Women dominate the 40th VMAs

Elena Hernandez - Music Editor

Last Tuesday, MTV held its annual Video Music Awards (VMA), a star-studded celebration of its 40th anniversary, with rapper Megan thee Stallion hosting. Rapper Eminem opened the ceremony with a compilation of hits accompanied by a squad of Slim Shady lookalikes, a callback to his performance in 2000. Throwbacks and nostalgia seemed to be key points in the production of this year's ceremony, as many iconic clips were sprinkled through the show. Some references included Madonna’s 1984 “Like a Virgin” performance, Miley Cyrus twerking on Robin Thicke in 2013, and a 2009 performance of “You Belong with Me” by Taylor Swift.

A-lister Taylor Swift won the top award, Music Video of the Year, for “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone. This marks her third year in a row winning the category. Swift won Artist of the Year, making it her second in a row. Other pop stars like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter appeared. Roan took the stage in a full suit of armor for a fiery debut performance of her latest smash hit: “Good Luck, Babe!”. She later returned to the stage to accept the award for Best New Artist, where she read straight from her diary. “Thank you to the people who are fans, who listen to me, who hear me when I share my joy and my tears,” she said. “And for all the queer kids in the Midwest watching right now, I see you. I understand you because I’m one of you. And don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t be exactly who you want to be.”

Katy Perry performed a ten-minute medley of her biggest hits, including: “Firework,” “California Gurls,” “I Kissed a Girl,” and “Dark Horse.” She opened with an out-of-this-world performance of “E.T.” suspended midair, giving her a zero-gravity look. She then went on to accept the highest honor of the night, the MTV Video Vanguard Award, where she joked, “I did that all on the first day of my period, can you believe it?”

Bonus Album Review

Charli XCX - Brat: References to Charli XCX’s sixth studio album were everywhere this summer, with millions declaring it a “brat summer.” Even the Harris-Walz Twitter page donned a lime green header at one point, after XCX tweeted “kamala IS brat” shortly before. I simply couldn’t go without reviewing it, even if it’s just a mini one. The record is full of hyper-pop tracks that XCX is known for, and club-pop tracks inspired by the European house music scene.

While Brat is one of XCX’s “most confrontational record[s]” yet, it is also one of her most vulnerable. Interspersed between bangers like “Club Classics,” “Von Dutch,” and “B2b” are softer tracks riddled with lyrics expressing her desire for a baby and insecurity in her career. In “I Think About It All the Time,” she sings, “So, we had a conversation on the way home / Should I stop my birth control? / 'Cause my career feels so small / In the existential scheme of it all.”

On her Tik-Tok viral hit “Apple,” which spawned a dance on the app, she uses the fruit as a metaphor for herself and her family. She sings: “I think the apple’s rotten right to the core / From all the things passed down / From all the apples coming before.”

XCX plans to release Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat on October 11th. It features 15 new unheard tracks

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