Given her track record, Gaga’s new single Perfect Illusion should have ranked in the Top 10.
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Lady Gaga’s Perfect Illusion, her first single after a three-year hiatus from pop music, enters this week’s Billboard Hot 100 at #15. But given her track record, she should have ranked higher. Nine singles so far this year have debuted in the top 10. It would have been reasonable to expect Gaga’s first single after a long layoff to follow suit.
It’s especially disappointing considering the first singles from her last three major solo pop projects all debuted in the top 10. Bad Romance, the first single from her EP The Fame Monster, debuted at #9. Born This Way, the lead single (and title track) from her second full-length album, debuted at #1. Applause, the lead single (and title track) from her third full-length, debuted at #6.
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Applause was a major hit (it spent its first 14 weeks in the top 10), but the second and third official singles from Gaga’s Artpop album (Do What U Want and G.U.Y.) fell short of the top 10. G.U.Y. peaked at an embarrassing #76. Faced with resistance at pop radio for the first time in her career, Gaga wisely pursued other things. She recorded an album with Tony Bennett, Cheek to Cheek, which hit #1 and won a Grammy and she recorded an Oscar-nominated song, Til It Happens to You, for The Hunting Ground, a documentary about campus rape.
Katy Perry has a similar problem this year. Her Olympics ballad Rise didn’t debut in the top 10 considering her track record too.
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