A24’s Animated Horror Comedy Hazbin Hotel Has A Secret Weapon

The first season of A24 and Prime Video’s smash-hit animated series “Hazbin Hotel” ended on February 2, 2024, and while the creative team is hard at work on season 2, the show’s popularity hasn’t decreased. “Hazbin Hotel” earned the largest global debut viewership for a new animated title on Prime Video, surpassing other hot commodities like “Invincible” and “The Boys Presents: Diabolical.” The series doesn’t boast the same recognizable IP as its contemporaries, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a phenomenon. In the months since the season’s end, convention circuits have shown that “Hazbin Hotel” has become one of the most popular shows for cosplayers to emulate, fanart floods social media feeds on the daily, but thanks to the death of the monoculture, the popularity often feels like it exists in a vacuum.

I’ve previously described “Hazbin Hotel” as adult animation, but too edgy for the constraints of something like “The Simpsons.” It’s as raunchy as “South Park,” but caters to a queerer audience base. It boasts a Broadway cast as impressive as “Central Park,” but without the “Hamilton” name recognition to excite your mom. “Hazbin Hotel” is what happens when you grow up watching “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Invader Zim,” listen to show tunes, and spend a lot of time wading through horny Tumblr discourse in the 2010s. “Hazbin Hotel” doesn’t really have contemporaries, but that’s nothing new for the brainchild of Vivienne “VivziePop” Medrano. 

The pilot episode that helped put the show on A24 and Prime Video’s radar was almost exclusively financed by Medrano’s Patreon followers, and completed with a team of freelance animators. It’s “the little animated series that could,” but the show has a secret weapon to maintain relevance and hopefully help push the series over the niche edge and into mainstream consciousness.

“Hazbin Hotel” has some of the best music of any film or television project released in 2024. After being snubbed by the Emmys, it’s time for the Grammys to do the right thing.

“Hazbin Hotel” is currently campaigning for the categories of Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, and Best Song for Visual Media for the song “Poison.” Unless you’re an avid Grammy follower, understand that these categories are often connected to huge studio or streamer projects. Last year’s winner was “Barbie the Album,” for Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” movie, competing against “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” and “Aurora” from “Daisy Jones & the Six.” The “Barbie” movie also took home the prize last year for Best Song for Visual Media with Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” against three other songs from “Barbie” and Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up” from “Wakanda Forever.” This is to say that while the backing of A24 and Prime Video certainly helps, “Hazbin Hotel” is a very clear underdog compared to what it will be up against just to secure a nomination.

The songs of “Hazbin Hotel” were written by Sam Haft and Andrew Underberg. They’re gifted musicians, but don’t have the name recognition of folks like Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (who has a double EGOT), who will undoubtedly be nominated for “The Witches’ Road” from “Agatha All Along.” They’ll also be up against huge blockbusters like “Deadpool and Wolverine,” and the nostalgic-laden *NSYNC reunion in “Trolls: Band Together.” How the hell can an indie animated series that a huge chunk of Grammy voters have likely never even heard of expect to compete?

Songwriter Sam Haft learned about the Grammy push a few months back in the wake of the show’s massive success, and he thinks it’s a testament to A24 and Prime Video’s willingness to invest in such a creator-driven project. “I think the fact that they are putting energy not just behind promoting the show, but by promoting the team behind the show demonstrates that they understand that the way forward in entertainment right now is through putting faith in creators and unique original ideas,” he tells me.

It’s not like “Hazbin Hotel” doesn’t have the chart performance to prove its legitimacy. The soundtrack hit #13 on the Billboard Hot 200 and took the top spot on the Soundtrack Albums chart. “Poison,” the song A24 is campaigning with, hit #14 on the United States Billboard Rock/Alt. and peaked at #2 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart. Prime Video’s clip of the song on YouTube has 30 million views and the song’s vocalist Blake Roman’s official page has 25 million views. Not bad for a show whose most rabid fanbase is also teens and millennials who shop at Hot Topic [complimentary]. Unfortunately, when it comes to awards voting bodies, awareness feels like a majority of the battle.

“There are going to inherently be a lot of awards voters who are more familiar with the projects coming out of the biggest studios full of IP names that they recognize,” Haft explains. “Even if they haven’t seen the project, they may go, ‘Well, I’ve heard of this, and having heard of it means that I have a connection to it, which means that in the absence of me actively going out and looking at all the potential nominees, I’m going to pick something that I’m comfortable with and I’m familiar with.'” 

It’s easy to assume that voters will fairly watch/listen to every eligible candidate, but if the way folks talk about the Best Animated Feature category at the Academy Awards is any indicator … we know that simply is not true. “Hazbin Hotel” is wildly popular, but in the same sense that “Five Nights at Freddy’s” became one of the biggest horror hits of 2023 (Haft also has a song on that soundtrack) — confuddling box office pundits in the process — it’s an isolated popularity that hasn’t jumped the barricade into the mainstream. Mostly because “Hazbin Hotel” is the furthest thing from mainstream.

The Grammys tend to go with big names for the Visual Media categories. With exceptions like Bo Burnham’s “Inside” (which was a pandemic phenomenon) the category is usually dominated by ridiculously famous songwriters and artists. The fact that “Hazbin Hotel” is a 2D animated series also makes it an outlier. The last time a 2D animated project was even nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media was back in 2012 (for the songs “Christmastime Is Killing Us” from “Family Guy” and “So Long” from “Winnie The Pooh”). For Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media, we have to look back even further to “Fantasia 2000,” and the nomination came in the second year of the category’s existence (“Tarzan” won the inaugural year).

But it’s not like “Hazbin” can’t hold its own against some of these household names. Vocalists on the soundtrack include Erika Henningsen (“Mean Girls”), Stephanie Beatriz (“Encanto”), Alex Brightman (“School of Rock,” “Beetlejuice”), Kimiko Glenn (“Waitress,” the voice of Baby Shark), Darren Criss (“Glee,” “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”), Jeremy Jordan (“Smash,” “The Last Five Years”), Daphne Rubin-Vega (“Rent,” “In the Heights”), and Keith David (He’s Keith f***ing David). And these are just the names I think non-theater people might recognize (meaning, y’all need to get hip to the character Alastor’s voice performer, Amir Talai). 

“Poison,” the stand-out single from the series, comes from Blake Roman, who performed in the show “Harmony” on Broadway, an episode of “Blue Bloods,” but otherwise is mostly known for “Hazbin Hotel” and Modero’s other show, “Helluva Boss.” A nomination, let alone a win, for “Hazbin Hotel” would be a massive victory for art existing on the margins.

“One of the things that’s so fun about writing for ‘Hazbin Hotel,’ is that because every character has their own musical style, it’s like writing for a musical that has a dozen orchestras rather than just one,” says Haft. Whether it’s the electro-swing of “Hell’s Greatest Dad” or the self-loathing emotional agony you can dance to of “Poison,” the music genuinely rocks and deserves to help push the show to the next level. If you’re a Grammy voter or know someone who is — “Hazbin Hotel” is beyond worthy of your consideration.