Pop rock’s “people’s princess” Olivia Rodrigo took the stage at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards fresh off the release of her second studio album “Guts.”
Rodrigo performed “Vampire” and “Get Him Back!,” which received its matching music video earlier on Tuesday.
She took the stage directly after Lil Wayne’s hits-filled performance, starting with “Vampire” first. The creative direction of both performances directly referenced their music videos. Her performance of “Vampire” saw Rodrigo sitting in a moody, tree-covered set and ended with fireworks destroying the props and Rodrigo running off. Some stars, including Selena Gomez, looked confused at the sight after an off-stage handler escorted Rodrigo off the stage.
But not soon after, Rodrigo returned to the stage to perform “Get Him Back!” with a bunch of her lookalikes like in the video.
“Guts” debuted on Sept. 8 but was already much anticipated with the earlier releases of singles “Vampire” and “Bad Idea Right?” which she dropped this summer. Now, Rodrigo is up for six awards all for the lead single “Vampire,” including video of the year, song of the year, best pop, best cinematography and best editing.
Petra Collins, who previously helmed Rodrigo’s 2021 “Good 4 U” music video, directed the multi-nominated, bloody and gutsy (no pun intended) “Vampire” project.
Earlier this month, Variety’s chief music critic Chris Willman said of “Guts”: “A sophomore jinx would be a terrible thing to suffer before you’re old enough to have a legal drink to slug down the disappointment. It’s not something Olivia Rodrigo has to worry about. “Guts,” her second album, does feel at times like ‘Sour, Too’ — a picking-up-right-where-we-left-off extension of her Grammy-winning 2021 debut — but that can only be counted as a good thing, if the spark is still there. It is, in spades.”
He added, “Two years of maturation have not done anything to put a dent in how much accomplished and rocking fun her music was right out of the gate. One of the year’s canniest, most delightful albums, again? Of course it is.”
In her cover story for Rolling Stone released Tuesday, Rodrigo shared some background behind the album’s beautiful madness. She said, “Something I always grappled with, especially when I was younger, is feeling like I couldn’t be angry or express dissatisfaction or complain for fear of being ungrateful. It was drilled into me, and it caused a lot of problems. I had all this anger bubbling up inside me — especially when you’re a teenager and you’re confused and you feel like the world is out to get you and you’re so insecure — and I’d have dreams where I was going crazy. I felt like I could never be like that in real life.”
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