MTV has announced the 2025 Video Music Awards nominees for Best Group and Song of the Summer.
The nominees for this year’s VMA Social Categories were unveiled Friday, just a little over a week before the annual music awards show is set to air live from New York’s UBS Arena. This year’s Song of the Summer nominees include Benson Boone’s “Mystical Magical,” Chappell Roan’s pop breakup ballad “The Subway,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” and Tate McRae’s “Just Keep Watching,” the latter of which was an original song created for Brad Pitt’s “F1” movie.
By making her way into the category with her April single “Headphones On,” Addison Rae also landed her first-ever VMAs nomination. The same goes for BigXthaPlug, who scored a SOTS nom for his track with Bailey Zimmerman “All the Way,” and Ravyn Lenae, who was nominated for “Love Me Not,” her collaboration duet with Rex Orange County.
The 2025 VMAs nominees for Best Group, meanwhile, include All Time Low, the Backstreet Boys, Coldplay, My Chemical Romance, SEVENTEEN, BLACKPINK and the Jonas Brothers.
Lady Gaga still leads all of this year’s VMAs nominees with 12 total nominations. Bruno Mars and Kendrick Lamar follow closely behind her with 11 and 10 nominations each, respectively. Carpenter’s Song of the Summer nomination, however, brings her to nine total noms this year, which makes her this year’s fourth-most nominated VMAs artist.
Elsewhere, McRae’s two Song of the Summer nominations today for “Just Keep Watching” and her Morgan Wallen collab track “What I Want” bring her total nominations to six this year.
McRae is one of several artists already confirmed to be performing live at the 2025 VMAs. Other announced performers include Doja Cat, Post Malone, Jelly Roll, Conan Gray, Sabrina Carpenter, Alex Warren, Mariah Carey and Ricky Martin.
Fan voting for the Best Group category will open Tuesday, Sept. 2, at 11 a.m. ET on MTV’s Instagram Story and will close on Saturday, Sept. 6, at 11 a.m. ET. The voting will be split into three rounds, with the Best Group nominees pitted against each other in a bracket-style face-off that will give social media users the chance to vote for their favorite in each bracket.
Fan voting for Song of the Summer will launch after the Best Group voting window closes on Saturday, Sept. 6, at 11 a.m. ET on MTV’s Instagram Story. Voting for the category will last just one round and close on Sunday, Sept. 7, at 11 a.m. ET.
Check out the full list of the 2025 VMAs Song of the Summer and Best Group nominees, below.
BEST GROUP
- aespa
- All Time Low
- Backstreet Boys
- BLACKPINK
- Coldplay
- Evanescence
- Fuerza Regida**
- Grupo Frontera
- Imagine Dragons
- Jonas Brothers
- KATSEYE
- My Chemical Romance
- SEVENTEEN
- Stray Kids
- The Marías
- twenty one pilots
SONG OF THE SUMMER
- Addison Rae** – “Headphones On”
- Alex Warren – “Ordinary”
- Benson Boone – “Mystical Magical”
- BigXthaPlug** ft. Bailey Zimmerman – “All The Way”
- Chappell Roan – “The Subway”
- Demi Lovato – “Fast”
- Doja Cat – “Jealous Type”
- HUNTR/X: EJAE, Audrey Nuna & REI AMI** – “Golden”
- Jessie Murph – “Blue Strips”
- Justin Bieber – “Daisies”
- MOLIY, Silent Addy, Skillibeng & Shenseea – “Shake It To The Max (FLY) (Remix)”
- Morgan Wallen ft. Tate McRae – “What I Want”
- Ravyn Lenae** ft. Rex Orange County** – “Love Me Not”
- Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild”
- sombr – “12 to 12”
- Tate McRae – “Just Keep Watching”
(**) = First VMAs nomination
LL Cool J hosts this year’s VMAs, which will air live at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT Sunday, Sept. 7, on CBS and MTV. For streaming-only viewers, the awards show will also be simulcast live on Paramount + in the U.S.
