Category Music

The 2024 MTV Video Music Awards on Wednesday were full of recap-worthy moments: Beyond the distinctive red carpet style, the energy of live performances from the likes of Katy Perry, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Karol G, Lenny Kravitz, and host Megan Thee Stallion made the night feel quite fun. (And we deserve it after that debate, right?)

Below, find all the moments we loved—or felt slightly weird about!—during the 2024 MTV VMAs.

Video Vanguard winner Katy Perry’s QR code lower back tattoo

Let me be clear: I am a lower-back-tattoo evangelist who is staying very silent about whether or not I have one for the sake of my parents, but a scannable hashtag is…a wild thing to ink onto your body. (Actually, maybe it’s temporary, or just some kind of living art piece?) Then again, Charli XCX did dub this the season of “showing off my brand-new little back tattoo.”

Sabrina Carpenter’s alien makout

Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this column, we’ll be examining the celebrity couples that give us hope for our own romantic futures and trying to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.

I feel strongly that a May-December relationship is only as mature as the youngest person in it, which is why it so reliably bums me out when the Leonardo DiCaprios of this world are spotted cavorting with women in their 20s. I’m not trying to be a Church Lady—a before-my-time SNL reference I never would have gotten if I hadn’t briefly dated an older comedian, by the way—but if your whole thing is dating people who have only recently gained the legal right to drink, I do have certain questions about your maturity level.

That said, I do think a May-December relationship can work, as long as the balance of power is relatively equal: Just take 78-year-old Cher and her 38-year-old on-again, off-again music-executive boyfriend Alexander “AE” Edwards. I mean, okay, nobody in this world has as much power as Cher—but at least the May component in this case is, you know, a grown adult. On Tuesday, the two were spotted making a date night out of the 2024 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, and forgive me for doing celebrity Kremlinology based solely on paparazzi photographs, but…the romantic vibes have never seemed stronger. (Is demurely kissing your much-older girlfriend on the cheek technically PDA, actually? Unclear, but I like it.)

There’s a line from Slouching Towards Bethlehem that I once looked up online, printed out on my office printer, and brought with me on a road trip in my early 20s (yes, really): “One of the mixed blessings of being 20 and 21 and even 23 is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened before.” Does that quote go hard as hell? Absolutely. But now that I’m in my seasoned early 30s, I’m ready to paraphrase Joan Didion and say that actually, one of the mixed blessings of being 30, 31, and even 32 is realizing that you can keep being confused and deranged once you’re off your parents’ health insurance.

It’s obviously not news that you can keep on being a flop after you’ve graduated from your 20s (hello, Carrie Bradshaw got six seasons, two movies, and a spinoff out of it!), but I won’t lie: As chaotic and often miserable as my 20s were, it was also nice to be so…what’s the phrase I’m looking for? “Dialed-in?” “Culturally relevant?” “Directly marketed to?” There’s definitely a lot I don’t understand about the current zeitgeist, from the rise of the soul tie to the concept of being “boysober,” but as I’ve crept further and further into my third decade of life, I’ve realized how ridiculous it was to think that all things fun and messy and risible would disappear from my life once I learned what an FSA account was, and paid off (some of) my credit card debt.

As fate would have it, we seem to be entering something I’d like to term a ~Saturn return girl summer~, with Charli XCX’s much-memed latest album Brat signifying the true ascendance of the semi-grown adult who still wants to have madcap adventures despite being in possession of an extensive nighttime skin-care routine that involves at least one wildly expensive unguent. (God, I could cry for all the time I went to sleep in my 20s covered in a fine sheen of glitter and pizza grease.) I once thought my 30s would be all about taking a warm bath to Enya’s “Dark Sky Island” and then going to sleep early, and I’m not going to lie—that does happen with no small degree of frequency. But I also want to embarrass myself in the club to “Talk Talk” at my earliest opportunity! Women contain multitudes!

Political candidates blasting the song of their choice all over the campaign trail—often without checking with the artist first—is nothing new. But current vice president and 2024 presidential hopeful Kamala Harris clearly does things a bit differently. On Tuesday, news surfaced that Beyoncé herself had given Harris permission to use her song “Freedom” throughout her presidential campaign. This isn’t the first time Beyoncé has lent her support (or, at the very least, her music) to prominent Democratic candidates—she famously sang the national anthem at former president Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration—but the speed with which she must have greenlit Harris’s song choice is genuinely impressive, given that President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday and Harris walked out to “Freedom” at her first official visit to her campaign headquarters on Monday.

“Freedom,” which also features Kendrick Lamar, remains one of the most popular songs on Beyoncé’s hit 2016 album Lemonade, making it clear that Harris’s team is already very good at aligning with the musical zeitgeist. (I mean, she’s got Charli XCX’s approval!) Beyoncé isn’t the only member of the Knowles family to mobilize around Harris’s newly minted campaign, either. Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles (known to fans as Ms. Tina), endorsed Harris on Sunday, sharing a photo of them together and writing on Instagram: “New, Youthful, Sharp , , energy !!!!…Go Vice President Kamala Harris for President.”

True coconut-pilled Kamala heads will know that this song has some thematic relevance to Harris’s own family lore: In 2020, she shared a story about attending a civil rights march in Oakland, California, with her family as a child. “I’m fussing,” Harris explained, “and [my mother’s] like, ‘Baby, what do you want? What do you need?’ And I just looked at her and I said, ‘Fweedom.’”

Hopefully, more freedom—especially for the marginalized groups who would suffer most under a second Trump presidency if the repressive policies outlined in Project 2025 are realized—is exactly what a Harris presidency could bring about.

On “Big Boy”—the opening track of her debut album, Dopamine—Normani makes it clear she’s arrived. “Only ever see this type of shit in the movies,” she sings over blaring horns and clattering percussion. “Only ever see this type of shit once in your life.” Taken in combination with the striking album artwork, which sees Normani strapped to a shiny black rocket, it’s a statement of intent: Normani is finally ready for launch.

“Finally” because, as any Normani fans know, it’s been a long road to lift-off. First rising to fame as part of Fifth Harmony—the girl group that became The X Factor’s greatest success, selling nearly 15 million units in the United States alone—Normani appeared to be the member best equipped to become a solo success, thanks to her exacting taste and jaw-dropping abilities as a dancer and performer. And, with a handful of collaborative singles that hit the top 10, as well as the Max Martin-produced banger “Motivation,” which received critical acclaim for its power-pop sound and Y2K-throwback video, she came out of the gate swinging.

Yet as the years rolled on, the distance between Normani’s beginnings as a solo artist—she first announced an album was on the way six years ago—and the release of said album has been the subject of heated discussion. (Indeed, the URL for the website announcing Dopamine winkingly reads wheresthedamnalbum.com.) More recently, it emerged that the delays were due, in part, to both of her parents being diagnosed with cancer, prompting a period when Normani’s focus was, understandably, trained on her family and not her career. (They have both since recovered.) Yet the enthusiasm of her fans around the project has never abated—a fact that she’s grateful for. “It’s been a journey of endurance, so I’m most excited about finishing what I started, finally,” she tells Vogue of releasing the album.

Finish it she has, and then some. Dopamine is packed to the rafters with genre-bending hits that nod to the heyday of some of Normani’s biggest influences: the thundering percussion of Timbaland, the effortlessly raunchy wordplay of Missy Elliott, the silky-smooth vocals of Brandy. (The latter even makes an appearance on the standout track “Insomnia,” her feathery ad-libs threaded through the background.) But it also showcases Normani’s more vulnerable side, not least on the atmospheric James Blake collab “Tantrums,” which charts the dissolution of a relationship over reverb-laden synths and skittering beats. It turns out Dopamine was more than worth the wait—and with its rollercoaster ride through the history of R&B, it fully lives up to the euphoric promise of its title.

Todd Phillips’s Joker made over $1 billion when it was released in 2019 and earned its formidable lead, Joaquin Phoenix, a best-actor Oscar. So, it was, of course, only a matter of time before we heard that the twisted psychological thriller centered on the green-haired super villain and Batman adversary would be getting a sequel. What is startling, however, is that the new project is a jukebox musical and Lady Gaga is taking on one of its starring roles.

On June 13, 2022, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that the multi-hyphenate, last seen on screen as the flamboyant Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci, was in early talks to join Phoenix in Joker: Folie à Deux. (The film’s title, revealed by Phillips on social media, is a reference to a medical term for an identical or similar mental disorder that affects two or more individuals, usually members of the same family.) Then, on August 4 of that year, she herself confirmed the news, posting a musical teaser to social media that shows the silhouettes of the two actors dancing cheek to cheek.

Whether in her music, her art, or her inimitable wardrobe, Daphne Guinness has always defied classification—so it’s only natural that her fourth album would, too. With Sleep, which merges disco strings, ’80s-style synths, and darkly poetic lyrics (something of a Guinness signature), she allowed herself to make a record with no specific focus—nor any expectations, for that matter. “It’s a hybrid of everything,” Guinness tells Vogue. “There’s a bit of classical, electronic, dance. I suppose it’s about one’s musical tastes.”

Fashion fans first introduced to Guinness through her surreal wardrobe (including priceless Alexander McQueen pieces) may be surprised to learn just how long she’s been making music; her debut album, Optimist in Black, was released back in 2016. “I was always a musician—I just wasn’t writing music,” says Guinness. “I was always studying it or singing secretly in my room. It kept me sane—thank goodness for music.” With Sleep, however, she believes she has finally found her sound: “The sonic experience is probably better than any of the other [albums].”

And she’s right: The richly layered universe of Sleep includes songs and music videos dealing with love, loss, and the meaning of time—but in a danceable way. In “Hip Neck Spine,” directed by her longtime collaborator Nick Knight, Guinness grooves while singing about setting the world on fire; and in “Volcano,” directed by David LaChapelle, she recreates the 1978 thriller Eyes of Laura Mars while intoning: “I might look like an iceberg, but underneath, I’m a volcano.” As a body of work, it’s far and away her best yet.

Below, Vogue chats with Guinness about the inspiration for the album, recording at Abbey Road Studios, and bringing her fashion-forward visuals to life.

Vogue: I would love to hear the inception story for this album. When did you start thinking about creating it?

Daphne Guinness: It was a very long time ago—back in September 2021. I had just done a show, and then I went back into the recording studio and it became what it became. [Musician] Malcolm [Doherty] and I had a few tracks and ideas together; we weren’t even sure what was going to happen, really. The album developed slowly in the studio. We were in there for about two weeks, and then we’d let it settle, then come back for another few weeks. I’d written quite a lot of it, but a lot of it were just tunes in my head. You never know what the words are going to be until you’re under immense pressure, or they just present themselves. “Laika,” for example, was crazy. It had these Eastern chords, and I went for a long swim to try to figure out what it is. I was like, This is a Russian love song. This was two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. Then I was like, Oh, no! I didn’t want it to be a political thing or anything. But it’s still a good song, and it still stands up.

When it comes to putting on a show, Confidence Man lives up to its name: the band’s members are, it’s safe to say, daredevils. If you needed proof, you could look to their set at Glastonbury two years ago, where they emerged as one of the undisputed highlights of the weekend with a set that saw lead singers Janet Planet and Sugar Bones hurl each other across the stage to their high-octane anthem “Holiday.” Or simply take the video for their latest single, “I Can’t Lose You,” in which the pair climb into a helicopter in London’s Docklands, then proceed to whizz their way down the Thames hanging out of its open doors, thousands of feet above the city, as Planet nonchalantly swings her ponytail. Oh, and they’re both stark naked.

“When we were going to shoot it, I didn’t think I’d be scared, but it was genuinely terrifying,” says Planet, with a nervous laugh. “And I only have myself to blame, because it was all my idea. I saw this picture of this model flying topless over New York City in the ’80s, and I was like, ‘Let’s do that but take it one step further and be completely naked.’ It just felt like a very ballsy, Con Man concept to me.” Was it awkward, in any way, getting strapped into their invisible harnesses, or having the camera crew get all up in there with the angles? “Well, the pilot seemed pretty over it,” Planet deadpans. “He’d just done Mission: Impossible, I think.”

“I can go longer! Sorry, I’m giving such long-winded answers,” Nikki Glaser tells me when we hit the 40 minutes allotted for our phone interview. The subject of our conversation? Not her twice Emmy-nominated Max special Someday You’ll Die, not the song she wrote and recorded for the special, and not the viral zingers she delivered in Netflix’s The Roast of Tom Brady, either. (The internet unanimously anointed Glaser the funniest—and most brutal—of all the roasters.) “I could talk about Taylor Swift all day,” she adds. And that’s actually the purpose of our call: to understand how, at such an intensely busy period in her career, Glaser has found the time and unwavering enthusiasm to attend 17 of Taylor Swift’s Eras concerts. By the end of the tour, the tally will hit 22.

In the end, the answer is pretty simple: “It makes me feel so good. I don’t drink anymore, and I try not to do drugs—and honestly, this is just like a really good drug,” she says. “I’m kind of addicted.” Fans have spotted her, time and time again, installed not in the celebrity-heavy VIP tents but in the ticketed seats, wearing bedazzled getups and singing her heart out like no one is watching. It’s pure passion, with a capital P.

“I get a little bit sad at the idea that it’s going to run out at some point, and I’ll probably have to replace it with something else,” she reflects at one point in the call. “But it‘s not really hurting anyone, so I just lean into it. The more I embrace it, the less I’m embarrassed by it. At this point in my life, I’m not embarrassed by it at all, or I wouldn’t be talking to you about it.”

Without further ado, Glaser on Swift:

After weeks of rumors and speculation regarding when—if ever—Taylor Swift would endorse vice president and 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president, the singer-songwriter finally did so with a bang on Tuesday night, signaling her support for the Democratic candidate on social media shortly after Harris’s debate with former president and 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Posting a photo of herself and her cat to Instagram (a pointed reference to J.D. Vance’s viral invocation of the specter of the “childless cat lady”), Swift wrote: “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”

She went on: “I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.” In addition to decrying Trump’s use of predatory AI to give the false impression that Swift had endorsed him, Swift also urged her followers to make sure they’re registered to vote in the 2024 election, linking to the Vote.gov website from her Instagram stories.

I’m not saying Taylor Swift is going to singlehandedly save democracy or anything, but…have you seen the power of the Swifties for Kamala? With her loyal fan army behind her, it seems entirely possible that Swift actually will have some effect on this election. Harris’s running mate Tim Walz, for one, certainly seems to think so, praising Swift’s message shortly after she posted it.

“I’m grateful to Taylor Swift, and I say that as a cat owner,” he told Rachel Maddow late on Tuesday. “That was eloquent and clear and that’s the type of courage we need in America.”