Jan. 11, 2026
2026 Grammy Nominee - Lady Gaga - "Abracadabra"
Welcome back to Hitmaker Chronicles! I'm your host, Garrett Fisher. This week we continue our Grammy countdown with Lady Gaga's "Abracadabra" - the spell cast during a commercial break that nobody saw coming. We'll trace how a scrapped slower song became a dance-floor resurrection, why the post-chorus whispers Latin words for love and death, and how Gaga's fiancé convinced her to face her greatest fear. It's a story about reassembling shattered mirrors, 40 backup dancers battling between light and dark, and proving that sometimes coming home means becoming the monster again.
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Caalaroga, Shark Media, I'm Garrett Fisher. And on February second,
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twenty twenty five, during the sixty seventh Annual Grammy Awards,
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millions of viewers went to grab snacks during a commercial break.
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Then Lady Gaga appeared on their screens, red spiked latex,
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dozens of dancers, a voice declaring the category is Dance
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or Die, and a song pulsating dark immediate that nobody
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had heard before. Abracadabra premiered as a music video during
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that Grammy commercial break, dropped on streaming platforms within fifteen minutes,
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and instantly transported listeners back to two thousand and nine,
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back to Bad Romance and Poker Face, back to the
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Fame Monster era when Lady Gaga was the most thrilling,
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unpredictable force in pop music. But getting to that moment,
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to Abracadabra, to the album Mayhem, to Gaga returning to
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dark pop after years of deliberately avoiding it, required her
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to face what she described as her greatest fear. Let's
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back up, because to understand why Abracadabra matters, you need
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to understand Lady Gaga's career arc and how far she
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traveled from the artist who made Bad Romance Stefani Jereminata
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became Lady Gaga, became a global phenomenon The Fame in
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two thousand and eight, the famed Monster in two thousand
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and nine, Born This Way in twenty eleven. That run
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established her as pop music royalty. Dark theatrical electronic pop
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with avant garde visuals and fearless performances. She won Grammys,
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sold out arenas, defined an era. Then something shifted. Art
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pop in twenty thirteen was divisive, Joanne in twenty sixteen
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was deliberately stripped down folk influenced a sharp turnaway from dance.
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Chromatica in twenty twenty returned to dance music, but with
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a different energy, softer, more healing, less aggressive than her
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early work. Through all of this, Gaga was growing as
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an artist. She won an Oscar for Shallow from a
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Star Is Born. She proved she could act, sing, jazz standards,
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working completely different genres. By twenty twenty four, she transcended
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pop star to become simply artist, someone who could do anything.
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But she hadn't made music like Bad Romance in over
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a decade. That dark, aggressive, electronic pop that first made
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her famous. She'd consciously moved away from it, evolved past it,
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she might have said, except her fans, the little monsters
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who'd been there from the beginning, missed it. They wanted
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that Gaga back, the one who scared and thrilled them,
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the one who made music that felt dangerous, and Gaga
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was terrified of going back. Here's what she told Vogue
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about making what would become Mayhem, her seventh studio album,
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released March seventh, twenty twenty five. The album started as
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me facing my fear of returning to the pop music
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my earliest fans loved. Read that again. Fear, not reluctance,
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not hesitation. Fear going back to that sound genuinely scared her.
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She explained. It like reassembling a shattered mirror. Even if
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you can't put the pieces back together perfectly, you can
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create something beautiful and whole in its own new way.
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The person who convinced her to face that fear was
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her fiance, Michael Polanski. Polanski told Variety, Michael is the
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person who told me to make a new pop record.
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He was like, Babe, I love you, you need to
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make pop music. Polanski himself added, like anyone would do
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for the person they love. I encourage her to lean
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into the joy of it. On the Chromatica tour, I
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saw a fire in her. I wanted to help her
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keep that alive all the time and just start making
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music that made her happy. So Gaga started working on
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new material. She assembled a core team producers Andrew Watt
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and Sirkute, with contributions from Gazapfelstein. Songwriter Amy Allen, who
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you'll remember from the Sabrina Carpenter episode, worked on multiple tracks.
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Polanski himself co wrote seven songs on the album. They
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recorded at Rick Rubin's legendary Shangri Lau studio in Malibu, California,
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and Gaga described the process as following her chaos wherever
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it took her, writing as many songs as she could,
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then being very cutthroat by the end about what made
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the album. The result was Mayhem, an album Gaga called
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her favorite record in a long time, an album that
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deliberately refused to have one cohesive sound. Art Pop was
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a vibe, Joanne was a sound. Chromatica had a sound.
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She explained, I actually made the effort making Mayhem to
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not do that, not try to give my music an outfit,
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but instead to allow myself to be influenced by everything.
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But she needed a second single. The album's first single, Disease,
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had been released October twenty fifth, twenty twenty four, dark
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electropop that hinted at this return to her roots. Then
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came Die with a Smile, her duet with Bruno Mars,
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which became a massive hit. For the second single, Gaga
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and her team had been working on a slower song.
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They were deep into it, building it out. Then something
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happened that changed everything. In an episode of the Song
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Exploder podcast, Gaga explained the moment Abracadabra was born. They
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were in the studio working on that slower track when
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producer Curecut played her an instrumental he'd been developing separately.
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Gaga was immediately drawn to its intensity, the pulsating beat,
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the aggressive energy. She decided to scrap the slower song
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entirely and start something new. The first first line she
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wrote was like a poem said by a lady in red.
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You hear the last few words of your life. Think
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about that line. It's designed to evoke spellcasting, ritual magic.
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A woman in red. Already dramatic already theatrical, reciting something
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that will change everything, the last words of your life.
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It's dark, it's gothic, it's pure Gaga. From there, She
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and Circuit built out the chord progression that would become
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the chorus, but Gaga wanted more layers, more meaning embedded
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in the song. Song engineer Paul LaMalfa compiled a selection
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of words for what would become the stuttering post chorus.
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The words he chose a moore and morta. If you
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know Latin, you know what those mean. A more love,
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morta death. Listen to the post chorus of Abracadabra and
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you'll hear Gaga singing Abracadabra more u Nanna Abracadabra more
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to Oohgaga, love and death woven into the incantation, the
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two themes that drive everything Gaga does. But there's another
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crucial element to Abracadabra. It samples Spellbound by Susie and
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the Banshees, a nineteen eighty one post punk classic This Matters.
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Susie Sue was one of the pioneering women in alternative music,
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someone who combined darkness with pop sensibility long before Gaga existed.
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By sampling Spellbound, Gaga was acknowledging her influences, connecting her
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work to that lineage of dark, female fronted pop music.
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The song credit Susie Sue, Susan Ballion, Budgie, Peter Edward Clark,
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John mcgeeawk, and Stephen Severin as co writers. Because of
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that sample, Gaga has always been transparent about her influences,
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about the history of music that informs her work. This
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wasn't stealing, this was honoring. Musically. The Abracadabra is dance pop, synthpop,
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and electro pop with house influences. The production is tight, layered, relentless,
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pulsating basslines, hypnotic synths, that stuttering post chorus that gets
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stuck in your head. Gaga's vocal delivery is commanding, mysterious, urgent.
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She's not over singing, She's letting the production carry weight
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while her voice adds drama and emotion. On Top Critics
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immediately noted echoes of Bad Romance and Alejandro, those early
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Gaga masterpieces. But Abracadabra isn't a retread. It's Gaga in
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twenty twenty five, with fifteen more years of experience, returning
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to that sound. With new sophistication. The lyrics explore facing
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life's challenges and finding magic in them. As Gaga explained
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to Ella, the song is about facing the challenge of
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life and the challenge of the night and finding the
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magic in it all. When you have to face the world,
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the people around you, life, your unique circumstances, your unique
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fabric in the world, and when you feel challenged with
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really showing everybody who you are. That theme showing everybody
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who you are, is key to understanding both the song
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and the Mayhem album. Gaga had spent years being many
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different versions of herself jazz singer, actress, folk rock artist,
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healing pop star, all valid, all authentic. But Abracadabra was
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about returning to the version of herself she'd been afraid
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to be again, the monster, the dark pop goddess, the
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woman in red who cast spells. The music video, co
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directed by Gaga alongside choreographers Paris Goebel and Bethany Vargas,
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made that duality explicit. It's shot in black, white, and red,
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those three colors doing all the visual work, and it
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depicts two gagas the Mistress of Mayhem, dressed in that
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red spike latex outfit and virgin Gaga dressed in white.
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Over forty backup dancers fill the screen, engaged in this intense,
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choreographed battle. The dance represents the internal conflict between these
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two aspects of Gaga, the darkness and the light, the
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monster and the innocent, the aggressive and the vulnerable. The
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message dance or die when life challenges you, when your
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inner demon's battle your better angels, you have a choice
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freeze up or dance through it. Paris Goebel's choreography is intricate, demanding, relentless.
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The dancers move as a mob, as individual artists, as
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extensions of Gaga herself, and Gaga in the middle of
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it all commands the chaos. The video also featured a
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partnership with MasterCard, which sparked both celebration and criticism. MasterCard
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helped fund the production and launched a contest where fans
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could recreate the Abracadabra dance. Thirty two winners appeared in
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a fan edition of the music video and attended an
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exclusive Club Mayhem dance party hosted by Gaga. Some saw
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this as innovative fan engagement, others saw it as corporate sponsorship.
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Diluting artistic vision. Gaga characteristically didn't apologize for it. She'd
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always understood that pop music exists in a commercial context.
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The trick is maintaining artistic integrity while working within that system. Interestingly,
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the costumes in the video demonstrate Gaga's commitment to sustainability.
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Many outfits were repurposed from vintage wedding dresses in previous projects.
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Gaga has become increasingly vocal about environmental issues, and even
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in a high concept video like Abracadabra, she insisted on
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making eco conscious choices. The song was released to radio
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on February eleventh, twenty twenty five, and a remix by
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Gisapfelstein dropped April twelfth. Gaga performed Abracadabra Everywhere Saturday Night
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Live on March eighth, where she pulled double duty as
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host and musical guest at Coachella at the twenty twenty
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five MTV Video Music Awards on The Howard Stern Show
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in acoustic, each performance emphasized different aspects of the song.
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The SNL performance was high energy, theatrical, full production. She
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wore a structured red ensemble that echoed the music video.
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The Stern performance was intimate, stripped down, revealing the song's bones. Commercially,
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Abercadabra peaked at number five on the Billboard Global two
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hundred and number thirteen on the US Billboard Hot one hundred.
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It topped charts in Lithuania, hit the top ten in Austria, Brazil, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland,
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and the United Kingdom. Those aren't bad romance numbers. That
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song went to number two in the US and dominated globally.
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But the music industry is different now. Streaming has changed
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how songs perform commercially, and Gaga in twenty twenty five
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I wasn't a new artist trying to prove herself. She
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was an established icon making the music she wanted to make.
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The real measure of Abercadabra's success is what it did
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for the Mayhem album. When the album dropped March seventh,
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twenty twenty five, it debuted at number one on the
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Billboard two hundred with two hundred nineteen thousand album equivalent units,
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the biggest week for a female album in twenty twenty five,
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Gaga's seventh number one album. Of those units, one hundred
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thirty six thousand were physical sales. Actual CDs and vinyl
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that people bought. In an era where physical sales are
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supposedly dead, Gaga moved seventy four thousand vinyl records in
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one week, her biggest vinyl sales week ever. The album
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also debuted at number one on top streaming albums with
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one hundred eight million streams, Gaga's biggest streaming week of
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her career. Critics praise Mayhem as Gaga at her apex,
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though some worried it approached self parody, but Gaga has
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never been afraid of that edge. She's always walked the
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line between art and camp, between sincerity and theatrical excess.
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On November seventh, twenty twenty five, Abercadabra was nominated for
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Record of the Year at the sixty eighth Annual Grammy Awards.
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It was recognition that Gaga's return to dark pop wasn't
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just nostalgia. It was artistically valid, technically excellent, culturally significant.
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The nomination meant something specific for Gaga. She'd swept the
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general field categories at the twenty twenty Grammys with Bad
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Romance winning Record of the Year for that song. Abracadabra
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being nominated in the same category felt like a validation
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she could go back to that sound and still be
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recognized as making important work. What makes Abercadabra more than
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to return to form is that it's not actually a return,
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it's a synthesis. Gaga took everything she'd learned from Joanne's
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stripped down intimacy, from Chromatica's healing energy, from her jazz work,
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from acting all of it, and poured it into making
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dark pop that was more sophisticated than what she'd created
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in two thousand and nine. The production is cleaner, more detailed,
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The songwriting is sharper, more self aware. The performance is
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more controlled, even as it feels wild. This is Gaga
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at thirty eight, not Gaga at twenty three. Same impulses,
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more refinement, and the album's concept mayhem chaos, following your
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demons wherever they lead, allowed her to make a record
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that jumped between genres without apology. Garden of Eden sounds
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like a two thousand's throwback love, drug, Echoes, love game,
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Blade of Grass showcases her folk pop side with a
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smile is pure romantic pop. Gaga described the album as
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a series of gothic dreams, images of the past that
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haunt me, and they somehow find their way into who
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I am today. That's what Abracadabra is. A Gothic dream
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from Gaga's past, updated for who she is now. The
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spell she's casting isn't about becoming someone she used to be.
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It's about integrating all herselves past and present, dark and light,
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monster and human into something whole. The chorus, with its
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repeated Abracadabra incantation, acts as empowerment. It's Gaga saying I
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can transform, I can change. I have magic and I'm
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not afraid to use it anymore. For an artist who'd
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spent years afraid to return to dark pop, Abracadabra represents
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a personal victory as much as an artistic one. She
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