The MTV Video Music Awards 2025 show has come and gone, and I feel they hit it out of the park with the performances.

The award show took place on Sunday, Sept. 7, and featured 18 performances throughout the night as well as two pre-show sets.

All the artists did amazing jobs on their sets, and I think that there weren’t many negatives in the performances.

Hands down, my favorite performance of the night was Conan Gray’s, his song “Vodka Cranberry,” because of the set and the storytelling aspect of it.

The way in which the stage was set up was beautiful and full of flowers and greenery, with his “lover,” who was played by Corey Fogelmanis, lying in the center.

Something I value in music videos, songs and stage performances is if it can tell a story, so I loved how the set was inspired by “Romeo and Juliet.”

My final point that I will mention about Gray’s segment was how beautiful his outfit was, the red princely coat was a great callback to “Romeo and Juliet,” and the gold accents top it off so well.

Another performance that stood out to me was Sabrina Carpenter’s song “Tears.” The performance featured a bunch of drag queens, which was iconic.

It gave off the energy of being in the middle of a city. I loved the inclusion of the water pouring down during the dance break, the overall set felt like a perfect VMA moment.

I am not much of a fan of rock music, but the Ozzy Osbourne tribute was very well done. You can tell that Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Yungblud and Nuno Bettencourt put a lot of effort into the performance, and left an amazing tribute for a music legend.

Lady Gaga’s performance of “Abracadabra” and “The Dead Dance” was stellar as usual with Lady Gaga. I enjoyed seeing the filmed performance from her tour, it made the whole performance feel bigger.

Her outfits are also amazing, with that huge cage skirt, where Lady Gaga sat during “Abracadabra,” and where the dancers danced in during “The Dead Dance” was a cool visual.

One of my limited negatives from the performances is that KATSEYE only performed in the pre-show.

I feel that their choreography never fails, and they should have had a shot at the main stage.

I don’t listen to K-pop, so my base knowledge is a bit limited, but I feel like I see them everywhere online, so I don’t understand why they could perform on the main stage instead of the two pre-show performances.

While I am still on KATSEYE, I thought their outfits were so good. They were definitely simpler, but still nice. I loved the yellow accents throughout the girls’ performance of “Gnarly.”

Overall, I wasn’t really that disappointed with this year’s performances. They were all good in their own ways and showed off whoever was performing very well.