Taylor Swift became the most-awarded artist in the history of the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night, receiving the inaugural Artist Director Honors and taking her career total to 31.
The ceremony was held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and ran for two hours on CBS. Its start was pushed back by 20 minutes because of the NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Dallas Cowboys.
Swift and Beyonce had been level on 30 wins each. The new honour, presented for the first time this year, recognises artists whose work behind the camera has expanded the possibilities of music video and advanced the art of visual storytelling.
Swift has written and directed 18 of the roughly 60 music videos she has been involved with, which is the credential the new category is designed to measure.
She also brought a new video, "Patient Zero", which she directed and which stars Colin Farrell and Dakota Johnson. Johnson and Swift appear in it as mirror images of one another.
Elsewhere on the night, Madonna took Artist of the Year and shared Best Collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter for "Bring Your Love". LISA won Best Pop for "Dream", featuring Kentaro Sakaguchi. Nirvana received the Video Vanguard Award.
The ceremony was hosted by Snoop Dogg, a 13-time nominee and three-time winner.
The all-time VMA table is a simple running total. It adds up wins across categories that are added, retired and renamed as the show changes, and it does not distinguish between them.
On the arithmetic, the record is not in dispute. Thirty-one is more than thirty. What is worth setting out plainly is the mechanism by which the thirty-first arrived.
Two artists were tied on 30. A category was created. One of them was given it. The tie is now resolved, and the resolution required no further videos from either party.
This newspaper regards the method as sound, and considerably faster than the alternative. A tie broken by output takes years. A tie broken by category takes one evening and a new plinth.
It follows that the all-time table is not a measure of work but a measure of the category list, and the category list is not fixed. Beyonce's 30 is a fact about her videos. Swift's 31 is a fact about the ceremony's ability to think of things.
The Department of Unnecessary Research notes that the position can be reversed at any time by the same means, and has written to MTV proposing an Artist Producer Honors, an Artist Editor Honors and an Artist Second Unit Honors.
On current arrangements, the most-awarded artist in the history of the Video Music Awards is whoever the Video Music Awards last thought of a reason for.