Taylor Swift dominates MTV Video Music Awards 2023 – and NSYNC reunite
Pop megastar Taylor Swift has dominated yet another awards show – taking home the top prize and several other gongs at MTV’s Video Music Awards.
“This is unbelievable,” Swift told the crowd as she picked up the prize for video of the year for Anti-Hero, the first single from her 2022 album, Midnights.
The star was also named artist of the year, beating stars including Beyonce, Shakira and host Nicki Minaj to the award – for which the six nominees were all female for the first time.
Anti-Hero – a tale of insecurity featuring the much-memed line “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me” – was crowned song of the year and also took the prize for best direction, while Midnights was named best album.
Swift is now nearing Madonna’s record of 20 VMAs. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Tearin’ up our hearts: NSYNC members Joey Fatone, from left, Lance Bass, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick reunited to present Swift with one of her many prizes. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Swift also collected the best pop video award in a moment that almost eclipsed her bigger wins – thanks to an on-stage reunion by US boyband NSYNC, who presented the gong.
“I had your dolls!” the singer said to band members including Justin Timberlake. “You are pop personified. So to receive this from your golden pop hands, it’s too much.”
NSYNC dished out the trophy more than 20 years after first picking up the award themselves, for hit single Bye Bye Bye in 2000, with Lance Bass handing Swift a friendship bracelet – as fans do at her shows.
Swift also dominated MTV’s Europe Music Awards in 2022 and her latest haul comes following the end of the US leg of her sell-out Eras tour, which resumes in South America in November. Throughout her career she has now won 18 VMAs in total, just two behind the overall record held by Madonna.
Olivia Rodrigo was among the star performers. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Shakira won a lifetime achievement prize. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
A global icon: ‘This is for 30 years’
Other winners from the MTV VMAs ceremony, held in Newark, New Jersey, included best new artist Ice Spice. Minaj took home the prize for best hip-hop video for Super Freaky Girl – and Shakira and Sean “Diddy” Combs won the Vanguard award for lifetime achievement and the global icon award respectively.
Rapper Combs, known for hits including Bad Boy For Life, Come With Me, and I’ll Be Missing You, his tribute to Notorious BIG, told the audience: “This is for 30 years. I pray to God that you get to do what you love for 30 years.”
Rema and Selena Gomez won the first MTV VMA for Afrobeats music, for their collaboration Calm Down.
Nicki Minaj hosted, performed, and accepted the award for best hip-hop video. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
It’s Diddy… Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was named global icon. Pic: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
‘Thank you for helping me fight my battles’
Minaj, one of the night’s performers, joined Grandmaster Flash, LL Cool J and other rap legends for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop that concluded with Run DMC’s Walk This Way.
And Colombian pop singer Shakira sang a bilingual medley of her hits including Hips Don’t Lie and Whenever, Wherever. “I want to share this award with my fans who always, always support me through thick and thin,” she said as she accepted her award. “Thank you so much for being my army and helping me fight all my battles.”
Stars including Demi Lovato, Lil Wayne and Olivia Rodrigo also performed at the event.
Other winners included Blackpink, who were named best group; Stray Kids, who won the best K-pop award; SZA, who scored best R&B video for Shirt; and former Eurovision winners Maneskin, who took the rock video prize for The Loneliest.
Video footage has shown the moment singer and actress Ariana Grande was accosted by a fan at a film premiere.
Ms Grande was in Singapore for the debut of Wicked: For Good when the incident unfolded on Thursday.
The video captured the moment the fan scaled the barricade and pushed past photographers towards Ms Grande.
Pic: tacotrvck_vb/X/via REUTERS
He then threw his arms around her, before co-star Cynthia Erivo intervened and security swoops in to stop him.
The man, now identified as Johnson Wen, 26, is reportedly a notorious red carpet crasher.
Wen, who has since been charged with being a public nuisance, goes by the nickname Pyjama Man, and gloated as he shared footage of the intrusion online.
“Dear Ariana Grande, Thank You for letting me Jump on the Yellow Carpet with You,” he wrote on Instagram.
Pic: tacotrvck_vb/X/via REUTERS
In video stories posted to the site beforehand, he was seen at the Universal Studios venue, revealing his intentions.
In one, he said: “I feel like I’m in a dream, that’s my best friend, Ariana Grande, and I’m gonna meet her. I’ve been dreaming about that.”
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The Australian has ambushed several performers on stage, according to reports, including Katy Perry and The Chainsmokers at concerts in Sydney, and The Weeknd in Melbourne.
It has been reported that Wen intends to plead guilty and that he could face a fine of more than £1,000.
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo at the London premiere for Wicked: For Good
Ms Grande took a moment to gather herself in the aftermath of the intrusion, visibly shocked by the incident.
She didn’t address the incident on her own Instagram, but shared some photos with the caption “thank you, Singapore”, adding “we love you”.
The singer battled post-traumatic stress disorder after her 2017 concert in Manchester was bombed, leaving 22 people dead.
She told Vogue in 2018: “It’s hard to talk about because so many people have suffered such severe, tremendous loss. But, yeah, it’s a real thing.
“I know those families and my fans, and everyone there experienced a tremendous amount of it as well. Time is the biggest thing.
“I feel like I shouldn’t even be talking about my own experience – like I shouldn’t even say anything. I don’t think I’ll ever know how to talk about it and not cry.”
In the same interview she also addressed her own anxiety, saying she has “always” had it.
Ms Grande plays Galinda Upland in Wicked: For Good, the character who becomes Glinda the Good Witch. Ms Erivo plays Elphaba, the character who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.
The film is released in UK cinemas on 21 November.
Entertainment
A third of daily music uploads are AI-generated and 97% of people can’t tell the difference, says report
Do you care if the music you’re listening to is artificially generated?
That question – once the realm of science fiction – is becoming increasingly urgent.
An AI-generated country track, Walk My Walk, is currently sitting at number one on the US Billboard chart of digital sales and a new report by streaming platform Deezer has revealed the sheer scale of AI production in the music industry.
Deezer’s AI-detection system found that around 50,000 fully AI-generated tracks are now uploaded every day, accounting for 34% of all daily uploads.
File pic: iStock
The true number is most likely higher, as Deezer’s AI-detection system does not catch every AI-generated track. Nor does this figure include partially AI-generated tracks.
In January 2025, Deezer’s system identified 10% of uploaded tracks as fully AI-generated.
Since then, the proportion of AI tracks – made using written prompts such as “country, 1990s style, male singer” – has more than tripled, leading the platform’s chief executive, Alexis Lanternier, to say that AI music is “flooding music streaming”.
‘Siphoning money from royalty pool’
What’s more, when Deezer surveyed 9,000 people in eight countries – the US, Canada, Brazil, UK, France, Netherlands, Germany and Japan – and asked them to detect whether three tracks were real or AI, 97% could not tell the difference.
That’s despite the fact that the motivation behind the surge of AI music is not in the least bit creative, according to Deezer. The company says that roughly 70% of fully AI-generated tracks are what it calls “fraudulent” – that is, designed purely to make money.
“The common denominator is the ambition to boost streams on specific tracks in order to siphon money from the royalty pool,” a Deezer spokesperson told Sky News.
“With AI-generated content, you can easily create massive amounts of tracks that can be used for this purpose.”
File pic: Reuters
The tracks themselves are not actually fraudulent, Deezer says, but the behaviour around them is. Someone will upload an AI track then use an automated system – a bot – to listen to a song over and over again to make royalties from it.
Even though the total number of streams for each individual track is very low – Deezer estimates that together they account for 0.5% of all streams – the work needed to make an AI track is so tiny that the rewards justify the effort.
Are fully-AI tracks being removed?
Deezer is investing in AI-detection software and has filed two patents for systems that spot AI music. But it is not taking down the tracks it marks as fully-AI.
Instead it removes them from algorithmic recommendations and editorial playlists, a measure designed to stop the tracks getting streams and therefore generating royalties, and marks the tracks as “AI-generated content”.
“If people want to listen to an AI-generated track however, they can and we are not stopping them from doing so – we just want to make sure they are making a conscious decision,” the Deezer spokesperson says.
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Concerns about artists’ livelihoods
Deezer’s survey found that more than half (52%) of respondents felt uncomfortable with not being able to tell the difference between AI and human-made music.
“The survey results clearly show that people care about music and want to know if they’re listening to AI or human-made tracks or not,” said the company’s boss Alexis Lanternier.
“There’s also no doubt that there are concerns about how AI-generated music will affect the livelihood of artists.”
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Musicians protests AI copyright plans
Earlier this year, more than 1,000 musicians – including Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn and Kate Bush – released a silent album to protest plans by the UK government to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.
A recent study commissioned by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers suggested that generative AI music could be worth £146bn a year in 2028 and account for around 60% of music libraries’ revenues.
By this metric, the authors concluded, 25% of creators’ revenues are at risk by 2028, a sum of £3.5bn.
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