2026 Grammy Nominee - Lady Gaga - "Abracadabra"

0:03 Caalaroga, Shark Media, I'm Garrett Fisher. And on February second, twenty twenty five, during the sixty seventh Annual Grammy Awards, millions of viewers went to grab snacks during a commercial break. Then Lady Gaga appeared on their screens, red spiked latex, dozens of dancers, a voice declaring the category is Dance or Die, and a song pulsating dark immediate that nobody had heard before. Abracadabra premiered as a music video during that Grammy commercial break, dropped on streaming platforms within fifteen minutes, and instantly transported listeners back to two thousand and nine, back to Bad Romance and Poker Face, back to the Fame Monster era when Lady Gaga was the most thrilling, unpredictable force in pop music. But getting to that moment, to Abracadabra, to the album Mayhem, to Gaga returning to dark pop after years of deliberately avoiding it, required her to face what she described as her greatest fear. Let's back up, because to understand why Abracadabra matters, you need to understand Lady Gaga's career arc and how far she traveled from the artist who made Bad Romance Stefani Jereminata became Lady Gaga, became a global phenomenon The Fame in two thousand and eight, the famed Monster in two thousand and nine, Born This Way in twenty eleven. That run

1:36 established her as pop music royalty. Dark theatrical electronic pop with avant garde visuals and fearless performances. She won Grammys, sold out arenas, defined an era. Then something shifted. Art pop in twenty thirteen was divisive, Joanne in twenty sixteen was deliberately stripped down folk influenced a sharp turnaway from dance. Chromatica in twenty twenty returned to dance music, but with a different energy, softer, more healing, less aggressive than her early work. Through all of this, Gaga was growing as an artist. She won an Oscar for Shallow from a Star Is Born. She proved she could act, sing, jazz standards, working completely different genres. By twenty twenty four, she transcended pop star to become simply artist, someone who could do anything.

2:29 But she hadn't made music like Bad Romance in over a decade. That dark, aggressive, electronic pop that first made her famous. She'd consciously moved away from it, evolved past it, she might have said, except her fans, the little monsters who'd been there from the beginning, missed it. They wanted that Gaga back, the one who scared and thrilled them, the one who made music that felt dangerous, and Gaga was terrified of going back. Here's what she told Vogue about making what would become Mayhem, her seventh studio album, released March seventh, twenty twenty five. The album started as me facing my fear of returning to the pop music my earliest fans loved. Read that again. Fear, not reluctance, not hesitation. Fear going back to that sound genuinely scared her.

3:21 She explained. It like reassembling a shattered mirror. Even if you can't put the pieces back together perfectly, you can create something beautiful and whole in its own new way. The person who convinced her to face that fear was her fiance, Michael Polanski. Polanski told Variety, Michael is the person who told me to make a new pop record. He was like, Babe, I love you, you need to make pop music. Polanski himself added, like anyone would do for the person they love. I encourage her to lean into the joy of it. On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her. I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy. So Gaga started working on new material. She assembled a core team producers Andrew Watt and Sirkute, with contributions from Gazapfelstein. Songwriter Amy Allen, who you'll remember from the Sabrina Carpenter episode, worked on multiple tracks.

4:20 Polanski himself co wrote seven songs on the album. They recorded at Rick Rubin's legendary Shangri Lau studio in Malibu, California, and Gaga described the process as following her chaos wherever it took her, writing as many songs as she could, then being very cutthroat by the end about what made the album. The result was Mayhem, an album Gaga called her favorite record in a long time, an album that deliberately refused to have one cohesive sound. Art Pop was a vibe, Joanne was a sound. Chromatica had a sound. She explained, I actually made the effort making Mayhem to not do that, not try to give my music an outfit, but instead to allow myself to be influenced by everything.

5:07 But she needed a second single. The album's first single, Disease, had been released October twenty fifth, twenty twenty four, dark electropop that hinted at this return to her roots. Then came Die with a Smile, her duet with Bruno Mars, which became a massive hit. For the second single, Gaga and her team had been working on a slower song. They were deep into it, building it out. Then something happened that changed everything. In an episode of the Song Exploder podcast, Gaga explained the moment Abracadabra was born. They were in the studio working on that slower track when producer Curecut played her an instrumental he'd been developing separately.

5:49 Gaga was immediately drawn to its intensity, the pulsating beat, the aggressive energy. She decided to scrap the slower song entirely and start something new. The first first line she wrote was like a poem said by a lady in red. You hear the last few words of your life. Think about that line. It's designed to evoke spellcasting, ritual magic. A woman in red. Already dramatic already theatrical, reciting something that will change everything, the last words of your life. It's dark, it's gothic, it's pure Gaga. From there, She and Circuit built out the chord progression that would become the chorus, but Gaga wanted more layers, more meaning embedded in the song. Song engineer Paul LaMalfa compiled a selection of words for what would become the stuttering post chorus.

6:43 The words he chose a moore and morta. If you know Latin, you know what those mean. A more love, morta death. Listen to the post chorus of Abracadabra and you'll hear Gaga singing Abracadabra more u Nanna Abracadabra more to Oohgaga, love and death woven into the incantation, the two themes that drive everything Gaga does. But there's another crucial element to Abracadabra. It samples Spellbound by Susie and the Banshees, a nineteen eighty one post punk classic This Matters. Susie Sue was one of the pioneering women in alternative music, someone who combined darkness with pop sensibility long before Gaga existed.

7:30 By sampling Spellbound, Gaga was acknowledging her influences, connecting her work to that lineage of dark, female fronted pop music. The song credit Susie Sue, Susan Ballion, Budgie, Peter Edward Clark, John mcgeeawk, and Stephen Severin as co writers. Because of that sample, Gaga has always been transparent about her influences, about the history of music that informs her work. This wasn't stealing, this was honoring. Musically. The Abracadabra is dance pop, synthpop, and electro pop with house influences. The production is tight, layered, relentless, pulsating basslines, hypnotic synths, that stuttering post chorus that gets stuck in your head. Gaga's vocal delivery is commanding, mysterious, urgent.

8:20 She's not over singing, She's letting the production carry weight while her voice adds drama and emotion. On Top Critics immediately noted echoes of Bad Romance and Alejandro, those early Gaga masterpieces. But Abracadabra isn't a retread. It's Gaga in twenty twenty five, with fifteen more years of experience, returning to that sound. With new sophistication. The lyrics explore facing life's challenges and finding magic in them. As Gaga explained to Ella, the song is about facing the challenge of life and the challenge of the night and finding the magic in it all. When you have to face the world, the people around you, life, your unique circumstances, your unique fabric in the world, and when you feel challenged with really showing everybody who you are. That theme showing everybody who you are, is key to understanding both the song and the Mayhem album. Gaga had spent years being many different versions of herself jazz singer, actress, folk rock artist, healing pop star, all valid, all authentic. But Abracadabra was about returning to the version of herself she'd been afraid to be again, the monster, the dark pop goddess, the woman in red who cast spells. The music video, co directed by Gaga alongside choreographers Paris Goebel and Bethany Vargas, made that duality explicit. It's shot in black, white, and red,

9:53 those three colors doing all the visual work, and it depicts two gagas the Mistress of Mayhem, dressed in that red spike latex outfit and virgin Gaga dressed in white. Over forty backup dancers fill the screen, engaged in this intense, choreographed battle. The dance represents the internal conflict between these two aspects of Gaga, the darkness and the light, the monster and the innocent, the aggressive and the vulnerable. The message dance or die when life challenges you, when your inner demon's battle your better angels, you have a choice freeze up or dance through it. Paris Goebel's choreography is intricate, demanding, relentless.

10:36 The dancers move as a mob, as individual artists, as extensions of Gaga herself, and Gaga in the middle of it all commands the chaos. The video also featured a partnership with MasterCard, which sparked both celebration and criticism. MasterCard helped fund the production and launched a contest where fans could recreate the Abracadabra dance. Thirty two winners appeared in a fan edition of the music video and attended an exclusive Club Mayhem dance party hosted by Gaga. Some saw this as innovative fan engagement, others saw it as corporate sponsorship. Diluting artistic vision. Gaga characteristically didn't apologize for it. She'd always understood that pop music exists in a commercial context.

11:21 The trick is maintaining artistic integrity while working within that system. Interestingly, the costumes in the video demonstrate Gaga's commitment to sustainability. Many outfits were repurposed from vintage wedding dresses in previous projects. Gaga has become increasingly vocal about environmental issues, and even in a high concept video like Abracadabra, she insisted on making eco conscious choices. The song was released to radio on February eleventh, twenty twenty five, and a remix by Gisapfelstein dropped April twelfth. Gaga performed Abracadabra Everywhere Saturday Night Live on March eighth, where she pulled double duty as host and musical guest at Coachella at the twenty twenty five MTV Video Music Awards on The Howard Stern Show in acoustic, each performance emphasized different aspects of the song.

12:13 The SNL performance was high energy, theatrical, full production. She wore a structured red ensemble that echoed the music video. The Stern performance was intimate, stripped down, revealing the song's bones. Commercially, Abercadabra peaked at number five on the Billboard Global two hundred and number thirteen on the US Billboard Hot one hundred. It topped charts in Lithuania, hit the top ten in Austria, Brazil, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Those aren't bad romance numbers. That song went to number two in the US and dominated globally. But the music industry is different now. Streaming has changed how songs perform commercially, and Gaga in twenty twenty five I wasn't a new artist trying to prove herself. She was an established icon making the music she wanted to make.

13:07 The real measure of Abercadabra's success is what it did for the Mayhem album. When the album dropped March seventh, twenty twenty five, it debuted at number one on the Billboard two hundred with two hundred nineteen thousand album equivalent units, the biggest week for a female album in twenty twenty five, Gaga's seventh number one album. Of those units, one hundred thirty six thousand were physical sales. Actual CDs and vinyl that people bought. In an era where physical sales are supposedly dead, Gaga moved seventy four thousand vinyl records in one week, her biggest vinyl sales week ever. The album also debuted at number one on top streaming albums with one hundred eight million streams, Gaga's biggest streaming week of her career. Critics praise Mayhem as Gaga at her apex, though some worried it approached self parody, but Gaga has never been afraid of that edge. She's always walked the line between art and camp, between sincerity and theatrical excess.

14:19 On November seventh, twenty twenty five, Abercadabra was nominated for Record of the Year at the sixty eighth Annual Grammy Awards. It was recognition that Gaga's return to dark pop wasn't just nostalgia. It was artistically valid, technically excellent, culturally significant. The nomination meant something specific for Gaga. She'd swept the general field categories at the twenty twenty Grammys with Bad Romance winning Record of the Year for that song. Abracadabra being nominated in the same category felt like a validation she could go back to that sound and still be recognized as making important work. What makes Abercadabra more than to return to form is that it's not actually a return, it's a synthesis. Gaga took everything she'd learned from Joanne's stripped down intimacy, from Chromatica's healing energy, from her jazz work, from acting all of it, and poured it into making dark pop that was more sophisticated than what she'd created in two thousand and nine. The production is cleaner, more detailed, The songwriting is sharper, more self aware. The performance is more controlled, even as it feels wild. This is Gaga at thirty eight, not Gaga at twenty three. Same impulses, more refinement, and the album's concept mayhem chaos, following your demons wherever they lead, allowed her to make a record that jumped between genres without apology. Garden of Eden sounds

15:51 like a two thousand's throwback love, drug, Echoes, love game, Blade of Grass showcases her folk pop side with a smile is pure romantic pop. Gaga described the album as a series of gothic dreams, images of the past that haunt me, and they somehow find their way into who I am today. That's what Abracadabra is. A Gothic dream from Gaga's past, updated for who she is now. The spell she's casting isn't about becoming someone she used to be. It's about integrating all herselves past and present, dark and light, monster and human into something whole. The chorus, with its repeated Abracadabra incantation, acts as empowerment. It's Gaga saying I can transform, I can change. I have magic and I'm not afraid to use it anymore. For an artist who'd spent years afraid to return to dark pop, Abracadabra represents a personal victory as much as an artistic one. She faced the fear, she made the music and it worked.

17:00 Michael Polanski said in interviews that it was one of the most incredible parts of this chapter of my life to live with and coexist alongside someone making art and being creative in ways that very few people get to experience. There's something moving about that Gaga, at this stage of her career in her life, had someone encouraging her to be bold, to return to what she loved, to stop running from her own artistic impulses, and she did it. She wrote Abracadabra, with the first line being about a lady in red reciting the last words of your life. She built a chorus around amor and morta, love and death.

17:40 She sampled Susie in the Banshees. She created a music video about dancing through internal conflict. She premiered it during the Grammy Awards to millions of unsuspecting viewers. She cast a spell and it worked. Whether Abracadabra wins Record of the Year on February second, twenty twenty six is almost beside the point. The real victory was Gaga proving to herself and to her fans that she could go home again, that the monster she'd been afraid to be was still there, still powerful, still necessary. At the end of the Abracadabra video, Gaga emerges from the chaos of the dance battle. Red Gaga and White Gaga have fought, and what's left is just Gaga, complex, contradictory, unafraid Abra, Cadabra, Love and Death, Dance or Die, the magic words that brought Lady Gaga back to herself. Next week on Hit Maker Chronicles, we continue our Grammy Countdown with Chapel Roones The Subway, the song she was terrified to release because fans already loved the live version. How a year long rollout tested her patience, why she threatened to move to Saskatchewan, and what happened when tourism to that Canadian province suddenly spiked. I'm Garrett Fisher.

19:00 Find your magic even if it scares you