Resurgence of rock music at MTV awards

The renaissance of rock music has been confirmed at one of the world's most glitzy music awards ceremonies, where veteran punk rockers Green Day picked up seven prizes.

Hip hop and commercial pop music have long dominated the MTV Music Video Awards, but this year it was guitar-led bands including The Killers who were celebrated at the glittering Miami bash.

Green Day, a band that has sold more than 30 million albums over a 16-year career, won seven awards, including the evening's top accolade, Video of the Year, for the film accompanying their track "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".

The group, who turned up to the awards ceremony in the vintage green convertible that appears in the video, also won Best Rock Video and a prize chosen by viewers for the video to their song "American Idiot".

In his acceptance speech lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong highlighted the resurgence of rock music, demonstrated by his own band's recent string of hits.

"It's great to know that rock music still has a place at MTV," said Armstrong.

In the same vein as some of their recent lyrics, which have become increasingly political, the band dedicated their last award to US soldiers in Iraq, saying "here's to our soldiers, let's bring them home safe".

British rock music was represented by Coldplay, the only UK band to perform at the ceremony.

A new generation of rockers won recognition, when The Killers won Best New Artist for their song "Mr Brightside". Chicago punk rockers Fall Out Boy won the MTV2 award for the track "Sugar, We're Going Down", but the band's Pete Weintz was not convinced that rock has made a comeback at the expense of other genres.

"Whatever is going to happen is going to happen organically. The return of rock doesn't mean anything else is going away," he told the Associated Press.

Hip hop bling was by no means absent from the awards. The rap artist formerly known as Puff Daddy, who now goes by the name of Sean "Diddy" Combs, hosted the evening.

He introduced the show by declaring: "The theme of tonight is, anything can happen."

But although the ceremony was high on spectacle, with fireworks and a cascading waterfall, it was relatively uneventful.

The same cannot be said of the pre-show party for Kanye West, who won Best Male Video for "Jesus Walks", where the rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight, who once represented Snoop Dogg, Dr Dre and Tupac Shakur, was shot in the leg.

A natural disaster in the form of Hurricane Katrina, which hit southern Florida on Thursday, also threatened to overshadow the event on Sunday night, but the storm passed in time for the festivities to go ahead as planned.

Other winners included the rapper Missy Elliott for Best Dance Video and Best Hip Hop Video and American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, who picked up two gongs.

R&B star R Kelly, who is currently awaiting trial on child pornography charges, performed a bizarre musical soap opera with the theme "Trapped in the Closet", about a cheating wife, a cheating husband and his boyfriend. There were also performances from Mariah Carey and 50 Cent.

- THE INDEPENDENT