The 2023 VMAs are right around the corner, with the awards night being September 12th. This award show is one of the highlights for music artists of the year with the incredible performances and of course the awards themselves. Artists have the potential to win many different awards, but the ones everyone is most excited about are Song of the Year, Artist of the Year, Video of the Year, and Best New Artist. View this year’s nominees here.

Song of the Year:
New releases this year have been additions to everyone’s playlists. These songs have taken the world by storm as their streaming numbers continue to rise, but which one has the greatest potential to win? Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero”, the 3rd track on her newest album “Midnights”, has broken many records.”’Anti-Hero has officially become Taylor Swift’s biggest single to date by at least one metric: It’s topped the Billboard Hot 100 now for eight non-consecutive weeks. That’s one more than the seven weeks her previous leader in that ranking, “Blank Space,” managed back in 2014-15.” says Variety. This song has become so popular because of Swift’s ability to display her worst fears, and her anxiety as well as create a song that people can relate to using music.

The other songs in this category like Kill Bill, and Vampire, are also contenders for a win in this category. Olivia Rodrigo, a young artist whose new album GUTS released on September 8th, 2023, includes “Vampire”, which gained 51.5 million streams during its first week.
SZA’s pop song, “Kill Bill” spent a long time on Billboard’s Top 100. According to a Billboard interview with Jason Lipshutz, “(Kill Bill) defined the first chunk of 2023 in a way that no other song has.”

Artist of The Year
All of the artists nominated this year have an immense amount of talent, but it’s obvious that one stands above the others. Taylor Swift, the most streamed female artist on Spotify, has a fan base estimated to be over 518 million. Her recent release, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)”, coupled with her ongoing “Eras Tour,” solidifies her position in this award ceremony. Some tickets to her concerts have cost over 3,000 dollars, and she is said to have made over $591 million in sales.

Comparatively, these other artists, while renowned, fall short in terms of their monthly listeners on Spotify. None of these amounts come close to Taylor Swift’s 100.4 million monthly listeners. With these statistics, it’s very easy to see that there is a clear winner, Taylor Swift.
Beyonce – 52.4 Million
Doja Cat – 58.9 Million
Karol G – 55.6 Million
Nicki Minaj – 63.6 Million
Shakira – 65.1 Million

Video Of the Year
The Video of the Year award is a pretty big deal, and we can’t forget the unforgettable moment last year at the 2022 MTV VMA’s when Taylor Swift won this category with “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”. When she accepted her award, she announced the release of her tenth studio album, “Midnights”! This year, she is nominated for Video of the Year again but has some tough competition.

“Flowers” by Miley Cyrus, is a song written about a breakup with Liam Hemsworth. This is one of Cyrus’ biggest hits in a long time and broke many records, surpassing one million streams only 12 days after being released. “Vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo is the newest release out of all of nominees, so the popularity levels are lower. When “Kill Bill” by SZA was released, it immediately became popular, and now has 69 Million views on YouTube. We will have to admit that 2023 is the year of Taylor Swift, with her new album releases and the Eras Tour. Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” video beats out all of the other ones with a strong 158 million views. Out of all of the nominees, there’s some great competition, but “Anti-Hero” just seems unbeatable. Swift has millions of fans who will vote for her, and the music video is too good! As you can tell, the VMA’s will be very entertaining for all of us. Make sure to watch them on MTV on Tuesday, September 12th at 8:00!

Best New Artist
The last big category is ‘Best New Artist’. In the past people like Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, and Cardi B have won this award, but who will win this year?

The Nominees for this year’s award are:
GloRilla – 3.7 Million Spotify Monthly Listeners
Ice Spice – 41 Million Spotify Monthly Listeners
Kaliii – 9.4 Million Spotify Monthly Listeners
Peso Pluma – 50.4 Million Spotify Monthly Listeners
PinkPantheress – 25.2 Million Spotify Monthly Listeners
Reneé Rapp – 4.2 Million Spotify Monthly Listeners

All these artists have had an amazing start to their careers, but one or two in particularstick out to me. If you keep up with recent trends, you most definitely know who Ice Spice is. You may also know PinkPantheress for her popular songs “Boy’s a Liar” and “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” with Ice Spice. She has also been featured on the Barbie Movie soundtrack with the song “Angel”. Ice Spice has also had some extremely successful and popular collaborations with people such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, and Lil Tjay. Her fame started back in 2022 with the release of her hit song “Munch” which gained popularity on TikTok quickly. After that song, she kept releasing hits and collaborations. If you were to ask anyone in our school if they know who Ice Spice is, they would almost definitely say yes. If you ask me, I think Ice Spice has the best chance of winning Best New Artist. You can tune in tonight at 8:00 p.m. to see who will win these categories, and more!