January 29, 2025
Lady Gaga is a rather decorated singer as well as actress.
However, there is one award, which even though she missed out on, helped start a rather surprising and unexpected revolution.
The Bad Romance singer is up for gramophones in the categories of Song of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Producer of the Year (Non-Classical), at this year’s Grammys, by the grace of her Bruno Mars collaboration, Die With A Smile.
And even though 2025 seems like her year, back in 2010, Gaga was snubbed for one the biggest awards that year.
Rather controversially, the Born This Way singer was not nominated in the Best New Artist category because of the fact that her song, Just Dance, had been nominated for the 2009 Best Dance Recording category.
And even though 2009 was one of Gaga’s breakthrough years, many were shocked to see that she had not been one of the Best New Artist nominees of 2010.
Addressing the criteria of ineligibility, Neil Portnow, Recording Academy President, said, “There will be some changes so that particular scenario won’t repeat itself.”
Since then, the Grammy execs have remained true to their word, changing rather strict rules, several months later, permitting slower-breaking acts to participate in the race.
“More and more, the first release of a new artist is as a featured artist on someone else’s album or, the new artist may release a single long before the release of his/her/their entire first album,” the Grammy’s said in their statement.
They continued, “By current rules, if the other artist’s album or the new artist’s single receives a nomination, the new artist may never have the opportunity to compete in the Best New Artist category. With this change, each artist will have at least one opportunity to enter in this important and highly visible category.”
Previously, due to old rules, Best New Artist nominees were allowed to have appeared on any Grammy-nominated recording, even if on another artist’s work.
Now, any artist who has previously either released an album or has already won a Grammy, cannot compete for the Best New Artist category.