1995 MTV Video Music Awards

1995 MTV Video Music Awards
1995 MTV Video Music Awards
Date	Thursday, September 7, 1995
Location	Radio City Music Hall, New York, New York
Country	United States
Hosted by	Dennis Miller
Most awards	TLC & Weezer (4)
Most nominations	Michael Jackson & Janet Jackson (11)
Television/radio coverage
Network	MTV
Produced by	Andy Schuon
Directed by	Bruce Gowers

The 1995 MTV Video Music Awards aired live on September 7, 1995, honoring the best music videos from June 16, 1994, to June 15, 1995. The show was hosted by Dennis Miller at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. David Sandlin was commissioned to design the program catalogue.

TLC and Weezer were the biggest winners of the night, with each taking home four awards. TLC's music video for "Waterfalls" won the two main awards of the night: Viewer's Choice Award and Video of the Year, becoming the first African-American act to win the latter award. Weezer's video for "Buddy Holly" took home the two main technical awards: Best Direction and Breakthrough Video. Meanwhile, the sibling pair of Michael and Janet Jackson was right behind both groups in terms of wins, as their video for "Scream" earned them three moonmen. Also Michael performed for over fifteen minutes to a medley of his main songs at the ceremony.

As mentioned above, TLC's "Waterfalls" won both Video of the Year and Viewer's Choice, becoming the third and last video to accomplish this feat in a single year. Ironically, this occurred on the first year that MTV decided to have different sets of nominees for these categories (as until 1994 the practice had been to have both categories have exactly the same set of nominees). Curiously, though, the award for Breakthrough Video would end up having the same four nominees as Video of the Year in 1995, marking the only time this ever happened in VMA history.

In terms of nominations, the four videos and acts that were up for Video of the Year dominated the night. Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream" was the most nominated video of the night, earning a grand total of eleven nominations, including a nomination in each of the seven professional categories. The night's big winner, TLC's "Waterfalls", was also the second most nominated video that night, earning ten nominations. Green Day's "Basket Case" came in third place with nine nominations, while Weezer's "Buddy Holly" came in fourth with five nominations. There would not be a situation similar to this one at the VMAs until the 2009 edition. In addition, all four videos were nominated for Best Direction.