Lorde’s triumphant 2017 return didn’t exactly reach its dramatic peak at the VMAs on Sunday night, as the New Zealand–born artist — stuck at the awards show with the flu — apparently decided that, rather than lip-sync her way through a performance while ill, she would silently, very loosely groove to her own “Homemade Dynamite.†Part interpretive dance, part joyous attempt at transcending her illness, this is not your average VMAs performance. But it’s Lorde, so we’ll take it.
