the possibilities of music video and advanced the art of visual storytelling." Swift has directed her own videos for the past few years and has talked about making a movie, so that's the big idea here.

Also! Given that both Swift and the surviving Nirvana members will presumably attend this ceremony, there's a non-zero chance of a Nirvana reunion performance with Taylor Swift taking Kurt Cobain's place. This would be very, very funny.

This year's VMAs, hosted by Snoop Dogg, go down 9/27 and will air on CBS and MTV and stream on Paramount+.

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