2026 VMA Song of the Year - You Vote
Song of the Year is the one VMA category where the video is beside the point, so rank these seven on the writing alone: hook, structure, and what the words actually do on the page and in the ear. That is the axis here and nothing else moved the order, including how well any of them sold. Every entry still links its official video, because you should see what the song got built into, but the argument sits with the song. One of these took four people half an hour in a room. One was written to a screenplay's brief and had to give an animated character a reason to keep going. One was written almost alone, by the person singing it. They are not competing at the same job, which is what makes the comparison worth having. Voting closes 25 September. The order is the argument, so vote it into shape.
- 1
RAYE — WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!
Shout the title and you have already sung the hook. That is the hardest thing on this ballot to pull off and it looks like nothing. RAYE wrote it and co-produced it with Mike Sabath, in B flat minor, with a borrowed major chord that keeps tipping the gloom into brass-lit swing. Sixties girl-group bones, 2026 mouth. The switch from black-and-white to color lands exactly where the song opens up.
- 2
Ella Langley — Choosin' Texas
Thirty minutes. That is how long Langley, Luke Dick, Miranda Lambert and Joybeth Taylor took at an October 2024 writing retreat to land a premise that keeps paying off instead of repeating itself: she would rather keep the state than the man. Lambert sings background on it and produced alongside Ben West, so the joke has grown-ups behind it. The van bound for Tennessee closes the argument.
- 3
HUNTR/X: EJAE, Audrey Nuna, REI AMI — Golden
Seven writers, an animated feature to serve, and a brief that reads like homework: give the character what she wants. EJAE, Audrey Nuna and REI AMI sing it, and EJAE built the melody in a taxi. The bridge is why it places this high, inspirational pop dropping to sotto voce and interior before the final high A. The golden ring she grabs mid-air is that promise, staged. Likely winner, and it earns most of that.
- 4
Madonna & Sabrina Carpenter — Bring Your Love
Built on Inner City's Good Life, which does a lot of the lifting before either voice arrives. Madonna and Stuart Price write for the floor rather than the page: a chant you can learn in one pass, verses that get out of the way fast, Carpenter adding lightness on top instead of a second argument. The camera-wielding worshippers chasing the pair through the club match what the writing is doing.
- 5
PinkPantheress & Zara Larsson — Stateside
Four writers, two samples and an interpolation, Adina Howard and Groove Armada and William Orbit, stacked into something that moves like a single idea instead of a pile. The writing was already working on its own, at UK No. 3, nine months before Larsson arrived, and her part answers the crush rather than echoing it. The shop-window mannequins make the joke literal: wanting somebody, staged as display.
- 6
Olivia Dean — Man I Need
A want, said flatly, with no metaphor to hide behind. Dean has talked about knowing how you deserve to be loved and asking for it out loud, and the lyric does exactly that and stops. Groove carries more of the weight than the words do, which is a limit as much as a decision. The seven suitors on the filming lot spell the premise out for anyone who missed it.
- 7
BTS — SWIM
Nine credited writers, two minutes thirty-nine, and a lyric about keeping going that never finds a line you would repeat back to somebody. Ryan Tedder and RM are both on it, and the craft is audible and slightly anonymous. The chorus works on impact and thins by the fifth listen. The necklace that reads swim carries more story than the words manage.
