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Express Tribune
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Lady Gaga's mania for mayhem
The Joker sequel, twinned with Lady Gaga's accompanying Harlequin album released last year may have conquered few hearts, but as her fans are well aware, none of that has put a brake on the singer's love for creating new music. With Mayhem, Gaga's latest album, having been released on March 7, the year ahead is full of promise for the artist who once extolled the virtues of bad romance in 2009. But just who is the woman behind the wall of makeup, this artist who skyrocketed to fame in 2009/10 and can change her appearance like a chameleon? "Being there for my friends, being there for my family, meeting my amazing fiancé – all of these things made me a whole person, instead of the most important thing being my stage persona," confides Gaga in an interview with the BBC. Head over heels As detailed by the publication, there was a time when Gaga felt desperately at sea despite having an army of fans clamouring for her star power at concerts. "I'm alone [...] every night," she said in the 2017 documentary Five Foot Two. "I go from everyone touching me all day and talking at me all day to total silence." But with her engagement to tech entrepreneur Michael Polansky, Gaga, 38, can put those days of overwhelming loneliness behind her. "I think my biggest fear was doing this by myself – doing life on my own," muses the artist in the interview. "And I think that the greatest gift has been meeting my partner, Michael, and being in the mayhem with him." The couple, who have been together since 2020, revealed their engagement at the Venice Film Festival last September, where Gaga debuted her million-dollar engagement ring – not that she needed pricey jewellery to be wooed with. Far dearer to Gaga is the ring she wears on her other hand, which features blades of grass set in resin. "Michael actually proposed to be with these blades of grass," she says. "A long time ago, we were in the backyard, and he asked me, 'If I ever proposed to you, like, how do I do that?' "And I just said, 'Just get a blade of grass from the back yard and wrap it around my finger and that will make me so happy'." With those very blades of grass now close to her heart – or rather, her hand – Gaga has taken things one step further in her Mayhem album by commemorating her and Polansky's love with the song Blade of Grass, which she calls a 'thank you' to her partner. Meaning behind 'Mayhem' After having devoted time to a film career (Joker: Folie à Deux) and experimenting with jazz covers (Harlequin), Mayhem, Gaga's latest album, marks her triumphant return to her roots: pop. Astute listeners will be able to make out echoes of Gaga's earliest hits, namely Bad Romance in her latest single Abracadabra. The rest of the album features tantalising callbacks to her previous songs Just Dance and Poker Face. However, Gaga's frustrations with the entertainment industry rise undeniably to the surface in the track Perfect Celebrity, which boasts the line, "I became a notorious being." "That's probably the most angry song about fame I've ever written," confesses Gaga. "I'd created this public persona that I was truly becoming in every way – and holding the duality of that, knowing where I begin and Lady Gaga ends, was really a challenge. It kind of took me down." At the end of the day, Gaga says she has learned that it is futile trying to keep her private and public persona separate. Like two sides of a coin, they are irrevocably linked. "I think what I actually realised is that it's healthier to not have a dividing line and to integrate those two things into one whole human being," she notes. "The healthiest thing for me was owning that I'm a female artist and that living an artistic life was my choice." Mayhem is Gaga's way of reclaiming ownership of the sound that made her the world-famous artist she is today. "When I was younger, people tried to take credit for my sound, or my image [but] all of my references, all of my imagination of what pop music could be, came from me," she reflects. "So I really wanted to revisit my earlier inspirations and my career and own it as my invention, for once and for all." In other words, with Mayhem, Gaga is pulling back the curtain and reminding the world it is her love of music that has driven her to where she is today. "I am a lover of songwriting. I'm a lover of making music, of rehearsing, choreography, stage production, costumes, lighting, putting on a show," insists the musician. "That is what it means to be Lady Gaga. It's the artist behind it all." Summarising her thoughts on what Mayhem means to her, Gaga's words are poignant. "I wanted Mayhem to have an ending. I wanted the chaos to stop. I stepped away from the icon. It ends with love."
BBC News
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Lady Gaga: My biggest fear? Being alone
No-one wants to be alone, and no job is more isolating than being a pop star. Just ask Lady rise to fame in 2009-10 was unlike anything we'd seen before. One of the first pop stars to harness the power of the internet, she seemed to exist in a permanent onslaught of TMZ photos and gossip appetite was voracious. She wore through so many looks and sounds in the space of three years that one critic wrote she was "speed-running Madonna's entire career".And as her fame grew, the headlines became more unhinged. She staged a satanic ritual in a London hotel... She was secretly a hermaphrodite... She planned to saw her own leg off "for fashion".When she attended the 2010 MTV Awards in a dress made entirely of meat, nobody seemed to get the joke: Gaga was presenting herself as fodder for the tabloids, there to be stage, she was an object of worship for her fans, the Little Monsters. But anyone who isn't a megalomaniac knows that that sort of adulation is a distant illusion."I'm alone, Brandon. Every night," Gaga told her stylist in the 2017 documentary, Five Foot Two. "I go from everyone touching me all day and talking at me all day to total silence."Now 38, and happily engaged to tech entrepreneur Michael Polansky, Gaga admits that those years of solitude scared her."I think my biggest fear was doing this by myself - doing life on my own," she tells the BBC."And I think that the greatest gift has been meeting my partner, Michael, and being in the mayhem with him." The couple have been together since 2020, and revealed their engagement at the Venice Film Festival last September - where Gaga wore her million-dollar engagement ring in public for the first person, it's dazzling, with a huge, oval-cut diamond set on a 18-karat white and rose gold diamond pavé on her other hand, Gaga sports a smaller, more understated ring, featuring a few blades of grass set in resin. It turns out that this is the really special one."Michael actually proposed to me with these blades of grass," she reveals."A long time ago, we were in the back yard, and he asked me, 'If I ever proposed to you, like, how do I do that?'"And I just said, 'Just get a blade of grass from the back yard and wrap it around my finger and that will make me so happy'."It was a deeply romantic gesture that came tinged with sadness. Gaga's back yard in Malibu had previously played host to the wedding of her close friend, Sonja Durham, shortly before she died of cancer in 2017."There was so much loss, but this happy thing was happening for me," she recalls of Polansky's proposal. "To get engaged at 38... I was thinking about what it took to get to this moment." Those feelings ultimately informed a song on her new album, Mayhem. Called (naturally) Blade of Grass, it finds the star singing about a "lovers' kiss in a garden made of thorns", and the promise of love in a time of calls it a "thank you" to her partner. And fans might have a reason to thank him, marks Gaga's full throttle return to pop, after a period where she'd been preoccupied with her film career, and spin-off albums that dabbled in jazz and the classic American to Vogue last year, the singer revealed it was her fiancé who'd nudged her in that direction."He was like, 'Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music'," she said."On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her," Polansky added. "I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy." 'Angriest song' With that approach, the album goes right back to the sucker-punch sound of Gaga's early hits like Poker Face, Just Dance and Born This the latest single, Abracadabra, she even revisits the "roma-ma-ma" gibberish of Bad Romance – although this time there's a reference to death, as she sings, "morta-ooh-Gaga".In the album's artwork, her face is reflected in a broken mirror. In the videos, she squares off against earlier versions of an overwhelming sense that the artist Stefani Germanotta is reckoning with the stage persona she created. It all comes to a head on a track called Perfect Celebrity where she sings, "I became a notorious being" – a lyric that, like the meat dress before it, strips away her humanity."That's probably the most angry song about fame I've ever written," she says."I'd created this public persona that I was truly becoming in every way - and holding the duality of that, knowing where I begin and Lady Gaga ends, was really a challenge."It kind of took me down." How did she reconcile the public and private sides of her life?"I think what I actually realised is that it's healthier to not have a dividing line and to integrate those two things into one whole human being," she says."The healthiest thing for me was owning that I'm a female artist and that living an artistic life was my choice."I am a lover of songwriting. I'm a lover of making music, of rehearsing, choreography, stage production, costumes, lighting, putting on a show."That is what it means to be Lady Gaga. It's the artist behind it all." In previous interviews, the musician has spoken of how she dissociated from Lady Gaga. For a time, she believed the character was responsible for all her success, and she had contributed marks the moment where she reclaims ownership of her music, not just from "Lady Gaga" but from other producers and writers in her orbit."When I was younger, people tried take credit for my sound, or my image [but] all of my references, all of my imagination of what pop music could be, came from me."So I really wanted to revisit my earlier inspirations and my career and own it as my invention, for once and for all." From the outset, it was obvious that Gaga was excited about this new phase. Last summer, after performing at the Olympics opening ceremony, she took to the streets of Paris and played early demos of her new music to fans who'd gathered outside her was a spur of the moment decision, yet it marked another effort to restore the spontaneity of her early career."This has been something I've done for almost 20 years, where I played my fans my music way before it came out," she says."I used to, after my shows, invite fans backstage, and we'd hang out and I'd play them demos and see what they thought of the music."I'm sure you can imagine that after 20 years, you don't expect that people are still going to show up to hear your music and be excited to see you. So, I just wanted to share it with them, because I was excited that they were there." As an interviewer, this is a full-circle moment for me, too. I last interviewed Lady Gaga in 2009, as Just Dance hit number one in the then, she was giddy with excitement, chatting enthusiastically about her love of John Lennon, calling herself a "heroin addict" for English tea, and promising to email me an MP3 of Blueberry Kisses – an unreleased song that is, quite brilliantly, about performing a sex act while your breath smells of blueberry flavoured the years, I've seen her interviews become more guarded. She'd wear outrageous costumes or jet-black sunglasses, deliberately putting a barrier between her and the the Gaga I meet in New York is the same one I spoke to 16 years ago: comfortable with herself, and brimming with puts that ease down to "growing up and living a full life"."Being there for my friends, being there for my family, meeting my amazing fiancé - all of these things made me a whole person, instead of the most important thing being my stage persona."With an air of finality, she adds: "I wanted Mayhem to have an ending. I wanted the chaos to stop. "I stepped away from the icon. It ends with love."
