Lady Gaga: Every song ranked, from Born This Way to Abracadabra
As modern music’s most entertaining chameleon embraces pop chaos once again on her new album ‘Mayhem’, Adam White has ranked every song she’s ever released (but not the ones she did with Tony Bennett because, with all due respect, no one has time for that)
Few pop stars shot out of the proverbial cannon with as much hunger and razzle-dazzle as Lady Gaga, who has since spent 17 years as one of music’s most compelling, challenging and sartorially outré spectacles.
Who would have thought the woman behind early smashes such as “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” would grow up to win Oscars and invent planets and permanently shift the boundaries of pop stardom?
As the star unveils her seventh studio album Mayhem to incredibly strong reviews – particularly on the heels of misfiring detours into big-band covers and Joker 2 – we’ve ranked every one of her 123 officially released songs so far.
Albeit without the Tony Bennett collaborations, because there’s only so much time in the day, frankly.
From her ode to butts and her duet with Beyoncé, to her collaborations with Ariana Grande and Bruno Mars, here they are from worst to best…
123. Why Did You Do That? (A Star Is Born)
“Why do you look so good in those jeans?” Gaga asks. “Why’d you come around me with an ass like that?” This trash-bop from A Star Is Born is, thanks to those lyrics, iconic. If we’re being honest, though, it’s also unbearable.
122. Paper Gangsta (The Fame)
Cringeworthy lyrics (“Sometimes I felt so Def in the Jam”) and endless repetition of the title make this one of The Fame’s worst detours, Gaga dipping her toe into hip-hop – but it’s one of her least successful experiments.
121. Jewels N’ Drugs (Artpop)
Not exactly the nadir some fans make it out to be, but “Jewels N’ Drugs” is still a mess. A cacophony of trap and pop that never manages to gel.
120. Oh, When the Saints (Harlequin)
The weakest track on Harlequin, Gaga’s inexplicable Joker 2 covers album, this is unexpectedly giving “Christina Aguilera Christmas album” in its oversung, overproduced maximalism.
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119. Close to You (Harlequin)
Nope. Just a needlessly sped-through, oddly soulless rendition of one of the most emotional songs of all time.
118. If My Friends Could See Me Now (Harlequin)
There’s a meme that floats around every once in a while of Gaga dramatically scatting on stage like the world’s most deranged theatre kid… and this cover is basically that for three minutes.
117. World on a String (Harlequin)
There’s a languid drawl to Gaga’s vocal here that makes it a little more interesting than the other covers that surround it, but still… blah.
112 - 116. Good Morning / Get Happy / That’s Entertainment / Smile / That’s Life (Harlequin)
All of these covers, peppered through the Harlequin album, are sung with conviction, backed up with decent production and are resolutely OK – but all are inessential when it comes to the overall Gaga oeuvre.
111. Disco Heaven (The Fame)
Every bit a first album bonus track, this is sonically and lyrically repetitive – Gaga exploring territory she mines more successfully everywhere else on The Fame.
110. The Queen (Born This Way)
Bland inspirational pop powered by glittering synths. How this wasn’t on Glee, we’ll never know.
109. Hair (Born This Way)
Flavourless inspirational pop powered by sparkly synths. How this also wasn’t on Glee, we’ll never know.
108. Music to My Eyes (A Star Is Born)
One of the snoozier of A Star Is Born’s ballads, even if it sounds like something that’d comfortably play in a country saloon somewhere.
107. Before I Cry (A Star Is Born)
A number of A Star Is Born cuts sound like the above – pleasant, effective, but you won’t ever go back to them more than once.
106. Is That Alright? (A Star Is Born)
This is a little more commanding than the two previous entries, Gaga belting her heart out against a piano melody as if her life depended on it, but no one truthfully remembers these.
105. Happy Mistake (Harlequin)
The first of two originals on Harlequin, this does oddly feel like a track snipped from A Star Is Born – her vocals are raspier, less musical-minded than the rest of this particular album. It’s occasionally sweet, but a bit of a nothingburger all the same.
104. Replay (Chromatica)
A waste of a Diana Ross sample, this never quite congeals as a disco track nor the Basement Jaxx-style Noughties bop it seems to be striving to emulate.
103. Fun Tonight (Chromatica)
So short it’s barely there, this Eurodance filler track attempts to contrast its melancholy lyrics with its bombastic soundscape, but ends up largely anonymous.
102. 1000 Doves (Chromatica)
Another limp Chromatica Eurodance ballad, built around a chorus that merely repeats the song’s title.
101. Highway Unicorn (Road to Love) (Born This Way)
A wacky experiment that never gets off the ground, half sounding like a Christian power-ballad, half a repetitive trance song.
100. Folie à Deux (Harlequin)
The second of the two Gaga originals on the Harlequin record, this is nicely swooning at times, with a big-band loveliness as she pines for Joaquin Phoenix’s nutty Arthur.
99. The Joker (Harlequin)
The best song on Harlequin primarily because, with its thrashing guitars and manic kick to Gaga’s vocals, it has a bit of energy to it.
98. Money Honey (The Fame)
The least interesting of The Fame’s many, many tracks about the allure of riches. Gaga’s final delivery of “M-O-N-E-why so sexy?” remains genius, though.
97. Sour Candy featuring BLACKPINK (Chromatica)
This collaboration with K-pop’s biggest girl group is catchy but – via its sparse house beat and limp metaphorical lyrics about being hard on the outside but soft in the middle – feels more like a Katy Perry single than something worthy of Gaga.
96. Gypsy (Artpop)
An underwhelming mid-tempo number about the magical wonder of touring the world. It’s very “places 22nd at Eurovision”.
95. I Don’t Know What Love Is (A Star Is Born)
Strangely autotuned at times, but this has a plucky, orchestral swooniness to it, too.
94. Do What U Want (Artpop)
An abject disaster because of the presence of R Kelly, while the never-officially-released video for it, directed by accused sexual predator Terry Richardson of all people (he’s denied all allegations of sexual misconduct), only adds to the horror. “Do What U Want” is also hard to unearth nowadays – Gaga pulling it from streaming when new allegations of sexual misconduct against Kelly surfaced. It’s not a terrible track by any means, carried by its own slinky menace, but the sleaze oozing out of it means it’s probably best forgotten.
93. Plastic Doll (Chromatica)
Not just basic Gaga but so oddly generic in its chugging synths and Barbie-themed messaging that it sounds like something a Gaga knock-off would have released a few months after the world fell in love with The Fame.
92. Electric Chapel (Born This Way)
The lesser of Born This Way’s three blasphemy bangers, “Electric Chapel” is enjoyably icy but ultimately not that memorable.
91. eNIGMA (Chromatica)
A repetitive bit of house – Gaga gives it her all in the growl of her vocal, but bleh.
90. Donatella (Artpop)
“Donatella” is Gaga repeating herself a little, returning to the gilded if vaguely trashy opulence of The Fame but with limited returns three albums in.
89. La Vie En Rose (A Star Is Born)
A cover of the Edith Piaf classic that is inessential but still lovely.
88. Just Another Day (Joanne)
Very Elton John in its upbeat 1970s sprightliness, but incredibly forgettable.
87. Come to Mama (Joanne)
Much of Joanne, Gaga’s most polarising album, swims in similar waters as the above. Lots of retro pastiche and Elton sounds, with Gaga the theatrical showgirl at its centre, but tracks that never have lift off.
86. Vanish Into You (Mayhem)
This broad Mayhem power ballad, with Gaga at her screechiest, is produced a little haphazardly – “raw” doesn’t need to mean vaguely unpleasant.
85. Sine from Above featuring Elton John (Chromatica)
Speaking of… Elton’s guest verse here sounds almost distractingly demonic, while the track’s surge into a drum-and-bass explosion doesn’t quite paper over the limpness of this package overall.
84. Blade of Grass (Mayhem)
A sonic outlier on Mayhem, more A Star Is Born-coded in its piano-driven swooniness than the industrial loudness elsewhere on the record. It’s a nice three minutes, though, with Gaga at her most sweetly romantic.
83. Sinner’s Prayer (Joanne)
This country bop is rich and husky, yet it can’t help but feel like Gaga trying on aesthetics rather than entirely immersing herself in a genre.
82. Hold My Hand (Top Gun: Maverick)
Gaga understood the assignment here – to throw together a stadium-ready Eighties power ballad along the lines of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” from the first Top Gun – but it’s also… a bit flat, isn’t it? She’s done far better with similar ingredients.
81. Brown Eyes (The Fame)
A Queen-ish ballad that is, in hindsight, one of the most important tracks on The Fame considering how often Gaga would return to this well in the years after. It feels like a rough draft of things she’d do better later on, though.
80. Hair Body Face (A Star Is Born)
A Star Is Born’s “basic pop song”, sung by Gaga’s Ali when she hits the A-list, also sort of bangs. It absolutely sounds like something a Real Housewife would release.
79. Shadow of a Man (Mayhem)
Michael Jackson would be proud of this one – not Gaga at her best, but a shimmering bit of Eighties disco funk all the same.
78. Hey Girl (Joanne)
Considering “Hey Girl” sees Gaga collaborating with Florence Welch, it’s weirdly muted. Catchy, vaguely Joe Jackson in spirit, yet slightly beneath both of them.
77. Beautiful, Dirty, Rich (The Fame)
With those Fiona Apple-ish piano dramatics and lyrical allusions to daddy issues and violence, this is The Bling Ring in song form.
76. Mary Jane Holland (Artpop)
Almost three tracks in one, cycling messily between EDM, balladry and punk, with Gaga announcing at one point that it’s OK that her parents think she’s a mess as she’s “rich as piss”. It’s also so close to being really, really good.
75. Angel Down (Joanne)
A well-intentioned if forgettable ode to political confusion.
74. Grigio Girls (Joanne)
A well-intentioned if forgettable ode to female survival.
73. Don’t Call Tonight (Mayhem)
One of the less memorable Mayhem tracks, this chugs along on a funky bassline but doesn’t particularly ascend.
72. Til It Happens to You (non-album single)
Gaga received her first Oscar nod for this track from the 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground, about rape on a US university campus. Co-written with the perennially Oscar-losing Diane Warren, the track has a great, cascading bridge but suffers from Warren lyric syndrome overall – inspirational words, if a little staid.
71. Look What I Found (A Star Is Born)
Possibly the most musical theatre Gaga has ever been, full of jaunty jazz hands and sunny sentimentality.
70. LoveDrug (Mayhem)
One of the more innocuous numbers on Mayhem, this sounds a lot like a Pat Benatar B-side from 1985 – which may have been the intention.
69. Alice (Chromatica)
Like much of Chromatica, this ravey pop ditty gets the job done – the “take me… home!” shriek of the post-chorus is a blast – but feels oddly impersonal overall.
68. The Beast (Mayhem)
Gaga has always loved a Whitney Houston or En Vogue moment, with “The Beast” just the latest – it’s big, dramatic, with scuzzy guitars and production that calls to mind classic Babyface productions from the Nineties.
67. Swine (Artpop)
An enjoyable oddity that burns with disgust, “Swine” turns themes of sexual assault and trauma into a club banger, and is just as uncomfortable as it sounds.
66. Stupid Love (Chromatica)
Dubbed a return to form by critics who should know better, “Stupid Love” is propulsive and pleasurable, but Gaga can also, by now, do this sound in her sleep.
65. Die with a Smile featuring Bruno Mars (Mayhem)
While it’s never quite as good as you’d imagine it would be considering its success – “Die with a Smile” is, after all, Gaga’s biggest single in years – this is still a tender, gentle love song that serves both Gaga and Mars very well. Gaga in particular hasn’t sounded this engaged on a record in years.
64. Boys Boys Boys (The Fame)
Brilliantly playful, this femme spin on Motley Crue’s “Girls Girls Girls” embraces its lyrical basicness (“I like boys in cars / Boys boys boys”) and remains one of The Fame’s guiltiest of pleasures.
63. Zombieboy (Mayhem)
Another funk pastiche from the Mayhem record, but really lifted by Gaga’s vocal, which skips elegantly between back-of-the-rafters bellowing and the manic speak-singing of… Daphne & Celeste?
62. Starstruck (The Fame)
No Gaga song has aged as horribly as “Starstruck”, with its trendy 2008 bass and Beats-by-Dre references, but therein lies its cheeky appeal. There’s even a Flo Rida verse to drive home the nostalgia.
61. Applause (Artpop)
Reaction was muted to the lead single off Gaga’s third album, and “Applause” hasn’t particularly improved in the years since. It’s an attempt to wrap meta-commentary about her own fame in an electropop package, but is ultimately more messy than successful.
60. Speechless (The Fame Monster)
This is undeniably Gaga playing Freddie Mercury, and it never truthfully transcends that. There’s a lot to love about it, though, its lyrics wonderfully grungy. You can practically smell the liquor on her lips.
59. Dance in the Dark (The Fame Monster)
This begins spectacularly (“Silicone, saline, poison inject me / Baby I’m a free bitch”), but gradually declines into something more middle-of-the-road than it first appears.
58. Dope (Artpop)
Built for lighters being held aloft, “Dope” is something you don’t necessarily go back to more than once, but it’s undeniably moving.
57. Killah featuring Gesaffelstein (Mayhem)
This funky Mayhem number sees Gaga doing her best Prince impression, but the production is giving INXS more than The Purple One – shimmering guitar licks, lots of bass, lots of fun.
56. Perfect Illusion (Joanne)
Joanne’s launch single is the most traditional Gaga track on the otherwise country-fied album, but it’s also deceptively unique: shades of Eighties power pop à la Laura Branigan, mixed in with harder, slinkier rock.
55. How Bad Do U Want Me (Mayhem)
Such a slice of Taylor Swift cosplay that, at the time of writing, many listeners have wondered whether she actually appears unbilled on the track – “How Bad Do U Want Me” is a departure from the Gaga norm, built around a Yazoo sample (or at least a very good soundalike) and ending up a straight 1989 riff. Lovely though!
54. Teeth (The Fame Monster)
For better or for worse, this bluesy, brassy pop track sounds like something Christina Aguilera could have sung in Burlesque.
53. Perfect Celebrity (Mayhem)
Did Trent Reznor ghost-produce this track, which begins with sparse industrial synths before ascending into a bratty splash of chants and moans.
52. Diggin’ My Grave (A Star Is Born)
A dark love song that well utilises the contrasting grit of Gaga and her A Star Is Born co-star Bradley Cooper.
51. Million Reasons (Joanne)
A Gaga fave, in that she seemed to perform it everywhere when Joanne came out, but it’s a track that always had a bit of a “your grandmother likes this one” sheen to it.
50. John Wayne (Joanne)
Incredibly on-the-nose in its cowboy-country chaos, but still generally a blast.
49. LoveGame (The Fame)
Catchy and silly and best remembered for its “wanna take a ride on your disco stick” come-on that has never been anything but insane.
48. Garden of Eden (Mayhem)
A great example of Mayhem’s toss-everything-into-a-blender approach to pop construction, this pivots from Gaga at her most mid-Noughties Nelly Furtado, to a serene chorus bringing to mind the Born This Way record, to almost B-52s-style surf-pop.
47. Rain on Me (Chromatica)
This collaboration with Ariana Grande is comforting and replenishing in both sound and content – it really does feel like a run through a rainstorm, right?
46. Bad Kids (Born This Way)
A really curious number, one that toggles between New York Dolls-style punk rock and airy early Whitney. There’s a lot to like here, on-the-nose lyrics about rebellion and adolescence be damned.
45. Dancin’ in Circles (Joanne)
Nicely slots in with the big-pop-girl masturbation triquetra along with Britney’s “Touch of My Hand” and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Party for One” – even if it’s not quite as good as either of them.
44. Bloody Mary (Born This Way)
Great production, beautiful production. Amid the howling, echoes and general spookiness here, there are two lines in which Gaga’s vocals appear to melt and curdle, and it’s sort of brilliant.
43. Fashion! (Artpop)
Existing somewhere between a lost RuPaul album track and the theme song to a long-forgotten medical drama, this is a brilliant, baffling mess.
42. MANiCURE (Artpop)
The best kind of filler track, with low aspirations, a propulsive beat and Gaga doing, at least in the song’s bridge, her best Siouxsie Sioux impression.
41. Babylon (Chromatica)
A final shot of energy on the Chromatica tracklist, “Babylon” is camp as Christmas, Gaga barking orders to “serve it ancient city style”, and backed up by a choir, warm synths and what sounds a bit like a howling wolf.
40. A-YO (Joanne)
A fun kiss-off to the haters that squeals with a lovely, punky defiance.
39. I Like It Rough (The Fame)
An entirely middle-of-the-road kink bop that also completely slaps to this day.
38. Always Remember Us This Way (A Star Is Born)
Gorgeous melodies make this a soundtrack cut easy to return to over and over again.
37. ARTPOP (Artpop)
Cosmic and ethereal, Artpop’s title track is wildly singular. Its lyrics seem to have been written by a word generator (“Lovers’ kites / Are flown on beaches for public sight”), and it’s debatable whether any of it is actually catchy. There’s something nicely arresting about its ambition, though.
36. So Happy I Could Die (The Fame Monster)
Deceptively dark, “So Happy I Could Die” sports a Europop sheen, but a melancholy undercurrent, Gaga touching herself through the pain and drinking into oblivion.
35. Monster (The Fame Monster)
While a tad over-produced, “Monster” is also one of the greatest embodiments of Gaga’s imperial phase. This is essentially a filler track, but still manages to feature a ridiculous amount of memorable lines (“We French kissed on a subway train / He tore my clothes right off / He ate my heart and then he ate my brain”).
34. Aura (Artpop)
Very much the evil twin of “Americano”, which we’ll get to later, “Aura” is gloriously nutty, its production bashing and chopping up Gaga’s vocals until they resemble a shrieky soup.
33. Summerboy (The Fame)
There’s a lot of pop cosplay on The Fame, and this is Gaga in full Gwen Stefani mode. It’s also irresistibly sparkly, full of hand-claps, chugging pop-punk synths and a lovely breeziness that feels appropriate considering its title.
32. Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) (The Fame)
Feather-light and pretty, “Eh, Eh” was the first Gaga single to feel neither morbid nor hungover. That might explain why it gets overlooked a lot, even if its Europop airiness is wonderful.
31. Heal Me (A Star Is Born)
A shiny pastiche of 1990s R&B balladry, this A Star Is Born track is an overlooked gem.
30. Disease (Mayhem)
Gaga rides a bombardment of Nine Inch Nails clanks, bangs and stomps here, in the first single from her newest album Mayhem. It’s incredibly frenetic as these things go, and really made by Gaga’s snarling vocal.
29. Black Jesus † Amen Fashion (Born This Way)
A barnstormer of a track built around the Gaga mythology – she sings about being the plucky outsider hungry for success on New York City’s streets, determined to remake the world in her image. Incredible production, too.
28. Venus (Artpop)
Wildly melodramatic, like “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper” if it were somehow made even more camp.
27. Free Woman (Chromatica)
Gaga has always loved her own story, or at least the idea of it – the lost Manhattan teenager finding salvation in clubs, performance art and wild costumes. “Free Woman”, from Chromatica, doesn’t exactly mine anything new from that part of her life, but it coasts by so breezily on synths and vocal runs that it becomes one of that record’s relatively few high points.
26. Diamond Heart (Joanne)
The opening track off Joanne is Springsteen-esque in its American-heartland expansiveness. This is cathartic, powerful and, pre-A Star Is Born at least, wildly different to anything Gaga had ever done.
25. The Cure (non-album single)
As cool as a dip in the ocean, “The Cure” arrived and vanished in a puff of mystery. Unattached to any album and released randomly in early 2017, this is a discography outlier but one of Gaga’s loveliest numbers. In its loose crispness, it feels like romantic contentment, Gaga insisting she’s the cure to her lover’s woes.
24. Abracadabra (Mayhem)
As chaotic as the name of the album it comes from, “Abracadabra” feels a tad like what would happen if somebody asked a computer to pop out a Lady Gaga song – from the gibberish chorus to the squawks, howls and bellows of Gaga’s vocal – but it’s also such a mad rush that it feels like a major return to form.
23. Just Dance (The Fame)
While “Just Dance”, Gaga’s first single, doesn’t quite possess the smash-down-your-door quality of other pop arrivals – among them “Baby One More Time” or “Crazy in Love” – there’s an urgent, scrappy, almost DIY energy here. From those fire-alarm synths to the cry of producer “RED ONE!!”, nothing sounds as aggressively, entertainingly 2008 as this.
22. Americano (Born This Way)
Aka the Puss in Boots theme song, which is its own kind of victory. This is otherwise pulsating, frantic and genius – like a Mariachi band stuck in a tumble dryer.
21. Heavy Metal Lover (Born This Way)
“Dirty pony, I can’t wait to hose you down”, Gaga pants at one point here, a moment that forms the sweaty apex of one of her sexiest, silliest and most underrated tracks.
20. Fashion of His Love (Born This Way)
In hindsight, it’s baffling that Madonna kicked up such a fuss about “Born This Way” sounding a bit like “Express Yourself” when “Fashion of His Love” was right there. There’s the same melody, that Shep Pettibone drumbeat – it’s also a stonking wind machine of a track, if frustratingly never really talked about.
19. Alejandro (The Fame Monster)
Absolutely something that could have been rattling around in Ace of Base’s junk drawer since 1996, yet spectacular with it. From the inexplicably European lilt Gaga lends to the spoken-word lines, to the femme-fatale chilliness of its chorus, “Alejandro” bangs.
18. I’ll Never Love Again (A Star Is Born)
This is such a Whitney Houston song, with Gaga imitating her whoops and hums with uncanny aplomb. It’s secretly the most cinematic number from A Star Is Born as a result – a classic, made-in-Tinseltown ballad powered by stardust and glitter.
17. 911 (Chromatica)
The best track off Chromatica seems to be the blueprint for what the album should have been: robotic electropop underpinned by themes of chaos and misery. Inspired by her experiences with antipsychotic medication, “911” swirls around Europop synths and Gaga’s elastic vocals – there are airy whoops, verses of cyborgian speed-singing and a palpable sense of desperate yearning.
16. The Fame (The Fame)
A mission statement and declaration of self for early Gaga, “The Fame” provided her first album with its title and remains one of her catchiest tracks. There’s the sputtering repetition of “fame, fame, baby, the fame, fame”, the knowing celebration of vapidity and moneyed glam, and the shimmering cool of those Bowie-esque guitar licks.
15. Marry the Night (Born This Way)
A celebration of Gaga as a one-off, retelling how she fled cookie-cutter conformity in the Los Angeles pop industry and returned to New York to carve out her own destiny. Like a lot of Born This Way, there’s absolutely a starving-artist “idea” at work that feels at odds with Gaga’s very moneyed upbringing (she went to the same school as Paris Hilton’s sister Nicky, for instance). Still, there is a universal truth to “Marry the Night” regarding Gaga’s refusal to be what the industry wanted her to be – that singularity has spoken to millions of her fans since.
14. Poker Face (The Fame)
It’s easy to forget how creepy Gaga was when she first broke out – an enigma with the aura of a trickster or con artist, responsible for tracks that glistened with menace. “Poker Face”, her second single, sounds like Halloween, Gaga singing casually about violence and subterfuge. It remains marvellous.
13. Judas (Born This Way)
“Judas” sounds like a duet between two Gagas – the electropop cyborg and the angelic Whitney fangirl. It’s ultimately about the allure of darkness, while the track’s production is a wall of bangs, shouts and gurgles (“Eww!” Gaga cries at one point). Plus, every great pop icon has at least one track that’s a little bit wonderfully blasphemous.
12. Scheiße (Born This Way)
Okay, this is naked pandering to the Berghain crowd, with its gibberish German lyrics and rampant, aggressive absurdity. But it is such a deer-in-the-headlights racket that it transcends any and all cliche.
11. Joanne (Joanne)
Named after the aunt she never knew, an artist and poet who died at 19, Gaga’s fourth album is also her most polarising – primarily because it’s so divergent to everything else she’s done. “Joanne” is its heart and soul, a rich, beautifully low-key torch song that dispenses with the jazzier theatrics of her other ballads and is, honestly, all the better for it.
10. The Edge of Glory (Born This Way)
The best kind of love song, “The Edge of Glory” is big, teen-movie emotions in pop form. It’s basically Gaga’s “Firework” – overplayed as all hell, but never once losing its euphoric power no matter how often you’ve heard it. That Clarence Clemons sax solo, too? Floors you.
9. Government Hooker (Born This Way)
“Government Hooker” is pure chaos. Over the course of three minutes of industrial techno, it grinds and squirts its way into resembling something sub-human, with a chorus that sounds like a duet between Edith Piaf and a sex robot. Nothing will ever sound as sticky and sweet.
8. Sexxx Dreams (Artpop)
One of the strongest tracks on Gaga’s third album is a sentient dry-hump, full of theatrical flourishes as she recalls an erotic fantasy the night before. There’s a kitchen sink quality here that works unusually well – Gaga is half wailing and half speaking, giggling her way through a couple glasses of wine and pining for sexual gratification. There are strumming guitars, stop-and-start synths and a breathless funk bassline that never lets up. It’s baffling that this wasn’t a single.
7. Telephone (The Fame Monster)
It’s arguable that “Telephone” is Gaga, and duet partner Beyoncé, at their most basic, but purely because this is a track aspiring for nothing but nightclub frivolity. This is the pinnacle of trash-pop, a noisy, glitchy slab of energy and dial tones resting entirely on their shared charisma. In the end, it goes off like few others, powered by nothing but adrenaline and wigs.
6. GUY (Artpop)
Gaga has such strong vocal prowess that even when surrounded by production chaos, as in “GUY”, she still sounds totally in charge. Which is appropriate here, as it’s a track driven by themes of sexual domination and shifting gender roles. It’s also ludicrous (“Mount your goddess!” she cries in the middle-eight) – a mode that has always fit Gaga well.
5. Shallow (A Star Is Born)
Aka the “aaah-aha-a-ahhhhh” heard around the world. The standout track from A Star Is Born, which won Gaga and its co-writers an Oscar, this is dramatic, immaculately produced and heartbreaking – a rock power-ballad that sticks its hands into your soul and refuses to let go. It’s also the rare bit of modern pop culture that was immediately clipped and condensed for meme purposes, and yet hasn’t become exhausting by proxy. “Shallow” remains glorious in its mythic, born-from-the-Gods power.
4. Yoü and I (Born This Way)
One of Gaga’s greatest strengths has been her ability to fuse disparate genres – picking from the sounds she grew up adoring and channelling them through her own artistic vision. “Yoü and I” sounds like the baby Freddie Mercury and Shania Twain never had, a thunderous rock ballad that marks Gaga at her most joyous and open.
3. Paparazzi (The Fame)
“Paparazzi” was Gaga’s third single but also felt like her proper arrival, highlighting her romanticism, her vulnerability and, even more than “Poker Face”, her genius when it comes to killer hooks. That it’s the most cohesive example of The Fame’s central premise, exploring narcissism and celebrity and how we’re all guilty participants in pop culture, only adds to its power.
2. Born This Way (Born This Way)
It’s easy to forget that “Born This Way” was met with a degree of scepticism when it was first released. It was a track criticised for potentially exploiting Gaga’s gay fanbase, bizarre criticism that she was forced to condemn. In hindsight, it’s still a landmark, not only in Gaga’s career but in the kind of entirely unsubtle LGBT+ activism it represents, nothing of the sort having ever troubled the higher echelons of the charts previously, and certainly not by a star of Gaga’s magnitude. Considering how often Gaga had paid tribute to and fought for the rights of her queer fanbase, both before she was internationally famous and long after she had made it, “Born This Way” is even more powerful in its sheer joy. This is also a beast of a track, a stomping, on-the-nose battle cry and marvellous sign of the times.
1. Bad Romance (The Fame Monster)
“Bad Romance” still feels like a track only Lady Gaga could have made. Not only because so much of its hook involves the word “Gaga” being twisted and screwed into something monstrous, but because no one else would be daring enough to blend all of these sounds, images and reference points together. This is a track that is simultaneously light and dark, awash in Hitchcock nods and a guttural hunger – for sex, compassion, even death. It sounds like someone taking a chainsaw to a synthesiser, or a woman at the very peak of her powers. “Bad Romance” wasn’t the arrival of Lady Gaga – that had happened a year earlier – but it marked the moment we all knew she’d be around forever.
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