Grammy watch: Lady Gaga causes ‘Mayhem’ in Album of the Year race
Daniel Montgomery
Lady Gaga has finally dropped her new album.
Mayhem is her long-awaited solo follow-up to 2020's Chromatica — not counting 2024's Harlequin, a Joker: Folie à Deux companion album. She has been busy since the start of the decade, recording her second collaborative album with Tony Bennett (Love for Sale) in 2021 and contributing music to 2022's Top Gun: Maverick soundtrack. "The album started as me facing my fear of returning to the pop music my earliest fans loved," she told Pitchfork in January. Will her return to her roots bring her back to the Grammys?
Gaga has been a Recording Academy favorite from the very beginning, so much that it actually cost her a Best New Artist nomination. She had already contended for Best Dance Recording for her debut single "Just Dance" in 2009, so she was ineligible for the breakthrough award the following year when her debut album, The Fame, was eligible for consideration. Nevertheless, The Fame was nominated five times, including Album of the Year, and Record of the Year and Song of the Year for "Poker Face." She ended up winning twice in dance categories.
She was nominated for Album of the Year again in 2011 (The Fame Monster) and 2012 (Born This Way), but Gaga's following several albums were snubbed from the top category — 2013's Artpop, 2014's Cheek to Cheek with Bennett, 2016's Joanne, 2018's A Star is Born soundtrack, and Chromatica. During this period, the top categories were decided by secret nomination review committees that often made controversial choices. But The Weeknd's notorious shutout in 2021 — the same year Chromatica was overlooked- finally led the Grammys to abolish those panels. It's probably no coincidence that Gaga was finally nominated again the very next year for Love for Sale when all voting members of the Academy decided on nominees.
That should also be good news for Mayhem, assuming it's received at least as well as Chromatica was. That album scored a rock-solid 79 on Metacritic and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, ultimately spending the better part of a year on the chart. So far, she has supported Mayhem with three singles, though only one has cracked the top 10: "Die With a Smile," her chart-topping duet with Bruno Mars. "Disease" peaked at No. 27, while "Abracadabra," which she unveiled at the Grammys in February, so far has topped off at No. 13. Luckily, "Die With a Smile" was still in the top two as of the album's release; it may help keep the album at the forefront for longer. Longevity is important, not just on the charts but in the public consciousness.
She'll have a choice for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. "Disease" and "Abracadabra" are both moderate, well-reviewed hits, though neither has risen to the heights of "Die With a Smile." There's time for another single to emerge and potentially outpace them, and that might be a good idea to keep her top of mind for a nice, long Gaga era. Her performance in genre categories will depend on which categories she enters. She's likely to enter submit in both Best Pop Solo Performance and Best Dance Pop Recording. But will Mayhem be categorized as a dance/EDM album (like The Fame) or a pop album (like every album since then)? And don't forget Best Music Video, which she won for her classic "Bad Romance." So far, the lavish, theatrical "Abracadabra" is probably her best bet.
So off we go on another Gaga era. Let's see if she can cause Mayhem all through 2025.
Listening to Mayhem for the 2nd time right now. doesn’t strike me as aoty material, and being released so far from the end of the elegibility period will likely hurt it. Ari’s eternal sunshine felt a lot more like an aoty contender, and everything else that came after it stole its thunder.
This album is trying way too hard to recapture the past. I predict a #1 or #2 first week on the charts, but then a swift fall. Given the high-profile debut Abracadabra was given on the Grammys, it should have debuted higher and should not have stiffed at #13 (and then fallen to #39 the following week). I think reality will set in pretty quickly on this one.