Most Wins Of All Time

Who will claim the most Moon Person trophies at this year’s Video Music Awards when the show airs live MTV on Aug. 20 at 9 p.m. ET/PT? With 10 nominations, will new mom and superhot rapper Cardi B come away the top winner? Or perhaps The Carters — aka Beyonce and Jay-Z — hog the spotlight by claiming the lion’s share with their eight nominations? To see what it takes to join the club of the most-honored videos of all time, check out this countdown list of 13 all-time greats.

-By Susan Wloszczyna

1984: Herbie Hancock, ‘Rockit’

Five wins

The legendary pianist elevated the budding art form of the music video with this mind-blowing jazz hip-hop game-changer.  Instead of putting Hancock front and center, the focus is on an unnerving array of humanoid robotic figures and dancing legs as they move about in time to the music in a “virtual house.  The keyboardist is seen performing on a TV monitor, which gets tossed out onto the sidewalk by the end. The sounds of record scratching and manipulating a turntable was the height of innovation back then.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHhD4PD75zY

1988: INXS, ‘Need You Tonight /Mediate’

Five wins

“There’s something about you girl that makes me sweat.” There was definitely something about gone-too-soon singer Michael Hutchence that had a similar effect. Those snaky hips and cat-like moves? Pure animal magnetism. Yes, the rest of the band provides a kind of chorus line but all eyes and ears are on the main attraction whose vocals practically ooze sex. The bit on the end is a tribute to Bob Dylan’s cue-card flipping bit with lyrics in his ground-breaking video for 1965’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiVbq6ZnNc4&list=RDMiVbq6ZnNc4

1999: Ricky Martin, ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’

Five wins

No high concept here. Just  the charismatic Latin singer in a body-hugging black shirt and pants shaking what his mother gave him while performing  in a nightclub, while the wild woman who is driving him crazy (Croatian model Nina Moric) shimmies and shakes nearby. While the ladies have male partners, their presence is intentionally downplayed. Meanwhile, we get to see the females act out the lyric, “She’ll make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain” on a dark city street.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p47fEXGabaY

1998: Madonna, ‘Ray of Light’

Five wins

The Material Girl was going through an Eastern mysticism period and it paid off with this hard-to-resist electronic dance riff that “Entertainment Weekly” called a “sirenlike techno-glitter ball.” The “Ray of Light” video was equally mesmerizing as it intentionally emulated the time-lapse photography of the 1982 film “Koyaanisqatsi,” with the relaxed superstar swaying, singing and letting down her hair while blurry scenes of daily life around the globe rush by her. A sunrise and a sunset bookend the action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3ov9USxVxY

1986: a-ha, ‘Take on Me’

Six wins

The rotoscoping technique used to bring to life this peppy synth-pop confection by Norway’s a-ha was considered truly revolutionary in its time. As directed by Irish video whiz Steve Barron (“Billy Jean”), the video’s simple story involves a pretty girl in a café reading a comic book about sidecar racers. The winner (lead singer Morten Harket) winks at her. After he beckons with his hand, she is pulled into his pencil-drawn universe. They are chased by the losers, but he saves the day by tearing a hole in a wall allowing her to escape. Eventually, he bangs against the walls “Altered States”-style and joins her on the outside.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914

1991: R.E.M., ‘Losing My Religion’

Six wins

This catchy yet mournful mandolin-driven tune goes in religious iconography overdrive thanks to the spiritual eye candy delivered by India director Tarsem Singh (“The Fall”). Before a note is heard, milk is spilt from a fallen pitcher as singer Michael Stipe bemoans being a victim of unrequited love. As he vocally pines, angels appear with large wings including a black cherub with white hair and an aged heavenly creature that falls. Biblical allusions include martyr St. Sebastian as Hindu deities strike poses. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwtdhWltSIg

1996: Smashing Pumpkins, ‘Tonight, Tonight’

Six wins

The evolution of music videos took a grandiose step beyond with frontman Billy Corgan’s elaborately orchestrated ode to hope with homage to silent-film pioneer George Melies’s 1902 “A Trip to the Moon.” Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (“Little Miss Sunshine”) rely on primitive effects as two lovers jump off a zeppelin and land on the moon. They escape from attacking aliens by plunging into a sea world where a Poseidon-like merman, mermaids and an octopus greet them. Meanwhile, the Pumpkins in turn-of-the-century costumes perform while afloat on moving clouds in the sky.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOG3eus4ZSo

2001: Fatboy Slim, ‘Weapon of Choice’

Six wins

That funk legend Bootsy Collins co-wrote the song, plays the bass and sings is impressive enough. But the real magic behind this joy-inducing video directed by Spike Jonze (“Being John Malkovich”) is the fancy footwork by a business-suited Christopher Walken as he becomes inspired to dance through an empty hotel lobby at Christmas time. The ingenious choreography — part Fred Astaire, part Peter Pan — employs everything from escalators, multiple elevator mirrors and table-top surfaces before allowing its star to defy gravity and bounce off walls before nailing a perfect landing. No cowbell required.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ7z57qrZU8

2005: Green Day, ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’

Six wins

“I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known.” That is how the standout track from the band’s rock-operatic album “American Idiot” begins. The song itself, about desolation and disconnect tied to the state of our nation, became Green Day’s best-selling U.S. single. But the video takes the artistry up a notch with its depiction of deserted houses and a gas station in disrepair and dried-out landscapes filled with rubble in sepia tones and film stock that is intentionally made to look old and damaged. As for the title, it came from a painting of James Dean in an overcoat walking in New York.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpgzHArUYXY

2016: Beyonce, ‘Formation’

Six wins

This video for the first single off of Queen Bey’s “Lemonade” album is both deeply personal and political. It is steeped in her Southern heritage but also ponders the present with acute social awareness as she reclines atop a New Orleans cop car that is sinking into rising flood water. Beyond political statements (one flash of graffiti proclaims, “Stop shooting us”),  she truly does slay with a wicked sense of fashion-plate confidence (“I’ve got hot sauce in my bag, swag”) as she stands up for her gender with chorus lines of strong black women and celebrates  aspects of her roots, including her love of cornbread and greens.

2017: Kendrick Lamar, ‘HUMBLE’

Six wins

A six-pack of VMA’s in one swoop? Admirable. But this Compton-born straight-A student raised on welfare just became the first rapper to win a Pulitzer for music. The video for this chart-topping hit presents social commentary urging women to embrace their physical flaws. It also features in-your-face religious imagery such as Lamar dressed in gold-adorned papal vestments and a hip-hop re-creation of the Last Supper.  Among the more striking visuals is the corn-rowed singer bobbing his head along with a crowd of bald black men and Lamar re-creating the old Grey Poupon mustard ad.  The repeated refrain “Sit down, be humble” suggests that one should not strive to present a false reality about themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=96&v=tvTRZJ-4EyI

2010: Lady Gaga, ‘Bad Romance’

Seven wins

“I want your psycho, your vertigo shtick/ Want you in my rear window, baby, you’re sick.” If a music video can be called high-art, this is the one, with its creepy-crawly choreography, kinky fashion sense and atmospheric effects (those huge Keane eyes!). Even the lyrics of this hook-filled, techno-infused dance tune are cinematic. Directed by Francis Lawrence (“The Hunger Games” sequels, “Red Sparrow”), the entire video – just named the best of the century by “Billboard” — is an S&M fever dream of a movie. The plot basics: Gaga’s sexual services are up for auction, but the buyer probably has some remorse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I

1987: Peter Gabriel, ‘Sledgehammer’

Nine wins

The former Genesis lead singer ditched his prog-rock pretensions and put funk in his trunk with an infectious jam with lyrics rife with sexual allusions (“Show me ‘round your fruit cage, ‘cause I will be your honey bee”).  But the reason this VMA champ, his lone No. 1 hit in the U.S.,  remains the most-played video ever on MTV was its eye-popping  stop-motion animation. Nick Park (“Wallace & Gromit”) handled the dancing chickens while the avant-garde Quay Brothers injected surreal panache. A true artist, Gabriel spent 16 hours under a pane of glass while the video was shot one frame at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJWJE0x7T4Q