The biggest snubs in VMA history

This is another "soft snub" — given that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was indeed nominated for the Video of the Year award. So it wasn't totally left out of the proceedings, but it's still a shock over 30 years later that it lost out to The Cars' "You Might Think."

The King of Pop's 1991 single "Black or White" did get itself a nod at the 1992 VMAs, but only for special effects — and it didn't even win. Such a great video for such a great song deserved more.

It feels weird to call this one a snub since the Spike Jonze-directed video for the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" was nominated in a staggering five categories that year. But what puts this snub on the list is its loss in the Best Direction category — causing Adam Yauch to rush the stage in defense of Spike Jonze.

In a year that featured a nomination for both "The Real Slim Shady" and "Bye Bye Bye" in the Video of the Year category, it's almost unthinkable that the now-iconic video for Darude's "Sandstorm" couldn't garner a single nomination in any category at the 2000 VMAs.

Speaking of bum-rushing the stage, this list would be incomplete without that famous 2000 moment where Tim Commerford, the bassist of Rage Against the Machine, rushed the stage to protest the fact that Limp Bizkit took home Best Rock Video honors. I think we can all agree in retrospect that "Sleep Now In The Fire" deserved the win over "Break Stuff" and that Rage Against the Machine was snubbed, right?

The 2004 VMAs marked the beginning of Kanye. Do you remember Franz Ferdinand? Maybe, but more likely no and certainly not on the level that you remember Kanye West. In 2004, Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" won Breakthrough Video over Kanye's "All Falls Down" featuring Syleena Johnson. "All Falls Down" also lost out on Best Hip-Hop Video, Best Male Video and Best New Artist, but it lost to Outkast's "Hey Ya!," Usher's "Yeah!" and Maroon 5's "This Love," respectively. We can't complain about any of that. The snub-factor here is Kanye's undoubted relevancy 14 years later versus Franz Ferdinand's.

Sure, Kanye West's "Akira"-inspired video for "Stronger" garnered three VMA nominations — one for Video of the Year, one for Best Editing and one for Best Director — but went home empty. It deserved better, and in our opinion, it deserved top honors over that year's winner, "Umbrella."

Sure, you know about the time Taylor Swift was on the other side of the snub machine. But in 2008, the Best New Artist award went to the German rock band Tokio Hotel — a band that had been active since 2001 — instead of Taylor Swift. We're betting MTV would love to have that one back.

It seems weird to call this a snub since the video won the award for Video of the Year, but given Kanye's infamous interruption, we had to include it. When Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me" won in the Best Female Video category over Beyonce's hit song, Kanye West obviously thought Bey was snubbed. The rest is viral history.

Sure, by 2010 OK Go wasn't as popular as they were in their heyday, but that didn't mean they stopped making some of the most amazing music videos we've ever seen. In 2010, however, their Rube Goldberg-machine-filled video for "This Too Shall Pass" didn't garner a single nomination. Hopefully the video's 59 million YouTube views serve as some consolation.

Though Katy Perry's bright, poppy, risque and wonderfully wacky video for "California Gurls" did get a few nominations at the 2010 VMAs, it was oddly absent from the Video of the Year category. Strange, especially given that there were weaker videos from Eminem and Thirty Seconds to Mars up for that award in 2010.

Bruno Mars has not been sold short in the awards and recognition category in his career. But the 2011 VMAs was a rare occurrence where he was nominated in three categories — Video of the Year, Best Male Video and Best Pop Video — for "Grenade" and won zero of them. We're so accustomed now to Mars winning everything that this feels especially weird in hindsight, even though the videos he lost to were all worthy: Katy Perry's "Firework," Justin Bieber's "U Smile" and Britney Spears' "Till the World Ends."

Alt-J's video for "Breezeblocks" is one of the most affecting, visually arresting and amazing music videos in recent history. And despite racking up hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, MTV didn't see fit to include the video anywhere in the 2012 VMAs.

This was a weird kind of snub. Back in 2014, Lorde was riding high on the strength of her hit song "Royals." A Best Pop Video nomination was in the bag, right? Well, no. It was completely snubbed in the pop category — but oddly enough won in the rock category over the Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys, Imagine Dragons and Linkin Park. The VMAs are weird, y'all.

Janelle Monae has never missed the mark with a single one of her music videos, and "Dance Apocalyptic" is no exception. Despite its quality, it didn't get a single nomination at the 2014 VMAs.

Carly Rae Jepsen's hit single from her album "E.MO.TION" was no "Call Me Maybe," but its video was amazing, featuring a dapper Tom Hanks lip-syncing the tune while going about his day. Sure, it probably didn't deserve to win over "Bad Blood," 2015's Video of the Year, but it definitely deserved a nomination or three.

You know it's a snub when the artist takes it upon herself to call out the VMAs. In 2015, Nicki Minaj was nominated for three VMAs. Even so, she had one question: "Did 'Feeling Myself' miss the deadline or...?" "Feeling Myself," of course, is Minaj's duet with Beyonce. Less specifically but more culturally poignant, Minaj tweeted, "When the 'other' girls drop a video that breaks records and impacts culture they get that nomination." She also pointed out that "Anaconda" was snubbed because of the "kind" of artist she is. This year, though, it seems the VMAs and Minaj have made up, as she has been announced as a performer.

David Bowie died from cancer on Jan. 10, 2016, with Prince's untimely death followed close to three months later on April 21. It goes without saying that Bowie and Prince are two of music's most historically influential icons, especially in the visual medium and relevant to the Video Music Awards. So, it was a head-scratcher when the 2016 VMAs decided not to mention their deaths (or tribute their careers) at all during the broadcast.

The video for the chart-topping "Despacito" was nowhere to be found on the nominations list despite tying "Macarena" for the title of the longest-running Spanish-language song on the Billboard Hot 100 — and being the No. 1 all-time most viewed video on YouTube. Apparently this was due to a communications breakdown between the record label and MTV, but the video's absence was strongly felt nonetheless.