This year Madonna dominated the MTV Music Video Awards, with seven wins, including Artist of the Year and, more specifically, Best Collaboration with Singer Sabrina Carpenter. Madonna is the true embodiment of an ICON, she is a global icon, fashion diva and the ‘Queen of Pop’. This raises an uncomfortable question for fans of pop this year: Did she really deserve her awards this year, or was she just chosen for nostalgia purposes to please the masses?
Although the Madonna + Sabrina duo sounds perfect on paper, their should-be success ‘Bring your Love’ has almost never been heard of— the song itself performed okay in the charts, reaching 67 million streams. But, in stark contrast, ‘Stateside + Zara Larsson’ reached 760 million streams! It’s obvious which song deserved the win this year. The VMA’s have left everyone wondering now, does the audience’s preference even matter? It seems the most popular artist always wins, regardless of whether they deserved it.
The song ‘Stateside’ was an iconic hit with the two rising stars PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson; it was clearly going to be big. But when American Figure Skater Alysa Liu used the song in her final performance and won, the song immediately became a TikTok craze, with fans immediately going to learn the dance that Liu had choreographed. The song immediately hit number 3 on the UK Singles Chart, and number 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
‘Stateside’ itself pays homage to British Music History, mixing Groove Armada’s 1999 ‘I See You Baby’ with Estelle and Kanye’s ‘American Boy’, effortlessly blending 90s rave culture with 00s pop. PinkPantheress’s ability to use retro millennial music with contemporary songwriting is what enchants her new listeners. Her soft, garage-band sounding acoustics mixed with the effortlessly talented, possibly best pop girl of the year, Zara Larsson, is what transformed this song into the best collaboration for me.
Ultimately, the VMA’s left everyone shook, including PinkPanthess herself who seemed visually upset about the loss. Fans have taken to TikTok asking if Zara and PinkPantheress were robbed this year. ‘Stateside’ has given us a new wave of pop/rave taken to the clubs and dance floors for this generation, whereas ‘Bring your Love’ has been deemed by the internet as generic and forgettable.