Nirvana won the 1992 MTV award for Best New Artist in a Video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
The award was presented at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, held on September 9 at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles. Nirvana’s victory reflected the rapid impact of the band’s breakthrough album Nevermind, released in September 1991. The video’s chaotic high-school-gym setting helped make the song one of the defining images of the early 1990s alternative-rock explosion.
Nirvana also won Best Alternative Video at the same ceremony for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The band’s members—Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl—accepted the award during a ceremony that helped bring grunge further into the mainstream.
The official category name included “in a Video,” which is why some references describe it as Best New Artist in a Video rather than simply Best New Artist. Nirvana remains the canonical answer either way.