Lady Gaga's Monster Return

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2022, Lady Gaga embarked on The Chromatica Ball – a stadium tour featuring a stage that Gaga herself referred to as her "museum of brutality." Three years later, this idea of a brutalist enshrining of all things Monster can come to represent her new studio album MAYHEM. Over the course of fourteen tracks, Gaga is "unafraid to reference or not reference," invoking not just the pop weirdos of a past era like Prince and Bowie, but also her contemporaries, in this gothic and chaotic web of a record. This episode of Switched On Pop, Little Monster-in-residence Reanna takes Charlie and Nate on a tour through the Gaga-seum, showcasing Gaga's ability to pay tribute to her inspirations, her imitators, and her biggest icon: herself. MORE Subscribe to our newsletter to receive your own bingo card! SONGS DISCUSSED Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande – Rain On Me Lady Gaga – Disease Lady Gaga, Gesaffelstein – Killah David Bowie – Watch That Man David Bowie – Fame Queen – Killer Queen Prince – Kiss Prince – Sign O' The Times Talking Heads – Psycho Killer Nile Rodgers, CHIC, Lady Gaga – I Want Your Love Lady Gaga – Perfect Celebrity Lady Gaga – Paparazzi Lady Gaga – The Fame Lady Gaga – Applause Nine Inch Nails – Closer Depeche Mode – Mercy in You Lady Gaga – Vanish Into You Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe! The Weeknd – In Your Eyes Lady Gaga – How Bad Do U Want Me Taylor Swift – Style Taylor Swift – Gorgeous Yaz – Only You Lady Gaga – Zombieboy Gwen Stefani – Hollaback Girl Lady Gaga – Summerboy Lady Gaga – Beautiful, Dirty Rich Lady Gaga – Shadow Of A Man Lady Gaga – Nothing On But the Radio Lady Gaga – Garden of Eden Lady Gaga – Bad Romance Lady Gaga – Abracadabra Lady Gaga – Government Hooker Lady Gaga – Bloody Mary Lady Gaga – Swine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home.
0:05.0	Out.
0:06.0	Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road.
0:11.0	In.
0:12.0	Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done.
0:16.0	Out. Carpet in the bathroom.
0:19.0	Like, why?
0:26.2	In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire.
0:44.6	Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Welcome to Switchdom Pop. I'm producer Rihanna Cruz.
0:50.2	Producer Rihanna Cruz. Come on, little monster Rihanna Cruz. This is songwriter Charlie Harding.
1:12.1	And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. The rumors are true. I am a little monster. And I think you guys know what we're going to be talking about today. Gaga. Exactly. Lady Gaga has a brand new record called Mayhem. And I actually want to start by going back to 2022, before mayhem was even in the picture.
1:19.5	So the both of you know, I saw Lady Gaga on her last tour, the otherworldly chromatica ball.
1:20.4	Who could forget?
1:24.7	I haven't seen her live since I think it was the born-this-way ball.
1:27.2	I also love how Gaga names Oliver Tours balls. There's so much
1:28.4	ephemera of ballroom culture and drag culture in all of her work that I think flies over most
1:35.0	mainstream audiences and she's like throwing it out right there. This is a ball. And something that I
1:40.3	find interesting specifically about the chromatica ball was that she said on record that the tour was her, quote, museum of brutality.
1:50.7	Oh, dark.
1:51.6	Very Antony in our toe of her.
1:53.7	The stage was this large, cement, brutalist design, and Gaga interpreted both her older and newer songs in this dark and chaotic environment,
2:03.6	which is funny to me because the songs on Chromatica sounded like this.
	...

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