Taylor Swift, the best thing that ever happened to the scarf industry, made VMA history Sunday night when she was awarded a Moon Person for her emotional, ode-to-autumn video for the 2012 song “All Too Well,” which left fans everywhere recreating the lyric, “I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here.”
Swift, who made a shocking appearance at the awards show and also (!) announced a new album, nabbed her third Video of the Year win for All Too Well: The Short Film, making her the first artist ever to have three Video of the Year VMAs.
Shortly thereafter, Swift posted details of her new album—not a re-recording!—on Instagram: It will be called Midnights, with tracks one through 13 each telling the story of a “sleepless” night in Swift’s life. She described the project as “a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face.” It will drop October 21, one assumes at midnight. Expect many a sleepless night for optimal listening conditions thereafter.
Swift previously won Video of the Year awards for “Bad Blood” in 2015 and “You Need to Calm Down” in 2019. Before this win, she was tied with Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Eminem at two wins for Video of the Year. It honestly feels like way more musicians should have at least two wins, but apparently they don’t. So cheers to Swift for finally breaking the two-VMAs curse! (I’m assuming it’s considered some type of curse.)
“I just wanna’ say I’m so heartened by the fact that, for the first time in VMA history, four of the directors nominated in the Video of the Year category are women,” she said during her acceptance speech. Nice! Her video, which was nominated in five categories, also won Best Long-Form Video and Best Direction. “Thank you for this beautiful indication that we did something right,” Swift said to the fans as she accepted the award for Best Long-Form. You’re welcome.
About an hour after Page Six reported that she’d be there, Swift walked the red—er, “black”—carpet wearing a silver-chained Oscar de la Renta dress that was...fine, Christian Louboutin heels, and Lorraine Schwartz jewels. There was no engagement ring on her finger.
Separate from the wins, Swift seemed to have a nice time at the MTV awards show, even providing us all with some of her notorious awards show singing-and-dancing during performances from Nicki Minaj and Blackpink.
Fun! Happy for her!
The pop star/director/honorary doctor/catmom seems hellbent on getting All Too Well: The Short Film an Oscar. She screened the video at New York’s AMC Lincoln Square in November 2021, which made it eligible for a nomination. (Oscar noms will be announced on February 8.) It had a limited theatrical release after its premiere, played behind her during her Saturday Night Live performance in November, and was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. That’s a lot of promo for a music video of a 10-year-old song.
“This is not a music video,” she told the audience during a discussion following the Tribeca screening, according to Variety. (Whoops, sorry VMAs.) “We approached everything differently.”
I don’t know if winning the award for best music video of the year helps or hurts her Oscar campaign. At least we might not have to wait until after the Oscars for her to release her next goddamn rerecording. I might be OK but I’m not fine at all until I can ethically listen to 1989 again.