MTV DISTRIBUTES PRIZES

It's the highlight of the music awards calendar - simply everyone was there, bubbling with excitement to find out who was going to get the awards which can make a real difference to careers and reputations. But for the stars without a hope in hell of winning a Latin Grammy, they were lumbered with having to go to Lisbon to sit through the MTV EMAs.

These European awards are the less important ("younger") sibling of the proper MTV awards, and are a curious relic left over from the days when MTV was a music station rather than a rotating parade of underbudgetted half-ideas masquerading as lifestyle programming.

The winners you can probably guess for yourself, but just in case:

Best male:
Robbie Williams

Best female:
Shakira

Best group:
Gorillaz

Best rock:
Green Day

Best hip-hop:
Snoop Dogg

Best alternative:
System of a Down

Best song:
Coldplay - Speed of Sound

Best R&B:
Alicia Keys

Best pop:
The Black Eyed Peas

Best album:
Green Day - American Idiot

Best new act:
James Blunt

Best video:
The Chemical Brothers - Believe

Best act - MTV Adria:
Siddharta

Best African act:
2 Face

Best Danish act:
Mew

Best Dutch & Belgian act:
Anouk

Best Finnish act:
The Rasmus

Best French act:
Superbus

Best German act:
Rammstein

Best Italian act:
Negramaro

Best Norwegian act:
Turbonegro

Best Portugese act:
The Gift

Best Polish act:
Sistars

Best Romanian act:
Voltaj

Best Russian act:
Dima Bilan

Best Spanish act:
El Canto del Loco

Best Swedish act:
Moneybrother

Best UK & Ireland act:
Coldplay

Free Your Mind award:
Bob Geldof

We do love that a lot of the coverage this morning is brimming with excitement that "Coldplay won two awards", but since one of those was a regional award on a par with Superbus' prize, we're guessing that it might not have counted quite the same.

While we're on the regional prizes, we can see why they have lumped the whole of Africa together (they probably shouldn't but they do), but how come Belguim and the Netherlands have to share a single prize? That's three languages covered by one prize, which hardly seems fair.

And we're still trying to understand how Shakira picked up best female?

The "isn't Bob great" prize was presented by Madonna:

Madonna returned to the stage to present MTV's Free Your Mind humanitarian award to Live 8 organiser Sir Bob Geldof.

He replied: "This means much more to me than many of the other things that are given to me."

"Many of the other things", but not including the large cheques he gets presented with following an after-dinner speech, of course.

Now, all we need to do is work out what System of a Down are actually an alternative to, and we can go home happy.

music mtv madonna coldplay ema european music awards