Honestly, if you look back at the history of pop music over the last twenty years, there is a clear "before" and "after" Lady Gaga. She didn't just walk onto red carpets; she orchestrated invasions. When we talk about Lady Gaga at AMA Awards, we aren't just talking about a singer picking up a trophy. We are talking about a woman who once decided that a mechanical horse operated by two humans was the only acceptable way to travel across a parking lot in Los Angeles.
People forget how weird things actually were in 2009. Pop stars were mostly expected to look pretty, dance a little, and maybe have a public meltdown. Then Gaga showed up at the American Music Awards and basically set the stage on fire. Literally.
The Night Everything Changed: 2009
In 2009, Gaga was the "new girl" with everything to prove. She performed a medley of "Bad Romance" and "Speechless," and it was pure chaos in the best possible way. Most artists use a microphone stand to, you know, hold a microphone. Gaga used hers to smash a giant glass box containing her piano.
She sat down at that piano—which was also on fire, by the way—and started belting out "Speechless." This wasn't some pre-recorded track or a lip-sync job. It was raw. She was smashing liquor bottles against the piano while singing a power ballad dedicated to her father. It felt like watching a high-budget exorcism.
- The Outfit: A flesh-colored bodysuit with white "ribs" and a "spine" that actually pulsed with light.
- The Vibe: High-art meets a 1970s rock opera.
- The Result: Every other performance that night looked boring by comparison.
The emotional weight of that song, written to convince her father to get heart surgery, clashing with the aggressive imagery of "Bad Romance," created this weird tension that defined her early career. It was the moment the industry realized she wasn't just a "Just Dance" one-hit wonder. She was a threat.
That 2013 Horse and the "Presidential" Scandal
Fast forward to 2013. This was the Artpop era. People were starting to get "Gaga fatigue," or so the critics claimed. Her response? Arriving at the AMAs on a giant, white, human-powered puppet horse. She looked like a lilac-clad Versace goddess, but the horse—dubbed "the stallion"—was what everyone talked about.
It was a total flex.
Inside the theater, things got even weirder. She performed "Do What U Want" with R. Kelly. Looking back now, that performance is incredibly uncomfortable given what we know today, but at the time, it was staged as a high-concept satire of the Kennedy-Monroe affair. Gaga played the secretary to "President" Kelly.
Why the 2013 Performance Was So Polarizing
- The Satire: She was poking fun at her own "Lady Gaga is Over" headlines by featuring them on the screen behind her.
- The Vocals: Even while jumping on a desk, her voice never cracked.
- The Ending: She ended the set alone at her piano, with home videos of her as a little girl playing in the background. It was a jarring shift from the "mistress" character she had just played.
It was classic Gaga: give them the scandal they want, then remind them that she's actually a classically trained musician.
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Stepping Back in 2016 and 2017
By the time the Joanne era rolled around, the meat dresses (which, let's be clear, was a VMA thing, not an AMA thing, though people always confuse them) were gone. In 2016, she performed "Million Reasons" barefoot on a stage covered in grass. No pyro. No glass-smashing. Just a guitar and a voice.
It was arguably more shocking because it was so normal.
Then in 2017, she did something pretty cool. She couldn't actually make it to the Microsoft Theater because she was on her Joanne World Tour. Instead, she performed "The Cure" live via satellite from the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.
She won Favorite Female Artist – Pop/Rock that year. Her acceptance speech was tearful and genuine, broadcast from her tour stage. It showed a shift from the "performance artist" to the "global superstar" who didn't need the bells and whistles to command the room.
What Most People Get Wrong About Gaga’s AMA History
A lot of people think Gaga has won dozens of AMAs. Surprisingly, she hasn't. While she has dozens of nominations, her win count at this specific show is relatively low compared to the Grammys or VMAs. But that’s the thing about Gaga—she doesn’t need the trophy to win the night.
Think about it. Who else remembers who won "Artist of the Year" in 2009? Probably not many. But everyone remembers the girl who set her piano on fire.
The AMAs are a fan-voted show, and Gaga’s relationship with her "Little Monsters" has always been the fuel for these performances. She treats the stage like a laboratory. Sometimes the experiment is a success, like the 2009 medley, and sometimes it's a bit of a mess, like the over-the-top 2013 skit. But it's never, ever boring.
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Takeaway for Fans and Creators
If you're looking at Lady Gaga at AMA Awards as a case study, there's a big lesson here: Commit to the bit. Gaga never does anything halfway. If she's going to ride a horse, it’s a human horse. If she’s going to sing about her dad, she’s going to do it while smashing bottles. In a world of "safe" PR-managed pop stars, that level of risk-taking is why we're still talking about these performances a decade later.
Next Steps for the Gaga Historian:
- Watch the 2009 "Speechless" performance and pay attention to the audio—most "live" performances today use heavy pitch correction, but you can hear the natural rasp in her voice here.
- Compare the 2013 red carpet "horse" entrance to her 2011 Grammy "egg" entrance; it's a fascinating look at how she evolved her "arrival" stunts.
- Listen to "The Cure" (2017) and "Million Reasons" (2016) back-to-back to see how her vocal style changed as she transitioned from synth-pop to a more "organic" sound.