The 2017 MTV Video Music Awards have come and gone and, in a nutshell, the show was a spectacular one. So many great performances, so many big awards won by members of the hip-hop community and enough juicy storylines to keep fans talking well into the week. However, there was also a much more tangible upside for several of the nominated artists, many of whom also took the stage to showcase some of their most popular tracks. According to Billboard, the broadcast helped to generate a sizable sales gain in the form of digital song downloads for songs that were performed at the August 27th show. Those numbers were acquired from Nielsen Music.
Collectively, the songs in question earned a 64 percent sales gain from August 26th to the 27th, climbing from 46,000 to 75,000 downloads sold. Some of the biggest movers were entries from Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN., including the two songs that made up his show-opening medley, "DNA" and "Humble." Those tracks saw sales increases of 47 percent and 41 percent respectively. "Humble" was one of the biggest winners from that night, taking home multiple awards including Video of the Year. After the latter award was announced, K. Dot gave thanks to God and the crew that has been by his side since the beginning of his career. "Man, glory to God every time, giving us these amazing talents. ...I ain't nothing wihout my team, Dave Free. I've been rocking with this guy since I was fourteen years old. We always put our heads together. He's one of the greatest visionaries today in the game."
Other notable gains included Logic's "1-800-273-8255," jumping a whopping 185 percent in sales after he gave an emotional, heartfelt performance alongside Alessia Cara and Khalid. Speaking of Cara, her track "Scars To Your Beautiful" rose 181 percent, while Fifth Harmony’s "Down" jumped 205 percent. There was a noticeable swagger brought to the stage by the women who make up Fifth, which was most obvious during their 5th member booting stunt. Ally Brooke later explained that it meant as an empowering statement about them as a group and not as a diss towards one former member, but there's no telling whether Camila Cabello is buying that or not.
