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Lady Gaga took some playful jabs at herself during the opening monologue of Saturday Night Live on March 8.
The 38-year-old pop superstar and actress, who was both host and musical guest, opened the episode with a nearly four-minute roast, making jokes about her role in Joker: Folie à Deux, duetting with R. Kelly, and her age.
“Anyway, I’m an actor now,” the Oscar and Grammy winner said. “I select films that would showcase my craft as a serious actor, films such as Joker 2. Apparently, people thought it was awesome. Joaquin [Phoenix] and I even got nominated for a Razzie, which is an award for the worst films of the year. So we won worst onscreen duo.”
Gaga continued, “But jokes on them. I love winning things. My Razzie brings me one step closer to an EGORT. It’s like an EGOT, but it’s hurtful.”
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Todd Phillips’ R-rated Joker sequel, starring Phoenix as the Joker and Gaga as Harley Quinn, earned seven Razzie nominations in 2025 after underperforming at the box office. The musical film took home Razzies for worst screen combo and worst sequel.
“Tonight, I promise to act, to sing and to not do Joker 3,” Gaga joked.
Gaga’s monologue also touched on returning to host SNL for the first time since 2013. “I know you might be thinking I’m here to promote my album, Mayhem, but I’m actually here to remind you that I’m an amazing actor,” she said, referencing her just-released seventh album.
“The last time I hosted SNL I was 27,” she added. “I’m 38 now, which is scientifically the best age for a female pop star to be. I see that most pop stars are over 40. Chappell Roan is 58. Charli XCX, she’s 75. Tate McRae is my biological grandmother.”
Gaga also poked fun at her 2013 duet with the now-imprisoned R. Kelly on the show. “I’m so happy to be back at SNL. The last time I hosted was in 2013 and every aspect of my performance aged amazingly,” Gaga joked. “So there’s no need to Google SNL 2013, Lady Gaga featuring R. Kelly. I won’t bring it up because that would be bad.”
Amid hilarious sketches, the 14-time Grammy winner delivered high-energy performances of her new Mayhem tracks “Abracadabra” and “Killah.” Check out videos of the performances here.
Watch Lady Gaga’s SNL monologue below. For those without cable, the broadcast streams on Peacock, which you can sign up for at the link here. Having a Peacock account also gives fans access to previous SNL episodes.
Lady Gaga brought mayhem to 30 Rock.
Just one day after the release of her seventh album, Mayhem, the 38-year-old pop icon and actress took on double duty as both host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live on March 8.
The evening opened with a hilarious monologue where Gaga poked fun at her movie Joker: Folie à Deux and even referenced her previous SNL hosting debut in 2013, which featured a guest appearance by the now-imprisoned R. Kelly. Amid a series of comedic sketches, the night shifted into high gear as the 14-time Grammy winner delivered two electrifying performances from her long-awaited new album.
Gaga opened with an impressively choreographed performance of the dance-pop anthem “Abracadabra,” wearing a sparkly red ensemble and surrounded by dancers in black with long red wigs, who spun around her inside a small, neon-lit structure. For her next performance of the funk-inspired “Killah,” Gaga started off backstage at Studio 8H, before moving to the main stage for a full-on, colorful dance party with a live band. She ended with an electrifying finish, rocking out next to the drum kit in a fiery display.
Gaga’s SNL appearance arrived more than a decade after she first hosted the show in 2013.
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Mayhem arrives on the heels of a successful 2025 for Gaga, which saw her chart-topping collaboration with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile.” The song spent five weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, marking her second-longest-running No. 1 hit after 2011’s “Born This Way.” She also won a Grammy for best pop duo/group performance alongside Mars.
The new album features a diverse mix of production collaborators, including Andrew Watt, Cirkut and Gaga’s fiancé, Michael Polansky. In a recent interview with Billboard, she discussed the creative process behind Mayhem, explaining that its chaotic vibe was intentional.
“There have been times in my career where I had an idea in terms of how to conceptually approach a record. But I would say that this album, from start to finish, was like pieces coming together,” she said. “I did not want to turn it into anything artificial, I really wanted to allow myself to just follow the music. By doing that, it started to slowly remind me of my earlier work.”
Watch Lady Gaga’s SNL performances below. For those without cable, the broadcast streams on Peacock, which you can sign up for at the link here. Having a Peacock account also gives fans access to previous SNL episodes.
Ariana Grande is teasing something new from the Eternal Sunshine era, a year after releasing the original Eternal Sunshine album. On Saturday (March 8), the pop star shared a fiery clip and a pre-save link for an upcoming release that leads to streaming services Spotify and Apple Music.
The short video, which Grande posted on social media, shows mementos being burned. It’s the same box of belongings (including a teddy bear) that are put into the incinerator in her “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” music video, set at the memory erasure clinic Brighter Days.
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Grande did not include a caption for her post or a release date for what’s to come. She also remained mum about details when prodded with questions on the Oscars red carpet last weekend, but had previously confirmed there’s an unreleased deluxe edition of her 2024 album.
“There’s something I made last year that will come out eventually,” Grande said in an interview at the Golden Globes in January. “It’s an attachment of Eternal Sunshine. So, that does exist, and that will be coming out at some point.”
When interviewed at the March 2 Oscars ceremony — where Grande was nominated for best supporting actress for her role in Wicked, an award that ultimately went to Zoe Saldaña for her part in Emilia Pérez — she simply said, “The next step is the next step … It means it must come out. It’s been done.”
“You know what, they did the Brighter Days memory erasure treatment to me, so I’m having trouble remembering the details. They’re foggy … You know what, I’ll have to go back to the clinic to see if they can restore my memory,” the singer replied when asked for a release date.
Grande added at the time, “Just keep your eyes peeled. Just keep them peeled. That’s all I’m saying.”
Eternal Sunshine, Grande’s seventh studio album, ruled the Billboard 200 for two weeks in 2024, with singles “Yes, And?” and “We Can’t Be Friends” topping the Hot 100. The album’s standard release preceded a “Slightly Deluxe” version of the album with four additional tracks, which dropped a few days after Eternal Sunshine.
See Grande’s latest teaser below.
Glastonbury headliners The 1975 have a new live album that’s now streaming and available to pre-order on limited edition vinyl. Still… At Their Very Best (Live From The AO Arena, Manchester, 17.02.24) was released without promotion on Friday, March 7, a day after the Glastonbury 2025 lineup was announced with The 1975 in the Friday night headliner slot at the U.K. festival in June.
The vinyl version of the live album, recorded during one of the band’s hometown shows in Manchester last year in the midst of their Still… At Their Very Best Tour, is pressed on triple clear vinyl, according to its listing on The 1975’s website. It has an estimated May 30, 2024 release date via Dirty Hit.
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The Still… At Their Very Best live set from Manchester follows the 2023 release of a live recording from The 1975’s prior tour, At Their Very Best, recorded at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 2022.
Still… At Their Very Best kicks off with a smooth opening of songs performed from the band’s latest studio album, 2022’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language.
“Don’t be nostalgic. Do not. Don’t do it,” frontman Matty Healy says to the crowd as the set list shifts to “A Change of Heart,” from The 1975’s No. 1, and highest-charting, album on the Billboard 200, 2016’s I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It.
With Friday’s unveiling of Still… At Their Very Best live, The 1975 also debuted a band logo that’s stylized in an updated font on social media. They’ve seemingly been working on new music for an album that might be called God Has Entered My Body, with fans hopeful for a preview at Glastonbury, if not ahead of their performance at the fest.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know anything about legacy, or the future. I don’t know if anyone’s gonna remember us. But if we are remembered, I hope it’s for this,” Healy says on the newly-released live set, during a heartfelt introduction to one of the band’s early standouts, the carthatic “Robbers,” from their 2014 self-titled debut.
The first half of the 30-track album culminates on romance from the mainstage, with the gut-punch trio of “Fallingforyou,” “About You” and “When We Are Together,” before moving on to the “Consumption” section of the concert, an acoustic B-stage performance that starts with media noise and, at this show in Manchester, had Healy singing “I Like America & America Likes Me,” and 1975 tourmate Polly Money taking lead on the group’s Phoebe Bridgers duet “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America.”
“Hello,” Healy says here. “I haven’t really planned what to say. But I suppose this bit is supposed to be a bit awkward, ‘cause it’s just me under a spotlight.”
“You shouldn’t feel sorry for me, I’m a nepo baby,” he jokes. “My mum [Denise Welch] was on Coronation Street so they gave me a No. 1 album in America. That’s the way it works! That’s the way it works, baby!”
He tells the Manchester audience, “We’re very proud to be from here, and, um, sorry if I ever let you down or whatever.”
The latter half of the live album has The 1975 letting loose — “Let’s play a banger and then we can start taking requests, all right?” Healy says in banter with fans ahead of “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) — and celebrating being there together, with the singer voicing sentiment for bandmates/best friends Adam Hann, Ross MacDonald and George Daniel.
“I’m gonna be serious right now for a second,” Healy says at one point. “There’s so many f—ing solo artists, and the reason is, is because all media is now individualized. So you won’t watch the TV with your mates or your mum and dad, you’ll watch your own media. So like every band, when they start with young people, they all have an Instagram, so there’s always this incentive of the individual behind this kind of group. Whereas we started when we were 13, so the idea of the individual wasn’t even a thing. Trust me. Bind together and make something bigger than yourself. That’s my advice — in all stuff. I’d be f—ed without them — I mean you know that! I’d be f—ing selling roses on Brent Cross Roundabout.”
The 1975’s latest live release closes with anthemic sing-alongs “Love It If We Made It” and “Sex,” leading to the high, screaming energy of “People.”
See the full track list below:
“The 1975”“Looking for Somebody to Love”“Happiness”“Part of the Band”“Oh Caroline”“I’m In Love With You”“Change of Heart”“An Encounter”“Robbers”“Me”“You”“Fallingforyou”“About You”“When We Are Together”“Consumption”“I Like America & America Likes Me”“Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America”“If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)”“TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME”“It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)”“Menswear”“Chocolate”“The Sound”“Somebody Else”“Guys”“I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)”“Love It If We Made It”“Sex”“People”
Chappell Roan is receiving some love from Lady Gaga — and the feeling is mutual.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Gaga — who released her seventh album, Mayhem, on Friday (March 7) — was asked about Roan’s powerful acceptance speech at the 2025 Grammy Awards, where she advocated for record labels to support up-and-coming artists by providing them with livable wages and healthcare.
“I think Chappell Roan is speaking the truth, and she is courageous to do so,” Gaga said. “I look at what she’s been doing and saying and think, ‘Man, I should have stood up for myself more when I was younger.’ I think women speaking their mind is a powerful thing, and I was really happy she did that.”
On Saturday (March 8), the “Pink Pony Club” singer took to social media to thank Gaga for the shout-out and returned the compliment with a message of her own.
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“Thank you @ladygaga I love you + your album so much
Machine Gun Kelly is remembering his late friend Luke “The Dingo” Trembath.
On Friday (March 7), the 34-year-old musician shared a heartfelt tribute on social media to the professional snowboarder, who passed away on Feb. 28 at the age of 38. The cause of Trembath’s death has not been disclosed.
“Crazy…I didn’t even cry this hard when my dad died,” MGK wrote on Instagram alongside a photo gallery with snapshots of his late pal. “I’ve lost a lot of friends, but I’ve never lost a brother. We’ll never get another Dingo on this planet.”
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The rapper-turned-rocker continued, “A true rockstar without ever needing to make a song, the most loyal, loud, charismatic, funny, and annoying human I’ve ever had the honor of knowing.”
Kelly also reflected on the painful moment of telling his 15-year-old daughter, Cassie, about Trembath’s passing. “Telling my daughter you’re gone was one of my hardest phone calls, because she loved you so much,” he wrote. “And I’ll never forget when she was too young to understand your name was Dingo so she called you Ping Pong.”
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MGK added that he feels Trembath is “up there” with his baby with Megan Fox, who is expecting later this year. “Dressed up in a hilarious costume making them laugh, getting ready to send them down,” the pop-punk star wrote. “I couldn’t ask for a more bittersweet birth blessing.”
He concluded his emotional tribute with, “Life will always be less without you, but legends never die. we’ll all miss you brother.”
Kelly also shared several throwback videos of Trembath on his Instagram Stories.
Trembath’s death was announced last month on social media by Monster Energy, which produced his UNLEASHED podcast.
Trembath began competing in snowboarding at the age of 9, and by 13, he had joined Team Australia, traveling to events around the world, according to Authority Magazine.
See Machine Gun Kelly’s tribute to Trembath on Instagram here.
Is Taylor Swift singing on Lady Gaga’s new song “How Bad Do U Want Me”?
After the release of Gaga’s seventh studio album, Mayhem, on Friday (March 7), fans quickly began to speculate that the 35-year-old pop superstar may have secretly contributed vocals to the project’s ninth track, “How Bad Do U Want Me.”
Although Swift is not credited on the dreamy tune, fans took to social media to share their theories. One user on X wrote, “how bad do u want me being a straight up taylor swift song,” while another wondered, “why was gaga playing in taylor’s vault,” suggesting that the song could be part of the singer’s unreleased music collection.
On “How Bad Do U Want Me,” which interpolates the 1982 song “Only You” by Yazoo, Gaga moves away from the darker pop sounds featured on earlier Mayhem tracks. Instead, she embraces a sugary, ’80s-inspired synth-pop sound, singing from the perspective of the “bad girl” being loved by a man who typically prefers “good girls.”
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Another fan on X suggested that Swift “secretly wrote” the song, noting, “the production? the vocal style? the lyrics?? it’s screaming 2014-2019 Taylor so bad.”
One fan chimed in, writing, “I always hear Taylor when I listen to this song.” And another argued that it was “clearly” Gaga singing on the track, but the comparisons to Swift’s style persisted.
Another X user shared a post combining Gaga’s Mayhem cover with a photo from Swift’s Reputation album shoot, writing, “THERES TAYLOR SWIFT BACKGROUND VOCALS ON HOW BAD DO YOU WANT ME BY LADY GAGA #MAYHEM.” Another person agreed, adding, “Wait, why does how bad do u want me by lady gaga sound like a taylor swift song??? i was so convinced it was hers i had to check the credits. is just me????”
Despite the ongoing fan theories, sources confirmed to Rolling Stone that Swift does not appear on Gaga’s “How Bad Do U Want Me.” Billboard confirmed this and has reached out to Gaga’s representatives for further comment.
Mayhem arrives following a successful 2025 for Gaga, marked by her chart-topping collaboration with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile.” The song reigned atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart for five weeks, making it her second-longest-running No. 1 hit after 2011’s “Born This Way.” Gaga also won a Grammy for best pop duo/group performance alongside Mars.
Her new album features an eclectic mix of production collaborators, including Andrew Watt, Cirkut, and Gaga’s fiancé, Michael Polansky. In a recent interview with Billboard, Gaga discussed the creative process behind Mayhem, explaining that the album’s chaotic vibe was intentional.
“There have been times in my career where I had an idea in terms of how to conceptually approach a record. But I would say that this album, from start to finish, was like pieces coming together,” she said. “I did not want to turn it into anything artificial, I really wanted to allow myself to just follow the music. By doing that, it started to slowly remind me of my earlier work.”
After co-founding Mastodon in Atlanta in 2000, guitarist/singer Brent Hinds has announced his exit from the metal band 25 years later. The group shared the news Friday (March 7) on social media, describing the decision as mutual. “Friends and Fans, After 25 monumental years together, Mastodon and Brent Hinds have mutually decided to part ways,” […]
While the music world mourns Roy Ayers, the Godfather of Neo-Soul and a jazz-funk pioneer who died at age 84 on March 4, the hip-hop community will always remember him as one of its brightest inspirations.
“Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” the enduring hit from Roy Ayers Ubiquity’s 1976 album of the same name, became the highlight of his legacy — and everybody loved it so much they couldn’t help but borrow a bit of its brilliance. The New York Times‘ obituary for Ayers reported that “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” has been sampled nearly 200 times.
“Well, I have more sampled hits than anybody,” he said in a 2004 interview with Wax Poetics. “I might not have more samples than James Brown, but I’ve had more sampled hits. Oh, man, and there’s a few I don’t know about.”
Mary J. Blige — who sampled “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” for “My Life” from her 1994 album of the same name, which was later interpolated on “MJB Da MVP” featuring 50 Cent, on her 2005 LP The Breakthrough — opened up about the song’s indelible impact on her in her 2021 documentary My Life. “I don’t know what’s in that record, but it was something in it that just cracked open everything in me. That was the first music as a child that stuck with me because it made me forget that we lived where we lived,” Blige said in the film. “‘My life in the sunshine’ was something I wanted.” The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul also heavily sampled Ayers’ 1976 track “Searching” on her 1997 album Share My World.
Like Blige, Dr. Dre, TLC, Juvenile and Joe Budden also have songs titled “My Life,” while Scarface and Naughty by Nature have songs called “Sunshine.” Thirty years after he sampled “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” on “Book of Life” from his 1994 album Resurrection, Common dug back in the crates and dusted off the sample for the Grammy-nominated song “When the Sun Shines,” featuring Posdnuos, from his and Pete Rock‘s 2024 Grammy-nominated joint LP The Auditorium Vol. 1.
Outside of being sampled and interpolated by hip-hop heavyweights, Ayers also collaborated with Tyler, the Creator on “Find Your Wings,” also featuring Syd and Kali Uchis, from Tyler’s 2015 album Cherry Bomb; Erykah Badu on “Cleva” from her 2000 LP Mama’s Gun; The Roots on “Proceed II” from the deluxe version of the band’s 2005 album Do You Want More?!!!??!; and Talib Kweli on “In the Mood,” also featuring Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), from his 2007 album Eardrum as well as on “Something Special” from Kweli and Madlib‘s 2024 joint LP Liberation 2.
“Roy Ayers called me like ‘tyler, hey man, those changes are amazing, your chord selection is just beautiful my man’ OMG MY HEART MELTED,” Tyler tweeted in 2015. The Chromakopia rapper also sampled Ayers’ 1982 track “Ooh” on “Pothole,” featuring Jaden Smith, from his 2017 album Flower Boy. Later that same year, Ayers performed at his Camp Flog Gnaw festival. Questlove hailed him as “the cat who birthed us all in the ‘vibes only’ movement. The Soundtrack that ALL the incense you ever burned was truly made for. Thank You Roy Edward Ayers Jr for EVERYTHING you gave us. taught us. showed us. soothed us.”
Billboard rounded up 21 hip-hop and R&B songs that have sampled and interpolated Roy Ayers Ubiquity’s “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” in order from newest to oldest.
Common & Pete Rock feat. Posdnuos, “When the Sun Shines Again”
50 Cent is up to his trolling ways again, and he’s still relishing being somewhat responsible for the recent spat between Cam’ron and Jim Jones. The Queens rapper and filmmaker posted and deleted an AI-created video on Instagram of Jim Jones, Cam’ron, and Floyd Mayweather playing characters in a scene from Rocky III. Jones, as […]
