The Die With A Smile singer returns to pop
BY KITTY GRANT, IMAGES SUPPLIED
Lady Gaga has announced her seventh studio album, MAYHEM, which will be released on 7th March.
The album will feature her collaboration with Bruno Mars, Die with a Smile – which became the fastest song to hit a billion streams on Spotify – and Disease. She is set to release MAYHEM’s third single in a commercial break during Sunday’s Grammy Awards ceremony.
Fans of her early work will be happy, as Gaga says: “The album started as me facing my fear of returning to the pop music my earliest fans loved.” She described the creative process for MAYHEM as “reassembling a shattered mirror: even if you can’t put the pieces back together perfectly, you can create something beautiful and whole in its own new way.”
It looks like fans can thank Gaga’s fiancé, Michael Polansky, for her return to pop. Back in September, she told Vogue that he said to her: “Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music.” The couple have been together since 2020, and confirmed their engagement last year. Polansky is credited as an executive producer for MAYHEM, alongside Lady Gaga herself and Andrew Watt, who’s also produced for Lana del Ray, Charli XCX, and Elton John.
While this will be Gaga’s first solo studio album since 2020’s Chromatica, she’s been busy with other pursuits. In 2021 she released Love For Sale, her second collaboration with the late Tony Bennet. She’s also spent more time pursuing acting, playing Patrizia Reggiani in House Of Gucci and Harley Quinzel in Joker: Folie à Deux. For the latter, she also released two soundtrack albums.
Lady Gaga is set to perform at FireAid on 30th January, which hopes to raise money for people affected by the recent LA wildfires. Other performers include Billie Eilish, Oliva Rodrigo, and Stevie Nicks.
MAYHEM is available to pre-order now.
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