Shock! Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance' Snubbed by Grammys in Top Categories

There's also the epic video, which earlier this year won seven MTV Video Music Awards and has been viewed about 314 million times on YouTube -- a tally that helped Gaga take down Justin Bieber to become the first artist in history to top 1 billion views on the popular video sharing site.


While the Grammys certainly aren't intended as a popularity contest, 'Bad Romance' is a legitimately great song and deserved to be recognized. It may not be lyrically complex, but it's absolutely infectious – admit it, you know every single word, and isn't that a hallmark of good songwriting? – and the whole thing is swaddled in a "ferocious" beat that, per MTV, "stays at a low boil for most [of the song] ... rising up in an ecstatic, Erasure-esque throb during the chorus."

It's a song that, according to Rolling Stone, "makes [Gaga's] name a Teutonic chant."

And lest we forget, she of the meat dress differs from many of her contemporaries -- hello, Katy Perry -- in that she writes and produces (often with collaborators) all of her own tunes. Song of the Year is a writer's prize, while Record of the Year celebrates the artist, producers and engineers of a particular track. On virtually all of her songs, Gaga is both a songwriter and a producer, so why not give her a little love where it counts? Yes, her vocal performance on 'Bad Romance' is certainly worth celebrating, as the Grammys rightly did with a nod for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, but what about all the behind-the-scenes work that went in to making it a monster hit? It didn't write or produce itself.

But don't take our word for it that a crime against popular music has been committed (we admit we have a hard time being objective when it comes to Gaga) -- most major music critics expected it would be nominated for both prizes too. Over at GoldDerby, which tracks and predicts the nominees for the biggest awards in music, film and television, each of its pundits not only selected 'Bad Romance' as a contender for Record of the Year, every single one chose it as their top pick for the prize. (Incidentally, they were correct about three of the five nominees for the award.)

This isn't the first time Gaga has been snubbed by the Grammys. Last year, she took home two prizes (Best Dance Album and Best Dance Recording) for her debut set, 'The Fame,' but despite three other nominations in the major categories, including both Song and Record of the year, and immeasurable buzz, she was shut out of all the major awards.

Then, earlier this year, the recording academy was forced to amend its eligibility guidelines for Best New Artist after Gaga was disqualified from consideration because she had been nominated previously for her single 'Just Dance,' though her album had not been released in time to qualify for the 2009 awards. Recording academy president Neil Portnow even admitted that the situation Gaga found herself in precipitated the change. "There will be some changes so that particular situation won't repeat itself," Portnow said.

In the aftermath of Gagagate, the academy clarified its new rules for Best New Artist: "If an artist/group is nominated (but does not win) for the release of a single or as a featured artist or collaborator on a compilation or other artist's album before the artist/group has released an entire album (and becomes eligible in this category for the first time), the artist/group may enter this category in the eligibility year during which his/her/their first album is released."

Of course, Gaga got a lion's share of Grammy nominations yesterday, six in all, including Album of the Year for 'The Fame Monster.' And 'Romance' did score nods for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Video (it's a shoo-in to take that one home, right?). But year after year, the Grammys are routinely slammed by music critics as being out of touch, and not letting one of the year's biggest songs shine in its two biggest categories isn't going to do much to dispel that notion.

If she hadn't temporarily given up Twitter and Facebook as part of the "Digital Life Sacrifice" campaign to raise money for Keep A Child Alive, we expect Gaga'd be tweeting her gratitude for the nominations she did receive (she's nice like that) while pledging her undying allegiance to her "Little Monsters" as we speak. But for an artist who recently proclaimed that her forthcoming album, 'Born this Way,' will be "the greatest album of this decade," you know it stings a little that her most recognizable hit didn't make the year-end cut.

Filed under:
• Awards
-
• Grammys
-
• Gut Reactions
-
• Music News
-
• Hottest Stories
-
• Lady Gaga