--- description: The pop singer is creating a new kind of fame, just as Bowie did title: Lady Gaga at the Oscars: Comeback, New Music, Bowie Tribute image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt22439a4e070a3ac3/69887dbc2dce0128659e7d2e/lady-gaga-nile-rodgers-grammys.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Lady Gaga's Oscars Will Prove She's Pop's Reigning Champion  by [Daniel D'Addario](/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 26, 2016 1:00 PM CUT  Nile Rodgers, left, and Lady Gaga, right, perform during the 58th GRAMMY Awards on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Nile Rodgers, left, and Lady Gaga, right, perform during the 58th GRAMMY Awards on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles.Larry Busacca—Getty Images  by [Daniel D'Addario](/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 26, 2016 1:00 PM CUT After her showstopping tribute to the late David Bowie at this month’s Grammy Awards, Lady Gaga is in the midst of a major comeback. The star, who just two years ago faced the threat of the public losing interest in her work, has once again become one of the most-talked-about recording artists on the planet—and she’s done so without actually releasing an album of new material. Gaga’s dominance, proven on this month’s Grammy Awards and to be ratified yet again at the upcoming Oscars, is often credited to her old-fashioned showmanship, comparable to anyone from Elton John to Cher to Bette Midler to Bowie himself. Yet it’s also proof of an increasingly rapid press cycle that Gaga has mastered better than anyone else. The strategy, since before last year’s Oscars, has been straightforward: To create a series of easily digestible, uncontroversial moments that show the performer to her best advantage. Her tribute to Bowie, for instance, was presented as “edgy” but took no greater risk than arranging a set of familiar songs in a key amenable to Gaga’s big, bold voice. That it was all wrapped into an ad for Intel praising Gaga’s own wild innovation led to some critiques that the whole act was a bit self-serving. But then, it’s hard to think of a pop career built on altruism, and Gaga’s focus on keeping the spotlight proved she was Bowie’s heir—if not the best-equipped to deliver “heartfelt emotion.” ### Grammys 2016: See Celebrities Hit the Red Carpet  Taylor Swift attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Lady Gaga attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Valerie Macon—Getty Images  Adele attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Skrillex, left, and Diplo, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Selena Gomez attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Sam Smith attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  From left: Johnny Depp, Joe Perry and Alice Cooper of The Hollywood Vampires attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Ellie Goulding attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  George Clinton, left, attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Kacey Musgraves attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Valerie Macon—Getty Images  Josephine de la Baume, left, and Mark Ronson, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Janelle Monáe attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Dave Grohl, left, and Jordyn Blum, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Justin Bieber attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Ariana Grande attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Chrissy Teigen, left, and John Legend, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Valerie Macon—Getty Images  Florence Welch attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Jack Antonoff attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jeff Vespa—Getty Images  The Weeknd, left, and Bella Hadid, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Carrie Underwood attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Demi Lovato attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Simone Smith, left, and host LL Cool J, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Buddy Guy attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Bonnie Raitt attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Nazanin Mandi, left, and Miguel, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  DJ Khaled attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Travis Barker and his children attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Valerie Macon—Getty Images  Common attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Don Cheadle, left, and Bridgid Coulter, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Nile Rodgers attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Pharrell Williams, left, and Helen Lasichanh, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Wiz Khalifa attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Sam Hunt attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  From left: Nick Simmons, Sophie Simmons, Gene Simmons, and Shannon Tweed attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Gary Clark Jr., left, and Nicole Trunfio, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Jane Seymour attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Meghan Trainor attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Justine Simmons, left, and Joseph "Rev Run," right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Alessandra Ambrosio attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Victoria Shaffer, left, and Paul Shaffer, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Jason Merritt—Getty Images  Julia Carey, left, and James Corden, right, attend the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Gary Sinise attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. John Shearer—Getty Images  Z LaLa attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images  Anna Kendrick attends the 58th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. Steve Granitz—Getty Images It’s likely that her Oscars performance of “Til It Happens to You,” a nominated song taken from the campus-rape documentary _The Hunting Ground_, will walk a similar tightrope: Meant to honor a tragedy but simultaneously serving as a career-shaping diva moment. (Its vocals are as soaring as the song’s message is dismaying.) To a certain degree, though, Gaga is operating at an unusual enough level that she can no longer be meaningfully accused of opportunism. With no new music to promote, she’s a sort of national bard of music: Whether it’s celebratory (the national anthem at the Super Bowl, the Kennedy Center Honors) or sad, her career now consists of subordinating whatever we think of as her own image in service of some other message. Gaga’s hold on the public imagination has, recently, been even more complicated, and provides a good reason for her to have removed herself from the pop-music conversation. Gaga’s last album of original material, [2013’s ](http://entertainment.time.com/2013/11/11/lady-gagas-new-artpop-doesnt-always-live-up-to-title/ "undefined")[_Artpop_](http://entertainment.time.com/2013/11/11/lady-gagas-new-artpop-doesnt-always-live-up-to-title/ "undefined"), indicated Gaga had, if only temporarily, lost her balance on the tightrope of provocation. It was a series of ideas and philosophical statements with little musicianship; the album sold poorly (if only by Gaga’s own standard) and created more headlines for a botched and never-released Terry Richardson music video than it did for any songcraft. This was a long time coming: Gaga’s 2011 album _Born This Way_, in many ways her masterpiece, was too long by a third and had as many unfulfilled ideas as it did great ones. In her musical life, Gaga has long lacked the ability to edit. By contrast, her recent live performances have played things remarkably straight and short. At [last year’s Oscars](http://time.com/3718883/oscars-2015-lady-gaga-performance/ "undefined"), it was just a medley of songs from _The Sound of Music_ sung full-throatedly and well. Despite the late hour it aired, viewers could be forgiven for wanting more. This followed _Cheek to Cheek_, her album of unimaginative but credibly restrained jazz covers with Tony Bennett, and was followed by a role as a vampire queen on [_American Horror Story_](http://time.com/4063969/lady-gaga-american-horror-story-2/ "undefined")[ last fall](http://time.com/4063969/lady-gaga-american-horror-story-2/ "undefined"), notable less for Gaga’s Jessica Lange-caliber thespianship than for the way it perfectly positioned her. As the rest of the cast spun their wheels, Gaga would pop up for a few scenes an episode, styled within an inch of her life, and carefully enunciate a few perfectly calibrated bons mots. It was a performance, like all of her recent television appearances, that she was set up to slay. That she won a Golden Globe for her performance may have been overstating the case (she was good within the very constrained framework of an extended diva cameo), but the occasion proved just how much star wattage Gaga can bring to bear on a tight timeframe. In a [brief acceptance speech](http://time.com/4063969/lady-gaga-american-horror-story-2/ "undefined"), her artifice (gushingly comparing her emotions in the moment to Cher’s performance in “that John Patrick Shanley movie _Moonstruck_”) was delicious. Indeed, her purposeful march to the podium generated the night’s most memorable moment: [Leonardo DiCaprio startled](http://time.com/4174659/golden-globes-lady-gaga-leonardo-dicaprio/ "undefined") by her oddity, or her earnestness, or just the fact that she was there. Lady Gaga can only be able to maintain her title as the first lady of Sunday night televised events for so long. Eventually, there will have to be a new justification to invite her to perform at things, in the form of new original music. But that reckoning may not come for a long time; Rihanna only became more interesting to her fans in her three-year-plus hiatus before [the release of _Anti_](http://time.com/4198509/rihanna-anti-review/ "undefined"), while Beyoncé has generated pandemonium with the drop of [a single, “Formation,”](http://time.com/4210856/beyonce-formation-download-free-new-single-super-bowl-show/ "undefined") unconnected to any news about a new album. And Kanye West generated far more news through [Twitter pronouncements and beefs](http://time.com/4204997/kanye-west-and-wiz-khalifa-twitter-battle/ "undefined") in the lead-up to the release of his album _The Life of Pablo_ than he did through the actual songs. Who needs new material in a media environment where everything—every individual cover song on an awards show, every sickeningly perfect outfit on the red carpet or on a TV show—can generate copy? At this point, to release a full-length album of new songs—songs that viewers could judge on their own merits outside the overheated environment of awards-show Twitter—is the most dangerous thing Gaga could do. Her career beached itself because she was too intent on telling us her big ideas about fame. Now, she’s close to regaining her throne by showing us that she understands fame’s often-substanceless nature better than anybody, to be perceived as a risk-taker by risking nothing. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4224873/oscars-2016-lady-gaga-oscars/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4224873/oscars-2016-lady-gaga-oscars/"},"headline":"Lady Gaga's Oscars Will Prove She's Pop's Reigning Champion","datePublished":"2016-02-26T13:00:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:00:24.899Z","description":"The pop singer is creating a new kind of fame, just as Bowie did","url":"https://time.com/4224873/oscars-2016-lady-gaga-oscars/","keywords":["Television","grammys","Lady Gaga","David Bowie topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt22439a4e070a3ac3/69887dbc2dce0128659e7d2e/lady-gaga-nile-rodgers-grammys.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel D'Addario","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt22439a4e070a3ac3/69887dbc2dce0128659e7d2e/lady-gaga-nile-rodgers-grammys.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"lady-gaga-nile-rodgers-grammys","caption":"Nile Rodgers, left, and Lady Gaga, right, perform during the 58th GRAMMY Awards on Feb. 15, 2016 in Los Angeles.","creditText":"Larry Busacca—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4224873/oscars-2016-lady-gaga-oscars/","name":"Lady Gaga's Oscars Will Prove She's Pop's Reigning Champion"}}]}] ```