Beyoncé, Adele lead MTV Video Music Award nods

PanARMENIAN.Net - Beyoncé led nominations for the MTV Video Music Awards as she basked in acclaim for her intertwined film-album "Lemonade", AFP reports.

The pop diva was in the running for 11 awards at MTV's annual extravaganza, which will take place August 28 in New York's Madison Square Garden, a shift from the more common venue in Los Angeles.

Adele came in second with eight nominations. All but seven were for the chart-topping English balladeer's "Hello," which with more than 1.6 billion views is the fifth most watched video ever on YouTube.

"Hello", filmed by the Canadian director Xavier Dolan, shows Adele on the phone with a younger version of herself and was the first music video created for the high-resolution IMAX format.

"Hello" was in the running for Video of the Year against Beyoncé's "Formation", the most overtly political work of the former Destiny's Child singer's career as she aligned herself with the Black Lives Matter protest movement.

Filmed by Melina Matsoukas, "Formation" at one point shows a row of police officers with their hands in the air and graffiti on a wall that reads, "Stop shooting us."

If Beyoncé sweeps the awards, she would make MTV history. Peter Gabriel holds the record for the most VMAs in a single night, taking home 10 in 1987 amid a global following for his animation-driven "Sledgehammer."

Other nominees for Video of the Year included Kanye West's controversial "Famous", in which the rapper boasts that pop superstar Taylor Swift may sleep with him and that he made her famous.

Also in the running for the top prize were two videos dominated by dancing -- rapper Drake's "Hotline Bling" and pop celebrity Justin Bieber's "Sorry."

The late rock icon David Bowie's video for "Lazarus" took four nominations, although not in the main categories.