Lady Gaga releases a new album every three to four years, on average. Chromatica came out in 2020, so Little Monsters have been extra eagle-eyed this year looking for hints that their collective thirst would be quenched soon. First came the bleached eyebrows (IYKYK). Those were quickly followed by Gaga confirming she was working as fast as she can on new music. Then came the ultimate tease: a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flashing card at the end of her Chromatica Ball film that read “LG7 GAGA RETURNS.” Well, Mother Monster has just given us another little crumb, a morsel, a glimpse into her continued work on LG7. She posted on Instagram a carousel of moody black-and-white snaps, captioned with “Just me in the studio — happy as ever making music.” Hear that? That’s the sound of Little Monsters everywhere sobbing with relief and joy.
Lady Gaga appeared to push the hands on the clock ticking down to LG7 a few spots forward on Thursday (July 18) when she gave her Little Monsters the latest, most exciting update on her long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s Chromatica.
“Just me in the studio — happy as ever making music,” Gaga wrote in an Instagram post in which she was spotted wearing an all-black outfit accented by black shades as she tossed up the metal hand sign while standing behind a microphone in a recording studio. The series of three pics included another one in which Gaga seemed to be singing and one of her sitting behind the mixing console deep in thought.
Following a string of emoji — black heart, black shades, lips, music notes — Gaga’s post added, “Feel so grateful, heart is peaceful. It’s like meditation. I can’t wait for you to hear what I’m working on.” The post got an immediate, enthusiastic reaction from Kesha, who commented, “Feed us mother!!!!,” with Gaga responding with a shout-out to her fellow pop star’s new single, writing, “Just looking for a joyride 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤.”
Gaga has been amping up anticipation for her seventh album since February, when she posted some similar studio snaps along with the clarification, “No I’m not making a rock album.” That denial came alongside a pic of Gaga sitting on a daybed in front of a window strumming an electric guitar, with a vocal mic in front of her. A week before, she posted pictures in which she was working hard playing a keyboard in the studio, as well as ones in January of her recording vocals, which may have sparked that fan speculation that she’s leaning into her rock side.
The curtain was pulled back a bit more in June when Gaga told Drag Race star Sasha Velour that she’s been focusing on music lately in a chat about Gaga’s Gaga Chromatica Ball concert doc. “I have just been in the studio all the time, and I’m making a lot of music,” Gaga told Velour in the since-deleted post. “It’s just this incredibly vast experience that I just feel so lucky that I get to have. I’m excited for Monsters to hear where I am now, and to be connecting on that level again.” The Chromatica Ball film also dropped what felt like a mega-teaser in the message that flashed at the end of the film: “LG7 GAGA RETURNS.”
Hang in there Monsters! Each day brings us closer and closer. Though there’s still no general timeline announced for LG7, we will be getting Actress Gaga soon, when Joker: Folie à Deux has its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in a month. In the meantime, this video interview between Gaga and Sasha Velour is sweet. Gaga infamously opened season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race by pretending to be a contestant, before the new batch of queens (which included Sasha) realized she was the real deal. Then the first challenge was a runway of “Night of a Thousand Gagas,” and Sasha nailed the “Applause” face-paint, looking like a very Beatnik clown/French mime. And Ms. Velour, of course, went on to be crowned the winner, baby, of that season. So I enjoyed the reunion! (As if you couldn’t tell.) They’re a good pairing, Gaga and Sasha. They seem like they’re on kindred artistic wavelengths. If only there were some project they could collaborate on, like a music video for a new song…
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- LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 12: (L-R) Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga attend Netflix’s “Maestro” Los Angeles photo call at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on December 12, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.,Image: 829166244, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Credit line: Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon
Photos credit: The Hollywood JR/PopCulture/Backgrid, IMAGO/Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon, Getty and via Instagram
❤️. Good.