Gaga never really built an Album of the Year narrative

[dit 46,438]

Mister Gaga needs to serve a A Star Is Born type of cohesive album but not lose the touch which makes her special which is the eccentric element. If she finally manages to combine both of her sides in a undeniably good way she will easily win imo. I think the Grammys are waiting for her to deliver that. 

Basically she needs an ASIB level album in terms of quality and pulling out her classic strengths of piano playing and strong vocals but also have some elements of her "weirdness" and GAGA essence. 

It will not only be critically acclaimed but she will smash even harder and serve another ASIB level success I think. The GP clearly ADORES her ballads but for the critics she needs to also merge the weird pop element to some of the tracks. Something akin to Florence's work I think...strong vocals but also interessting high concept art. 

[AnglerfishbraBENUS 5,734]

she’ll win when she posts her self titled piano driven pop album ‘Stefani’

[LilyLark 10,095]

8 hours ago, Noir said:

I really thought LFS was gonna take it tbh 

I feel like if any album were going to win it would've been TFM and maybe Born This Way. I agree Joanne deserved a nomination at least, what I would give for the amount of promo she did for that era for Chromatica. We we're so lucky and still fans complained. But I get what you mean, her label doesn't capitalise on her album's singles. I mean she has more missed hit single opportunities than most artists I know. 

Born this Way is the one that probably had the best chance at AOTY, despite TFM, TF, ASIB, and Chromatica being better reviewed. Grammys look at sales + reviews + cultural impact most of the time. If Adele hadn't released that year, it would have been hers imo.

Yeah, part of the issue is Interscope doesn't push her singles very much...but that's par for the course. Look at how they pushed Olivia's singles over Billie's. The label often picks a particular artist from a particular genre and tends to pour all their attention on them.  Dua's a good example. I am in no means shading her-I'm a big fan-but in the US her numbers were pretty weak for FN in terms of sales (I think it opened with under 70k) and even the streaming in the US was good-but not that good. But the label pushed her HARD and her streaming numbers in the US went way, way up and her album even climbed the charts months later. 

In terms of Gaga, Replay and ARUTW could have been massive hits. Then again, it's possible Interscope is just giving Gaga a lot of freedom...like I love 911 but I can't imagine Interscope wanted her to put that (one of her least accessible tracks) out as a single.

At the end of the day, I sort of agree with @Bradley that Gag needs a narrative to finally win the AOTY. But I also suspect there will never be a full on BTW style promotion again, not just because Gaga might not want to do that level of promo anymore but because Interscope might not want to invest in such a heavy roll out.

[Joaco95 1,631]

9 hours ago, Bradley said:

I think she can get AOTY, if she just does that thing she hasn't been doing, work her magic in the studio, and then do what Doja and Dua have been doing. Actually dance the album out on a real stage, consistently. Brits, VMAs, EMAs, SNL, iheartradio, jingle bell ball, coachella, rock in rio, X Factor, Graham Norton, NFJ, AMAs, holiday specials, Tour DVD, documentary, and then the Grammys. I'm hoping Bobby is still interested in doing the same for LG7. She deserves it. If they could give Taylor Swift three AOTYs, they can start giving her what she's due.

I agree till this

You don't need this much promo for AOTY, just look at Beck's Morning Phase AOTY.

I know who is him but I never knew he released another album till the grammys.

She just need to put her best art and we need not to get to much into all these awards, they look cute but at the end of the day it doesn't mean anything at all, since the critic can be so divided nowadays and the grammy so predictable. 

or she can do a rock album, those always wins 

[Roseblud Kisses 685]

Disagree. They really don’t want ha to win AOTY. If they did she would have won for TFM, or LFS. They’re more than happy to nominate ha for the ratings and because she’s Gaga but that’s it. She’s likely to be like what Glenn Close is to the Academy. They are acknowledging ha, not ha art. 

Unless, in 2038, Gaga releases some hit song with a current young star that wins over all the newbies, like what Carlos Santana did in 1999, 30 years after ‘Black Magic Woman’.

[Roseblud Kisses 685]

45 minutes ago, AnglerfishbraBENUS said:

she’ll win when she posts her self titled piano driven pop album ‘Stefani’

Exactly. Only if Gagz goes down the predictable path will they then award ha. Grammys so predictable.

[voltron92 2,345]

17 hours ago, NATAH said:

i feel like the only era without leaks was TF era cus she was starting out 

these leaks have ruined a lot of the roll outs. It makes me sad.

[Mr S 8,672]

She hasn't created a great album yet. TFM is as close as she got and it's just an EP. 

[River 116,231]

She's not in her 20s kids, she's a grown woman, better learn to grow up together with her or you will be stuck in 2011 for another 10 years, she's mature, more responsible, having a stable relationship, she's, basically living her 30s life.

You can't compare FN Dua to Chromatica Gaga. you can however compare FN Dua to TF/M and BTW Gaga.

She's not the only artist that the pandemic messed up their album release, one example is OneRepublic's album Human, the release was postponed because of the pandemic to August 2021, almost one year in total after the original plan.

If we go a bit off the road, Hollywood productions didn't work for almost a year leaving production teams and actors without their jobs.

When an artist sees all the album promo and plans just falling apart one after the another, what they considered to be one of the best album release in their career, don't expect them to smile about, it's depressing, it's like watching someone stealing your art and you can't do anything about it.

Just give her and any other artist a break already.

[KORG 4,756]

ASIB & TFM were AOTY as far as I'm concerned. Nothing else nominated even came close to them.

[hijadeputa 3,933]

23 hours ago, bionic said:

Gaga will never have a campaign on the scale of The Fame Monster/Born This Way again. This doesn't mean she can never win AOTY- plenty of artists have won against campaigning opponents while being very low-key themselves.

People said she was never gonna have a top 5 hit or even top 10 after AP so yeah I would not say that 

[Nycboy 1,092]

On 4/6/2022 at 1:01 PM, flyaway said:

What will lead Gaga to earn that category is to really craft a record that exposes all her strenghts as an artist ( The lyrics from Chromatica, the vocals from ASIB and Joanne, her talents as a pianist and the edge and experimental side from BTW). That's it

I totally agree with this. While Chromatica was consistently good, it’s not multi dimensional enough for AOTY. While ASIB has killer vocals, it doesn’t have a strong personal narrative. I think she’d have her best shot with a BTW- type album that mixes genres and sounds, adds a touch of experimentation, political themes, personal themes, but then EDIT EDIT EDIT (which was not done with BTW).  

[Medulla 32]

I don't agree.

'The Fame Monster', 'Born This Way' and 'ASIB' were legendary albums and eras that had the commercial and cultural impact that would have lead them to win when they came out and still to these days.

Performing songs like you suggest doesn't mean anything when it comes to Grammys, Jon Baptiste this year won for an album that didn't even enter in the top50.

ASIB was obviously blocked by the secret committee (that this year was scrapped for the first time since the 90s), a committee who always had the final word on the general fields nominations, and they blocked ASIB surely because it was kind of old news and Gaga got her Oscars.

Not mention ROTY and SOTY, if massive hits and cult classics like 'Poker Face, 'Bad Romance' and 'Shallow' couldn't win, then it's obvious she could never when it comes to general field, she still is considered too much divisive I think.

Reality is Grammys are trash and don't really award what truly deserves, there are a lot of political and also 'lucky' factors behind a victory.

I suppose it could be worse, when there are artists like Queen or Bjork who never won 1 or legends like Cher who only has one, Gaga has 13 and all for main projects and songs of her in very competitive categories.

I think Gaga will continue to win in genres field, but AOTY and general fields at this point I doubt it's gonna happen, they had tones of occasions to award her and she had the narrative.

[StrawberryBlond 14,820]

I don't really think building an arc or excessive promo is necessary. We've seen little known artists win it before. It is purely down to music quality. And I think it would be best if Gaga made an album consisting of all her talents in one or made a full on classic ballads album because that equals "real artist" in the minds of the academy. You have to realise that an established act tends not to get lots of promo bestowed upon then, labels prefer to use their money on developing new acts to build a fanbase and that they don't need promo after that. And dance has never been a Grammy fave, especially not for AOTY so a classic dance pop album wouldn't be the way to go. Take for example, Taylor Swift. She's won for Fearless, 1989 and Folklore. Fearless and Folklore relied on traditional genres and real instrumentation. 1989 was a pop album but done in a mature way, it wasn't mindless bubblegum pop or rave club pop. I like to think Gaga's AOTY will come soon. This is her fourth nomination and she was quite obviously snubbed with ASIB's lack of nomination. I like to think they're waiting patiently for the next big solo album she puts out.

On 4/8/2022 at 1:30 AM, Medulla said:

ASIB was obviously blocked by the secret committee (that this year was scrapped for the first time since the 90s), a committee who always had the final word on the general fields nominations, and they blocked ASIB surely because it was kind of old news and Gaga got her Oscars.

I'd completely forgotten about that. Indeed, it makes no sense that ASIB didn't secure a nomination despite all its singles getting nominated and picking up several awards. The academy clearly loved the album. So, the only conclusion as to why it didn't secure a nomination (if Black Panther could do it, why not this one?) is that a number of powerful individuals voted against its inclusion and they were high ranking enough to overturn the eventual nominations. I remember hearing about how this committee made a song that finished 18th place in the original nominations results get into the final nominations list. It would explain especially why the nominations for ROTY and SOTY are always completely random, un-connected, diverse of genre and off the wall. Like they were picked out of a fish bowl randomiser. Honestly, I thought Gaga stood a big chance of winning for LFS because the academy wanted to make up for that snub and felt she'd worked hard enough for it by this time. Next time, she really will have a narrative if she gets nominated again - 5 time nominee over more than a decade, always the bridesmaid but never the bride. That's got to count for something.

[Medulla 32]

1 hour ago, StrawberryBlond said:

I'd completely forgotten about that. Indeed, it makes no sense that ASIB didn't secure a nomination despite all its singles getting nominated and picking up several awards. The academy clearly loved the album. So, the only conclusion as to why it didn't secure a nomination (if Black Panther could do it, why not this one?) is that a number of powerful individuals voted against its inclusion and they were high ranking enough to overturn the eventual nominations. I remember hearing about how this committee made a song that finished 18th place in the original nominations results get into the final nominations list. It would explain especially why the nominations for ROTY and SOTY are always completely random, un-connected, diverse of genre and off the wall. Like they were picked out of a fish bowl randomiser. Honestly, I thought Gaga stood a big chance of winning for LFS because the academy wanted to make up for that snub and felt she'd worked hard enough for it by this time. Next time, she really will have a narrative if she gets nominated again - 5 time nominee over more than a decade, always the bridesmaid but never the bride. That's got to count for something.

The secret committee was created because of Tony Bennett (the irony) because he won in the 90s with a live album of covers and the Grammys received media backlash for this because it wasn't a big release with original music, they were labelled 'out of touch' with the trend of the times, since then they decided to create this secret circle of group that always had the final word on general field nominations until this year after 'the Weeknd' mess (apparently they snubbed him last year because they didn't find a deal to perform there), and at the same time like you said they put on main categories songs that were low with general votations, it seems H.E.R for example was the one who benefit the most in the last years from this process (since she has relatives connections with the Record Academy according to rumors).

That being said, in years that i follow the Grammys and their shenanigans I'm pretty sure ASIB was blocked by the secret committee probably because they fear the album would have won easily with appealing multiple branches, it was the album who sold the most in the eligibity period, Gaga already won an Oscar, Golden Globe, 2 Grammys for 'Shallow' and tones of other awards as you know, I'm sure they blocked it in order to favourite Billie Eilish because ASIB in 2020 was already old news in the sense that something belonging to previous season and probably they thought Gaga had her moment already and that she would have won in the visual media categories like it happened. Note that year also 'Lover' by Taylor Swift didn't receive the AOTY nomination that could have been a treat, Eilish was clearly being favourite, the only pop album being nominated was Ariana with TUN that was never going to win since Ariana is not very liked by the Record Academy.

Gaga that year didn't even bother to thank them for winning two, I'm sure she was pissed, her silence was speaking volume, but we know she's a class act and she kept it classy as usual plus it would be dumb cutting ties with them, she still has 13 which is already a lot even if it sucks she hasn't general fields ones.

Here some articles about:

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/grammy-awards-secret-committees-945532/

https://ew.com/awards/grammys/grammys-eliminate-secret-nominating-committees/