Lady Gaga has been having a huge year, and it only got bigger when she walked into the VMAs and ended up owning most of the night. She already grabbed attention earlier in the year with her song Abracadabra and now her awards shelf is even fuller because she picked up four more VMAs.
Her whole performance went viral almost instantly. Millions watched it online in the first week, and fans kept talking about how they were glad to be around during the same time she is making music.
Her set was done in this wild theatrical style that almost felt like something out of a Halloween stage play and people really leaned into it. She performed Abracadabra while standing high above the crowd in a huge scarlet gown that spread out over a cage full of dancers who looked like they were losing their minds down there.
Even though she did not move from the waist down and was locked into the outfit, she still pushed a ton of energy through her upper body, and you could tell she was really slipping fully into the character. Her voice did not fall flat either because she sounded exactly like the record and almost made it look easy.
Then there was a quick moment when she dropped straight down into the dress, and suddenly she was in a totally different outfit. She came back up with new hair, new makeup, and a dusty rose gown instead of the red one, and the dancers around her burst out to do more intense choreography.
That switch marked the first big performance of her new song The Dead Dance since it came out the same week as the VMAs. The whole thing had this eerie vibe, and people could not get enough of the way she mixed both songs together in one long piece.
She also walked away as the biggest winner of the night. She took home Artist of the Year, Best Collaboration for Die With A Smile with Bruno Mars, and both Best Direction and Best Art Direction for Abracadabra.
When she accepted the Artist of the Year trophy, she said: “Winning an award honoring my entire career at 38 years old is a hard thing to get my head around. On the one hand, I feel like I’ve been doing this forever. And on the other hand, I know I’m just getting started.”
Fans on social media left a lot of comments about how she always shows up strong for the VMAs and how her vocals and costumes keep proving she is the full package. Many were saying that it is amazing she is still pushing this hard almost twenty years into her career.
It seems pretty clear that Gaga is still shaping the music landscape and doing it in her own style. Performances like this are a good reminder of why she has stayed such a massive force for so long.
