Music News

Start your engines Little Monsters because we now know when Lady Gaga‘s seventh album will descend from pop heaven. According to a new Vogue cover feature, LG7 — as yet untitled officially — is due out in February, with the untitled first single due out in October.
“There’s a lot of pain associated with this adventure,” the singer told the magazine about the album. “And when I start to explore that pain it can bring out another side to my artistry. When I’m here at this studio [Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La], I’m relaxed and I am able to face my demons and what’s remarkable is… that’s the music. I’m able to hear it back.”

The profile opens at Rubin’s famed studio in Malibu — just down the road from Gaga’s home — where Gaga recorded 2016’s Joanne, as well as some of the music for the 2018 soundtrack to her feature film debut, A Star Is Born. It reveals that Gaga has spent “the better part of 2024 here” working on both her new pop record and a second “surprise project” whose details have not yet been revealed.

Trending on Billboard

Additionally, the very public enigma of a star reveals that her fiancé, Michael Polansky — to whom she got engaged in April after a day of rock climbing — was the one who pushed her to return to her pop roots. “Michael is the person who told me to make a new pop record. He was like, ‘Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music,’” she said, with Polansky adding, “Like anyone would do for the person they love, I encouraged her to lean in to the joy of it. On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her; I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy.”

The writer then describes hearing a new, untitled, song from the upcoming album, writing that it is an “intense and ominous… old-school Gaga banger, unsettling but also buoyant.”

Earlier in the piece, Gaga noted that she’s feeling “so happy” and healthy these days, unlike during her Chromatica era. “That album was about an absolutely horrible time for me with my mental health,” she said. “I was in a really dark place. I struggled for, like, many years before that.” The album came out in Mary 2020, just months into the COVID-19 pandemic, when Little Monsters had to dance at home alone to the singles “Stupid Love” and “Rain on Me.”

After fracturing her hip during the Born This Way Ball tour ten years earlier — setting off years of muscle pain due to fibromyalgia — the pain-free Chromatica outing was a revelation. “Michael and I did that tour together,” she said. “I did it pain-free! I haven’t smoked pot in years. I’ve, like, changed. A lot. I feel like this new album, in a lot of ways, is about that time but from a place of happiness instead of misery. And now, Michael and I are really excited to organize our lives — and our marriage — around our creative output as a couple.”

Which, she said in an allusion to the music industry, was “really different than, like, doing what other people want you to do.”

Being a celebrity comes with tons of perks — free stuff, fancy awards, fame, fortune, etc. — but it also comes with an unending scrutiny and prying into your private life, often in the form of totally made-up, fake tabloid headlines.
Adele, known for her cheeky wit, figured she’d have some fun with the spotlight the tabs often focus on her during her limited run of shows at a custom venue in Munich by cooking up her own phony gossip rag called the Saturn Times. On Thursday (Sept. 5), the singer posted some of the highlights from her dip into the scandal sheet biz by sharing some of the silly headlines from her bogus broadsheet after wrapping up the 10-show run during which she previously said she’d had “the time of my life.”

“After years of putting up with the tabloids, I decided to join in on the fun and create my own for the Munich shows,” she explained. “When I tell you it was a highlight of my week to write and create these every Sunday after the shows…I think I missed my true calling! A friendly piss take on myself and the real ones! Truly, it is so much fun writing absolute nonsense! 🪐”

Trending on Billboard

Unlike the sometimes hurtful, totally ridiculous headlines in the real tabs, the Saturn Times is just silly fun, including one from week one in early August that screamed “It’s One Adele of a Ride!” accompanied by a pic of the “Easy On Me” star tooling around on a bike in the empty stadium along with a short story about her ride-around.

“Days before opening night, Adele was seen gallivanting around the grounds of Adele World on a bike, as she prepares to kick off her run of shows in Munich,” it read. “Dressed in all black with white trainers, the London born songstress was sure to stay safe and responsibly wore a helmet.” Another one, under the screaming headline “Saturn Satire!” chronicled her meeting with the Munich’s chief of police, while one from week two yelled “STORM ADELE” in a report on foul weather that almost scotched he shows.

Further down the page, an editor’s note from Adele paid tribute to her fans. “Hello… it’s me. This show is yours and yours only,” it read. “I want you to experience it in any way you want. Standing, sitting, crouching, jumping or even hopping on one leg for all I care!” But, she warned, please don’t stand on chairs, because it’s dangerous and not fair to the fans behind you. “Also, a gentle nudge to remember to be kind to each other, we’re all here to have a great time.”

Other headlines poked fun at the almost weekly false reports about her alleged engagement to longtime boyfriend sports agent Rich Paul. “After sending fans into a meltdown by seemingly announcing she’s engaged for the 100th time this year,” it teased. “The blonde singer, 36, spotted the precious moments in the crowd. One newly engaged couple had flow all the way from Venezuela.”

Later editions joked about more bad weather, which allegedly forced the singer to match her custom gown with New Balance sneakers (“ADELE’S BALANCING ACT”) as well as bragging about the alleged Guinness world record set by the massive screen erected in the custom venue for the residency shows. “Oh ma gawd, I can’t believe it!” Adele crowed in the cover story. “Out of all the screens in the world! What is the likelihood of this one being a new record held?”

Adele recently revealed that after she finishes her upcoming Weekend With Adele residency in Las Vegas at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Nov. 23 she will “not see you for an incredibly long time.”

Check out some headlines from the Saturn Times below.