Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, and Bad Bunny Face Off in Grammy Showdown

Mia Reynolds, 1/26/2026Explore the electrifying atmosphere of Grammy Week as Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny, and Lady Gaga vie for top honors amid a dynamic cultural shift. With fresh talent on the rise and discussions on AI's impact, this year's event promises to redefine the music landscape.

A shift had clearly arrived. Some seventeen thousand voting members, swelling by nearly four thousand new faces since last season, gathered in the shadow of Crypto.com Arena, and the energy? Far from business as usual. This latest intake of Academy voters—remarkably younger and far more reflective of the world’s actual mosaic—set the stage for a nomination slugfest. More voters bring more voices to the table, sure, but anyone who’s witnessed the old versus new in music knows it never unfolds quietly. There’s a certain electricity in watching legacy titans, icons from another era, jockey with rookies eager to burn their own initials in the record books. The tension, somehow both awkward and thrilling, brought a new pulse to every headline announcement.

Looming largest this year was Kendrick Lamar—the kind of artist who treats each album like an urban dissertation. “GNX” landed with the force of a West Coast earthquake. One moment, Kendrick is all flint and swagger on “Squabble Up,” the next he’s trading bravado for bruised contemplation on “Man at the Garden.” No wonder he’s leading with nine nods; his work doesn’t just land, it reverberates. Yet, if you dare to talk favorites this season, dismissing Bad Bunny would take some odd kind of courage. The Puerto Rican phenom, global pop’s reigning lodestar, seems poised to finally break the Album of the Year barrier with a record performed entirely in Spanish—a kind of overdue acknowledgment of just how borderless pop music became in 2025. Industry whispers had basically declared a victory parade and borrowed his lyrics for the occasion: culture, identity, influence. Try finding another artist this year who sculpts all three so deftly.

And then, there’s Lady Gaga. Queen? Not officially—at least, not if counting those elusive “Big Four” Grammy trophies—but try telling any fan running on the city’s neon-lit sidewalks she’s not pop royalty. Her single “Abracadabra” pulses with a wounded confidence, a synth-pop storm laced with just enough self-mythology to make anyone believe in their own comeback. The chorus rattles windows and hearts alike—part dance, part exorcism. Some critics, squinting at ballots, argued for the dreamy shadows of Chappell Roan, but there’s something undeniable about Gaga’s persistent refusal to fit comfortably into any box except the one she built for herself.

Fresh names threatened to steal the narrative, too. Alex Warren, for example, whose route from TikTok punchlines to Billboard gravity left skeptics a little dizzy. His chart-topping “Ordinary”—a piano-led confessional that crept up the streaming lists throughout 2025—struck a chord on both sides of the Atlantic long before it found its Grammy spotlight. Will the win for Best New Artist belong to him? Maybe. But Olivia Dean, all smoky syllables and vintage cool, gives him real competition. If ever a voice conjured both Amy Winehouse’s soul and Sade’s dignified charm, hers certainly lingers long enough to make you want to buy a vinyl just to listen properly.

But the real heartbeat of Grammy Week lies beyond the ceremony scripts—out in the whiskey-lit lounges, rooftop brunch tables groaning under the weight of industry tales, and luncheons thick with both nostalgia and promise. Anyone lingering outside the Pre-Grammy Gala—Clive Davis’s annual Hogwarts feast—would’ve seen a music landscape in flux. “Academy Proud” set aside a night for queer music icons, while the Black Music Collective’s dinner radiated a warmth only shared among those who remember both the struggle and the surge of Black artistry. If this year’s pre-award calendar bulged, it did so with good reason; the city felt a little less ivory tower, a little more community block party.

Perhaps most poignant, though, were the conversations sparked at panels and side events: the “Artists & Music in the Age of AI” dialogue, for one. If 2025 brought a tangle of tech anxiety, these panels wrestled with it. Songwriters and producers swapped concerns and hopes in equal measure, threading their way through questions no one could fully answer. Everyone agreed—tech mattered, but the human touch, that ineffable pulse, remained irreplaceable.

Meanwhile, honors like the Resonator Awards and the Scripter Awards quietly reminded attendees that not all triumphs come with pyrotechnics. Chaka Khan, St. Vincent, Haim—each brought overdue applause, each a nod to artistry that, while not always in the glare, shapes the soundtracks of countless lives. At USC, the writers behind “One Battle After Another” and “Death by Lightning” clinked glasses and shared war stories, some written, many only spoken in hushed tones in hotel bars. Anyone who’s ever tried to meet a deadline or best a blank page would’ve felt the solidarity in the air.

Musicscape in 2026, as reflected in this combustible, confetti-filled season, is anything but neat. Categories have bloomed with unexpected diversity; some nominations surprised, others downright startled. KPop Demon Hunters grabbed a slot few saw coming—a reminder that nothing stays static long, and sometimes even the critics are left scrambling to keep up. The “who will win” versus “who ought to win” debate thrashed noisily across social media and post-show shuttles alike, with no sign of agreement in sight. Yet, maybe that discord is part of the draw.

So what’s left when the house lights come up and the last trophy finds a new mantel? The ones who walk away changed aren’t just those holding gold. Anyone who ever believed in the wild, improbable magic of music—anyone who’s ever rewound a song for comfort, rage, or joy—will feel a little richer. Sometimes, a single song refuses to stop echoing in a corner of the mind, or wins shift how a whole generation of artists sees itself. The Grammys don’t always get it right, but as 2026’s edition fades into memory, it’s clear: the beating, flawed, endlessly buoyant heart of music keeps getting louder, refusing to be boxed in by anything so simple as a ballot.

Sequins caught the late afternoon sun like tiny Morse code messages, and the city seemed to hold its breath: Grammy Week had swaggered back into Los Angeles, with all the usual glamour—only multiplied. Here, industry gears never truly stop turning, but this week, the stakes felt higher. Maybe it was the way publicists gripped their clipboards like talismans or how the once-predictable guest lists had become a swirling tapestry of old legends and rising disruptors, all coiled for a historic showdown.A shift had clearly arrived. Some seventeen thousand voting members, swelling by nearly four thousand new faces since last season, gathered in the shadow of Crypto.com Arena, and the energy? Far from business as usual. This latest intake of Academy voters—remarkably younger and far more reflective of the world’s actual mosaic—set the stage for a nomination slugfest. More voters bring more voices to the table, sure, but anyone who’s witnessed the old versus new in music knows it never unfolds quietly. There’s a certain electricity in watching legacy titans, icons from another era, jockey with rookies eager to burn their own initials in the record books. The tension, somehow both awkward and thrilling, brought a new pulse to every headline announcement.Looming largest this year was Kendrick Lamar—the kind of artist who treats each album like an urban dissertation. “GNX” landed with the force of a West Coast earthquake. One moment, Kendrick is all flint and swagger on “Squabble Up,” the next he’s trading bravado for bruised contemplation on “Man at the Garden.” No wonder he’s leading with nine nods; his work doesn’t just land, it reverberates. Yet, if you dare to talk favorites this season, dismissing Bad Bunny would take some odd kind of courage. The Puerto Rican phenom, global pop’s reigning lodestar, seems poised to finally break the Album of the Year barrier with a record performed entirely in Spanish—a kind of overdue acknowledgment of just how borderless pop music became in 2025. Industry whispers had basically declared a victory parade and borrowed his lyrics for the occasion: culture, identity, influence. Try finding another artist this year who sculpts all three so deftly.And then, there’s Lady Gaga. Queen? Not officially—at least, not if counting those elusive “Big Four” Grammy trophies—but try telling any fan running on the city’s neon-lit sidewalks she’s not pop royalty. Her single “Abracadabra” pulses with a wounded confidence, a synth-pop storm laced with just enough self-mythology to make anyone believe in their own comeback. The chorus rattles windows and hearts alike—part dance, part exorcism. Some critics, squinting at ballots, argued for the dreamy shadows of Chappell Roan, but there’s something undeniable about Gaga’s persistent refusal to fit comfortably into any box except the one she built for herself.Fresh names threatened to steal the narrative, too. Alex Warren, for example, whose route from TikTok punchlines to Billboard gravity left skeptics a little dizzy. His chart-topping “Ordinary”—a piano-led confessional that crept up the streaming lists throughout 2025—struck a chord on both sides of the Atlantic long before it found its Grammy spotlight. Will the win for Best New Artist belong to him? Maybe. But Olivia Dean, all smoky syllables and vintage cool, gives him real competition. If ever a voice conjured both Amy Winehouse’s soul and Sade’s dignified charm, hers certainly lingers long enough to make you want to buy a vinyl just to listen properly.But the real heartbeat of Grammy Week lies beyond the ceremony scripts—out in the whiskey-lit lounges, rooftop brunch tables groaning under the weight of industry tales, and luncheons thick with both nostalgia and promise. Anyone lingering outside the Pre-Grammy Gala—Clive Davis’s annual Hogwarts feast—would’ve seen a music landscape in flux. “Academy Proud” set aside a night for queer music icons, while the Black Music Collective’s dinner radiated a warmth only shared among those who remember both the struggle and the surge of Black artistry. If this year’s pre-award calendar bulged, it did so with good reason; the city felt a little less ivory tower, a little more community block party.Perhaps most poignant, though, were the conversations sparked at panels and side events: the “Artists & Music in the Age of AI” dialogue, for one. If 2025 brought a tangle of tech anxiety, these panels wrestled with it. Songwriters and producers swapped concerns and hopes in equal measure, threading their way through questions no one could fully answer. Everyone agreed—tech mattered, but the human touch, that ineffable pulse, remained irreplaceable.Meanwhile, honors like the Resonator Awards and the Scripter Awards quietly reminded attendees that not all triumphs come with pyrotechnics. Chaka Khan, St. Vincent, Haim—each brought overdue applause, each a nod to artistry that, while not always in the glare, shapes the soundtracks of countless lives. At USC, the writers behind “One Battle After Another” and “Death by Lightning” clinked glasses and shared war stories, some written, many only spoken in hushed tones in hotel bars. Anyone who’s ever tried to meet a deadline or best a blank page would’ve felt the solidarity in the air.Musicscape in 2026, as reflected in this combustible, confetti-filled season, is anything but neat. Categories have bloomed with unexpected diversity; some nominations surprised, others downright startled. KPop Demon Hunters grabbed a slot few saw coming—a reminder that nothing stays static long, and sometimes even the critics are left scrambling to keep up. The “who will win” versus “who ought to win” debate thrashed noisily across social media and post-show shuttles alike, with no sign of agreement in sight. Yet, maybe that discord is part of the draw.So what’s left when the house lights come up and the last trophy finds a new mantel? The ones who walk away changed aren’t just those holding gold. Anyone who ever believed in the wild, improbable magic of music—anyone who’s ever rewound a song for comfort, rage, or joy—will feel a little richer. Sometimes, a single song refuses to stop echoing in a corner of the mind, or wins shift how a whole generation of artists sees itself. The Grammys don’t always get it right, but as 2026’s edition fades into memory, it’s clear: the beating, flawed, endlessly buoyant heart of music keeps getting louder, refusing to be boxed in by anything so simple as a ballot.