Best Group Video

• TLC, "No Scrubs"
• Backstreet Boys, "I Want It That Way"
• Limp Bizkit, "Nookie"
• 'N Sync, "Tearin' Up My Heart"
• Sugar Ray, "Every Morning"

Best Pop Video

• Ricky Martin, "Livin' La Vida Loca"
• Backstreet Boys, "I Want It That Way"
• Jennifer Lopez, "If You Had My Love"
• 'N Sync, "Tearin' Up My Heart"
• Britney Spears, "Baby One More Time"

Video Of The Year

• Lauryn Hill, "Doo Wop (That Thing)"
• Backstreet Boys, "I Want It That Way"
• Korn, "Freak On A Leash"
• Ricky Martin, "Livin' La Vida Loca"
• Will Smith (featuring Dru Hill & Kool Moe Dee), "Wild, Wild West"

Associated Press Article

By DAVID BAUDER AP Television Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Five-time Grammy winner Lauryn Hill continued her winning streak Thursday when her slinky video for ``Doo Wop (That Thing)'' earned four video awards during MTV's invasion of the Metropolitan Opera House.

Puff Daddy replaced Pagliacci and the Backstreet Boys elbowed out ``La Boheme'' as the raunchy awards show took over opera's epicenter. Instead of ``Faust,'' the audience was treated to Kid Rock in a white fur coat and a dozen male Madonna impersonators.

Hill won the night's big award, video of the year, and also won for best female video, best rhythm 'n' blues video and art direction. The video shows her simultaneously dressed in '60s and '90s outfits.

Acceptance speeches are getting redundant for the rap-soul diva, who only seven months ago dominated the Grammy Awards.

Dance artist Fatboy Slim won three awards for ``Praise You.'' Ricky Martin's video of dancers undulating to ``Livin' La Vida Loca'' and Korn's arresting ``Freak on a Leash'' video featuring a slow-motion animated bullet each won two awards.

Comedian Chris Rock, dressed as Rigoletto from the Verdi opera in a huge poster in the lobby but all in white on stage, was the host.

``I may be the first black man in history to take the stage of the Met without a mop,'' Rock quipped.

Madonna, somewhat flustered by an over-enthusiastic fan in the audience, won an award for her salaciously comic dance with Mike Myers in ``Beautiful Stranger.'' Later, she was ushered out for an appearance by male impersonators dressed in a series of outfits from her videos.

``All I have to say,'' she said, ``is it takes a real man to fill my shoes.''

With the award ceremony's usual home, Radio City Music Hall, under renovation, MTV went uptown for a new venue this year. The clash between high and low culture gave producers a rich vein of material.

In the venerable hall's lobby, the display cases stuffed with opera costumes were cleaned out in favor of moments from MTV's past: the hip-hugger pants Madonna wore to the 1995 video awards, Busta Rhymes' red crushed velvet ensemble from his appearance at the podium with Martha Stewart two years ago.

Usually, MTV's annual special is the program where awards are less remembered than wardrobes or attempts to shock the censor. Perhaps intimidated by the surroundings, the rockers and rappers were somewhat tame.

Only rock's fun couple, Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson Lee, shaked things up. Lee wore a furry pink hat and her husband a trench coat. He flashed her backstage as she talked to reporters, causing her to run off the podium.

One well-dressed stage crasher made it to the stage before the Backstreet Boys, obliquely urging the audience to ``wake up at 3.''

For the second straight year, a Beastie Boy delivered a political lecture. Adam Yauch talked about nonviolence at last year's show, and this year Adam Horwitz's topic was sexual assault: he urged musicians to talk to promoters about protecting women at concerts after the reports of rapes at Woodstock '99.

Ten years after winning MTV's first video award for rap music, actor Will Smith won best male video for his tropical tribute, ``Miami.''

``I never killed nobody in none of my records, I never used profanity in none of my records, and still I managed to get up here,'' he said.

Rock poked fun at white rappers and boy bands, although Kid Rock fought back with a raucous collaboration featuring members of Aerosmith and Run-DMC.

``I want to know who will be the real Backstreet Boy, the one who gets Britney Spears pregnant,'' he said.

A wrinkled, shaggy-haired David Bowie, looking slightly lost as he sauntered onstage to introduce a performance by Hill, was a visual reminder of how time passes quickly in MTV's world of pop music.

``Yo,'' he said softly in a British accent.