Music
Plus One
The 11 best Lady Gaga songs
In honour of the superstar’s upcoming tour, we’re taking a look at her 11 best tracks to date
No one does it quite like Gaga. The multi-hyphenate has dominated the charts for over 15 years, celebrating drag culture and club kids, crafting pop’s most infectious earworms, and championing those who dare to be different. From 2008’s The Fame all the way to 2025’s MAYHEM, her discography is packed with megahits of the highest calibre, but she’s also been unafraid to detour – 2016’s Joanne saw Lady Gaga embrace her country side, and she’s sung the American songbook twice with Tony Bennett on joint albums Cheek To Cheek and Love For Sale. That’s all before we even get onto the movie soundtracks – 2024’s Harlequin, featuring all the music sung by her character Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie á Deux, and 2018’s A Star Is Born. No one escaped the insistent lure of ‘Shallow’.
It’s a discography that most artists could only dream of – varied, surprising, but all distinctly Gaga, with a theatrical flair that runs right through everything she does. In honour of Lady Gaga: The MAYHEM Ball coming to the UK, we’re undertaking the daunting task of selecting the pop star’s 11 best songs. Why have a top 10 when you can have one more?
11. ‘Abracadabra’
(Mayhem, 2025)
Fans around the world let out a collective scream when Lady Gaga debuted Mayhem’s second single at the Grammys. More than a callback to the messy, club kid feel of The Fame Monster and Born This Way, ‘Abracadabra’ is classic Gaga reborn for the 2020s, hypnotic and mature. A dark electropop track that puts Gaga’s full-throttle vocals front and centre and builds a playful, complex mix around them, ‘Abracadabra’ is everything the pop star’s fans had been waiting for. After five years starring in films and singing musical theatre classics, it feels good to see Gaga return to the club floor.
10. ‘Alice’
(Chromatica, 2020)
Our intro to the world of Chromatica (following an opening instrumental), ‘Alice’ is a fantastic club banger that furthers Gaga’s tradition of wrapping personal exploration up in electro-pop beats. Narrating a journey of self-discovery, Lady Gaga uses the sometimes-tired Lewis Carroll reference to great effect here, over thumping bass and a glam rave instrumental that compels the listener to move.
9. ‘Just Dance’
(The Fame, 2008)
It’s a challenge to rank Lady Gaga’s songs independent of the instant nostalgia that some of them trigger. The first four bars of ‘Just Dance’ are recognisable in the way that all the most immortal pop music is, but even if the song hadn’t been everywhere back in the late 00s, it wouldn’t be hard to identify it as a hit. Gaga’s younger vocals are treated in a way that softens them and blends them into the mix, which in this instance works brilliantly, and the distortion on Colby O’Donis’ voice is wonderfully of its time and a great deal of fun. Whilst The Fame has stronger singles, Gaga’s debut track remains one of her best.
8. ‘Rain On Me’
(Chromatica, 2020)
Gaga and Grande’s duet is a fantastic meeting of minds. Co-written by the two artists, both their styles come through in this triumphant piece of pop. Inspired by the trauma both women had had to overcome whilst in the public eye, the song’s central hook celebrates both the good and bad in life, acknowledging that you can’t have one without the other. It’s a big pop anthem in every sense and would have deserved to gain height in the charts even independent from the star power behind it.
7. ‘Judas’
(Born This Way, 2011)
Born This Way saw Gaga embracing her theatrically with open arms, and ‘Judas’ is the perfect blend of her two worlds – a creative piece of electro-pop with an operatic twist. Always inclined towards the darker side of house and electronic music, Gaga references this in the lyrics as well as the production, singing about her love for a man who betrayed her, but also insinuating that she is the one dragging him into the dark. Larger than life in every sense and complete with a Gaga-style chanted bridge, it’s hard not to be seduced by it.
6. ‘Poker Face’
(The Fame, 2008)
Nothing else sounds like ‘Poker Face’. The track’s production is inventive in every sense, from the opening mumbles to the noisy, crowded chorus. The fuzzy synths, Gaga’s robotic vocals and the infectious melody that she soars up into when we reach the hook are a delicious blend. Dance-pop perfection.
5. ‘Born This Way’
(Born This Way, 2011)
The list of pop songs more triumphant, celebratory and affirming than ‘Born This Way’ has to be pretty short. A warm hug to the queer kids and misfits in Gaga’s fanbase, the song became a queer anthem pretty much from the moment of its release, and has remained one of her most beloved tracks ever since. An explosion of synths, growly vocals and thumping club beats, ‘Born This Way’ is sonically a joy, and Gaga’s lyrics are a loving, open-armed stream of consciousness that welcomes everyone in.
4. ‘Always Remember Us This Way’
(A Star Is Born Soundtrack, 2018)
All of Gaga’s contributions to the soundtrack of A Star Is Born are fantastic, but ‘Always Remember Us This Way’ shines. A poignant love song, Gaga’s tender lyrics and emotive vocals take the track’s relatively simple premise and turn it into something extraordinary. Gaga’s tracks often have so many moving parts – it’s fun to see her take something comparatively quiet and make magic from it.
3. ‘The Edge Of Glory’
(Born This Way, 2011)
Lady Gaga goes for a purer, cleaner pop sound in the third single from Born This Way, shaking up the euphoric synths and club-ready beat with an expected saxophone solo two-thirds in. ‘The Edge Of Glory’ hits the ear just right, a satisfying piece of sunshine just slightly underwritten with Gaga’s characteristic grit. It’s a little 80s, a little disco, and just a little bit cheesy, but it all comes together to make a pretty faultless pop song.
2. ‘You And I’
(Born This Way, 2011)
Gaga’s later adventures in country music on Joanne were foreshadowed by Born This Way’s fourth single, a boisterous piano ballad that sees Gaga celebrating a long-time love she just can’t let go of. Sonically distinct from most of Born This Way, ‘You And I’ goes down a treat – more lyrical and verbose than most of her discography to this point, it’s a story that the listener can get lost in, Gaga’s crisp vocals complimented by a dirty bass and a Queen-esque stomp-clap beat. A gorgeous whine of a guitar solo and Gaga’s powerful high notes send it through the roof.
1. Bad Romance
(The Fame Monster, 2009)
Can we call it the Gaga version of scatting? Whatever it is, the ridiculous vocalisations that open ‘Bad Romance’ shouldn’t work and somehow do. The song walks a fine line between serious and silly, and it’s this delicate balance that makes it so brilliant. The dramatic inhale in the middle of verse two, the way Gaga pronounces the word “love,” every single ad-lib, the drag-inspired chanted bridge, the random French… somehow it all ties together to create meticulous chaos, joyful pop noise that stands completely alone and separates Gaga’s sound from any of her contemporaries. That soulful chorus, the electropop/Europop Bible she’s reading from and Gaga’s perpetual willingness to experiment and invent are precursors to where the next decade would take her – a career that would see her bounce between genres, expand her universe, and constantly surprise. In the end though, these are the roots she always returns to.
