Lady Gaga releases catchy comeback single 'Perfect Illusion' and confirms upcoming duet with Florence Welch

Gaga dropped the new song on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show on Friday

Get ready to reignite your bad romance with Lady Gaga. The multi-Grammy winner has finally made her long-awaited comeback and dropped stomping new song “Perfect Illusion”.

Gaga’s latest single is the first from her as-yet-untitled upcoming fifth album and feels rockier than the likes of “Just Dance” and “Poker Face”, with a ballsy, Springsteen-style drive to the verses. Her vocals are as powerful as ever, shown off by a fist-pumping disco-pop chorus about being let down in love.

The chart-topper enlisted the help of musical thoroughbreds Mark Ronson, BloodPop and Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker to write and produce the track. With Ronson fresh from global success with “Uptown Funk”, it’s unsurprising that “Perfect Illusion” is as catchy as they come and sure to prove a club banger despite failing to pack a convincing emotional punch.

Gaga appeared on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show on Friday morning, when she revealed that “Perfect Illusion” is about social media, and the “many fake things around, things that appear to be real”.

“People feel pressured to live up to that perfect illusion in their real lives,” she said. “This is about accepting that and letting go. I’m not saying not to use your phone, I’m not that crazy. I think social media is great. But there’s also a lot of things that are on the internet that aren’t reality.”

Gaga’s return has been hyped for months and excitement was ranked up further when she revealed that she has recorded a duet with Florence + the Machine’s Florence Welch.

“There’s a feature on the album that I think you will be very excited about,” she told host Nick Grimshaw. “Me and Florence Welch did a duet together. I started to work on an idea for a song that I really wanted to do with a girl. You’ll see why when you see what the song is about.

“I just thought, ‘Who do I want to sing with?’ She’s really to me if not the best, one of the greatest vocalists in the world. She’s incredible.”


 Florence Welch headlined Glastonbury with Florence + the Machine in 2015

It’s been three years since Gaga’s underwhelming last album, 2013’s Artpop, but she hasn’t just been kicking back on the sofa in the mean-time. The 30-year-old has won a Golden Globe for her acting performance in American Horror Story: Hotel, released a duets album with Tony Bennett and been nominated for an Oscar for the hard-hitting “Til It Happens To You” from ground-breaking documentary The Hunting Ground, about the epidemic of sexual assault on student campuses.

“Perfect Illusion” is available now for download and streaming.