For months now, Lady Gaga has been building up to the release of her new album. This won't be like Harlequin, the full-length jazz-standards Joker: Folie à Deux tie-in that Gaga released back in September. She'd probably be OK if we all forgot that one existed. Instead, this rollout has been happening since before Harlequin came out. It'll be Gaga's first proper pop opus since 2020's Chromatica. Today, Gaga's new album gets a title and a release date. It's called Mayhem, and it drops March 7.
Lady Gaga didn't announce Mayhem with a press release or a social-media post. Instead, she shared the news by buying billboards that went up in New York and Las Vegas this morning.
“Mayhem” promotional billboards appeared in New York City and Las Vegas. pic.twitter.com/6i8i8C7SL9
— LⱯDY GⱯGⱯ NOW? (@ladygaganownet) January 27, 2025
Hours later, Lady Gaga dropped a press release with a bit more info on Mayhem. The album has 14 songs, and Gaga serves as executive producer alongside Michael Polansky and Andrew Watt. It's got production from Gaga, Watt, Cirkut, and Gesaffelstein. The album's as-yet-untitled third single is coming 2/2, and its video will debut in a commercial break during the Grammys. The tracklist is coming later.
In that press release, Gaga says, "The album started as me facing my fear of returning to the pop music my earliest fans loved." She says that making it was like "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."
Gaga released the Bruno Mars duet "Die With A Smile" in August, and she followed it with the solo dance-pop track "Disease" in October, and both tracks are on Mayhem. "Disease" mostly came and went, but "Die With A Smile" is currently the #1 song in America, and Gaga made history when the single finally ascended to that spot a few weeks ago. When this week's charts come out later today, it's likely that the song will still be at #1. A few days ago, Gaga made an appearance in the video for Bruno Mars' new Sexyy Red collab "Fat Juicy & Wet."
Mayhem is out 3/7 on Interscope. Pre-order it here.
