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NewsSeptember, 28 Nirvana Reunite to Accept Video Vanguard Award
Nirvana came together again on Sunday night at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, where the band's surviving members picked up the Video Vanguard Award. The ceremony took place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, and Chuck D, frontman of Public Enemy, did the honours, handing the prize to bassist Krist Novoselic, drummer Dave Grohl and guitarist Pat Smear. Speaking about the '90s grunge group, Chuck D said Nirvana never gave in to mainstream expectations and stayed faithful to their own vision. He described their sound as loud, beautiful and boldly open, with lyrics that were raw and deeply human, and said their music videos captured an era. The band, he added, was entirely original and fearless at a moment when the status quo had grown formulaic, and their influence can now be heard in nearly every generation of artists that has followed. Among Nirvana's best-known videos are the ones made for 1991's Smells Like Teen Spirit, 1991's In Bloom and 1993's Heart-Shaped Box. After a montage of the band's videos was shown to the audience, Novoselic delivered a warm speech in which he paid tribute to late frontman Kurt Cobain, the singer-songwriter who died by suicide in 1994 at the age of 27. Novoselic thanked Nirvana's fans worldwide and everyone at MTV, saying the award stirred up many memories of making those videos. He recalled the dystopian pep rally with anarchist cheerleaders, their take on an Ed Sullivan TV appearance, performing in a Wizard of Oz-like field of poppies and plenty more besides. He went on to call Cobain one of the greatest artists of all time. Kurt, he said, was one of one. None of them could have imagined that their band, their sound or their aesthetic would come to mean so much to so many people, yet in the end the music had a life of its own and charted its own course. Nirvana still resonates so deeply, he explained, because people remain hungry for authenticity, for something real and uncompromising – something that tells you it's just fine to come as you are. The 61-year-old was referring to the lyrics of the band's 1992 single Come as You Are, and added that Cobain would have loved that legacy. Foo Fighters frontman Grohl stood stoically through the remarks, while Smear smoked a cigarette. Past recipients of the Video Vanguard Award, which is sometimes known as the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, include Mariah Carey, Katy Perry, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna and U2, along with many others.
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