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Lady Gaga debuts new song & video for Abracadabra during the Grammys commercials


We are 31 days out (but who’s counting) from Lady Gaga unleashing Mayhem on us, the album formerly known as LG7. Though it hasn’t even been released yet, Mayhem is already a Grammy winner! Gaga picked up her 13th Grammy on Sunday, winning alongside Bruno Mars in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category for their hit “Die With a Smile.” And anyone who’s already pre-ordered Mayhem (that’s me, hi, I’m anyone) knows that “Die With a Smile” is the final track on the album. True to her promise in Elle magazine, Gaga used her acceptance speech to have the LGBTQ+ community’s back, compassionately sending love to trans people and reminding them that they “are not invisible.” And then Mother Monster had one more surprise in store for us: she debuted a new song and music video, “Abracadabra,” during a commercial break in the middle of the award show. I think it’s safe to say that Mayhem has begun!

The surprise song aired during a commercial break rather than in an official Grammys slot, but opened with a nod to the awards show. “The category is dance… or die,” Gaga announced sinisterly.

“Abracadabra” is a fast-tempo dance track, reminiscent of Gaga’s innovative dark pop hits from the aughts and early 2010s.

The track swiftly made waves on social media, with fans already calling it the “song of the decade.”

“lady gaga weird again??? REAL POP MUSIC IS BACK,” one fan posted on X. “this is the best Lady Gaga single on first listen since G.U.Y,” wrote another, referencing the “ARTPOP” single released in 2013.

A press release described the video as portraying “a dance battle between the light and dark sides of Gaga.” Utilizing color and sharp dance choreography, Gaga and her dancers create an energetic swarm of white, though Gaga occasionally appears in crimson red — a lyrical reference to the “lady in red.” The visual aesthetic darkens two and a half minutes in, with Gaga adorning another crimson outfit and her dancers swapping strappy white outfits for full-length black robes and canes.

The video was co-directed by Lady Gaga, Paris Goebel and Bethany Vargas. Gaga and Goebel worked together on the choreography for a team of 40 dancers, and Peri Rosenzweig and Nick Royal tackled the styling and costuming, including what the official announcement described as “an upcycled white cape crafted from vintage wedding dresses.”

“Abracadabra” is the third single from the forthcoming 14-track album, “Mayhem,” which will be released on March 7.

Gaga and collaborator Bruno Mars took home a Grammy for best pop duo with the album’s leading single, “Die With A Smile,” which was released last August. On stage, Gaga took the opportunity to show her solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.

“Trans people are not invisible,” she said. “Trans people deserve love. The queer community deserves to be lifted up.”

In a press announcement last week, Gaga said the album represents her “reassembling a shattered mirror” and is a return to “the pop music my earliest fans loved.”

“Even if you can’t put the pieces back together perfectly, you can create something beautiful and whole in its own new way,” she said.

[From USA Today]

Ok, I know I’m the one always yapping about the imagery of Gaga’s lyrics being so vivid and poetic in her early albums (and being disappointed in a bit of a drop off in more recent works). But I am not being facetious or sarcastic in any way when I declare that I am all in for this song’s chorus: “Abracadabra, amor-ooh-na-na/ Abracadabra, morta-ooh-ga-ga/ Abracadabra, abra-ooh-na-na/ In her tongue she said, ‘Death or love tonight.’” It’s giving me “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” through the lens of Gaga! And I’m equally high on the video, which to me harkens back to parts of the “Born This Way” video. Something about Gaga barefoot, surrounded by hordes of professional dancers in a studio, interpretive-movementing her beating-with-bricks-and-strings heart out, strikes me as the most wholly authentic version of Gaga. The tableau feels like a primordially jubilant shared ritual of similarly spiritually jazzed individuals coming together to revel in their huge emotions which basically all bottle down to “I’m ALIVE and this music and dance are the only way to express the bigness of it all!!!” Or, you know, something like that.

My only question is: what color is “Abracadabra?”

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

photos credit: Backgrid, Getty and via Instagram

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