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    13 Best Coachella Looks: Lady Gaga, Jennie, Bernie Sanders & More

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    Nearly naked gowns, glow-in-the-dark bodices, metal armor and more.In the decades since the first Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took place in Southern California in 1999, its cultural footprint has grown to encompass way more than music. This year’s event, which kicked off over the weekend, reflected that evolution: It was a days-long concert, but also a “White Lotus” reunion, a political rally and, as in years past, a fashion spectacle.Sets by Jennie and Lisa, the Blackpink members turned solo acts, and Lady Gaga had people buzzing about the singers’ outfits almost as much as their musical performances. Lisa’s set also had people talking about its crowd, after some of her “White Lotus” Season 3 co-stars like Patrick Schwarzenegger and Tayme Thapthimthong were spotted in the audience. Other celebrities who mingled with the festival-going masses included Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner, as well as Justin and Hailey Bieber.While certain famous Coachella attendees tried their best to blend in, wearing anodyne T-shirts or trucker hats, there were plenty whose outfits glaringly stood out. Most times that came across as intentional, but in certain cases it did not — for example, when Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont took the stage to introduce the singer Clairo in his typical ensemble of blazer and button-down shirt. While usual for him, the look was atypical for the festival and one that, like the others on this list, will be hard to forget.Lady Gaga: Most Presto Changeo!Kevin Mazur/Getty ImagesThere were almost as many outfits as songs in the singer’s Coachella set. While not as over-the-top as her theatrical red costume involving the massive skirt, an ensemble incorporating metal crutches and armor made by Manuel Albarrán struck a chord with many viewers who saw it as a throwback to attire she wore in the video for her song “Paparazzi.”Lisa: Most Electric!Elia BerthoudWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Doechii! NewJeans! Ye! Answering Your Pop Music Questions

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicIt’s Popcast mailbag time, in which we field listener and reader questions about all of the most pressing topics in popular music.On this week’s episode, the hosts — including The New York Times pop critic Jon Caramanica and the pop reporter Joe Coscarelli, plus the pop music editor Caryn Ganz — address your thoughts and concerns about:The rise of Doechii, the young rap star turning viral fame into pop successOlivia Rodrigo’s role as a spirit guide for the eccentric pop stars of the day, like Chappell Roan and Sabrina CarpenterThe coherence of Lady Gaga’s latest album, “Mayhem”The ongoing legal situation between NewJeans and HybeThe latest provocations and music from Ye, formerly Kanye WestAnd whether great pain is inextricable from great art, per a recent interview with Bon IverConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      Lady Gaga Sells ‘Mayhem’ Hard. But Does It Work?

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicLady Gaga’s sixth solo pop album, “Mayhem,” was released last week, and its retro palette immediately connected with many of the singer’s most devoted longtime fans.Produced by Gaga, the rock revivalist Andrew Watt and the pop fixture Cirkut — with what Gaga has described as substantial input from her fiancé, Michael Polansky — the LP gestures pointedly back at the sounds of the pop star’s ascent in the late aughts and early 2010s. In a surprising amount of promotional interviews for a modern star of her caliber, Gaga has also cited a lofty list of influences for the album’s rock and funk touches: Prince, David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Earth, Wind & Fire and more.But does “Mayhem” transcend homage and fan service, successfully shifting or adding to the current conversation in pop? Reviewing the album for The New York Times, the critic Lindsay Zoladz called it “a refreshing anomaly” and “a little behind the times” — which may be its strength.To discuss “Mayhem” on this week’s Popcast, Zoladz was joined by Caryn Ganz, The Times’ pop music editor, and Joe Coscarelli, a pop music reporter, who traced Gaga’s unorthodox career path through the Top 40, jazz standards and Hollywood, while considering the potential limits of a “return to form” album for the 38-year-old singer.Connect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      ‘Mayhem’ Review: Lady Gaga Wants You to Party Like It’s 2009

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      She dances on the line between clever self-referentiality and less inspired rehashing on her new LP, committing to the over-the-top excess that first made her a star.Even throughout Lady Gaga’s requisite ups and downs as a singer, songwriter and actress (the less said about last year’s “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the better), the 38-year-old New Yorker born Stefani Germanotta has remained imperially famous for so long, it can be difficult to recall the subversive thrill of her initial rise.When she ascended to superstardom in 2009, Gaga was an unabashed striver of a downtown club kid who cut her crowd-pleasing electro-pop with a deadpan, Warholian affect and an old-fashioned sense of musical showmanship. Whether dressed like an alien, an evil monarch or a butcher shop’s display window, she reveled in artifice and rewrote the script for the female pop star, reimagining sexuality as something weirder and more expansive — for both herself and her fervent fan base — than it had been in the Britney-and-Christina era. She was a welcome shock to pop’s system in the risk-averse late aughts — a romanticized era she mines for self-mythologizing nostalgia on her emphatic new album, “Mayhem.”“Mayhem” is a bright, shiny and thoroughly sleek pop record, produced by Gaga, the rock-star whisperer Andrew Watt and the Max Martin protégé Cirkut. Even at its dirtiest — the digital grunge of “Perfect Celebrity,” the slithering liquid funk of “Killah” — every sound is etched in clean, bold lines.It’s considerably sharper than her previous two pop solo efforts, the tepid 2016 quasi-country album, “Joanne,” and her unfortunately timed 2020 return to the dance floor, “Chromatica,” a mixed bag that now sounds overly dated thanks to its embrace of pop’s then-trendy obsession with sound-alike house samples and beats. (Gaga recently admitted in a New York Times Magazine interview that she wasn’t operating at her highest level in the “Chromatica” era: “I was in a really dark place,” she said, “and I wouldn’t say I made my best music during that time.”)But over the past few months, Gaga has stoked anticipation for her sixth pop LP with a wildly successful (if relatively anodyne), chart-topping Bruno Mars duet, “Die With a Smile,” and two of her hardest-hitting singles in a decade: the deliciously warped “Disease,” a churning, industrial pop dirge that highlights Nine Inch Nails as an influence on this album, and “Abracadabra,” a latex-tight dance-floor incantation with a chorus that finds her speaking in tongues like the high priestess of her own self-referential religion: “Abracadabra, amor ooh na na / Abracadabra morta ooh Gaga.” It is, of course, an expertly executed sequel to her 2009 smash “Bad Romance,” just as the following track, the skronky, gloriously hedonistic “Garden of Eden” plays out like an even more vivid return to the club she visited on her first hit, “Just Dance.”Throughout its 14 tracks, “Mayhem” dances on the line between clever self-referentiality and less inspired rehashing. The corrosive “Perfect Celebrity” is a sonic highlight that nonetheless butts up against the album’s thematic and lyrical limitations, returning to one of her favorite, and now tired, topics: the damage inflicted by fame. Is the opening line — “I’m made of plastic like a human doll” — a winking throwback to the “Chromatica” track “Plastic Doll,” or a bit of recycled imagery?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘S.N.L.’ Imagines an Oval Office Meeting With Trump, Rubio and Musk

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      This week, the opener described a conflict between Elon Musk and Marco Rubio. Lady Gaga proved to be a capable joke-teller as both the host and the musical guest.Following a report in The New York Times about a White House meeting where Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had clashed in front of President Trump, it was up to “Saturday Night Live” to imagine how they might make peace — and to let us listen in on their inner monologues.This week’s “S.N.L.” broadcast, for which Lady Gaga was both the host and the musical guest, began with a voice-over that described the conflict between Musk and Rubio as a stain on “an otherwise remarkably cool and smooth start to the Trump presidency.”Inside the Oval Office stood James Austin Johnson, in his recurring role as President Trump, and Marcello Hernández, playing Rubio.Johnson said he forgave Hernández for “being under a lot of stress,” but told him, “I need you to be my good little Marco.”“If you think I’m going to stand here and let you call me that,” Hernández replied, “you’re right.”Johnson added, “Unfortunately, I just made English the official language. So now your name is Mark Ruby.”Hernández said he objected to Musk “having total access to our government,” but Johnson praised the billionaire for his management of SpaceX, which he said was “doing incredible things in terms of explosions, and with regard to rocket debris.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Interview’: Lady Gaga’s Latest Experiment? Happiness.

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      Over the course of her long career, Lady Gaga has proved herself to be one of music’s great shape-shifters. She has gone from the dance pop of her earliest albums, like “The Fame” (2008), to the rockier “Born This Way” (2011), to country-inflected sounds on “Joanne” (2016), to singing American Songbook standards alongside her friend Tony Bennett. Despite surely making her record label nervous a few times, the mercurial nature of Lady Gaga’s gift has come at no discernible cost to her career. She is one of only three solo artists — Michael and Janet Jackson being the others — to have hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart multiple times across three different decades. She has also earned 14 Grammy Awards, including one earlier this year for her duet with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile.”All that success made it especially intriguing to learn that her new album, “Mayhem,” which arrived this week, would be a return to the pop sounds of her early work. A step into familiar territory is a curious one for someone so steadfastly set on surprise. Was she hoping to capture some nostalgia? Looking for back-to-basics rejuvenation? Or could it be that making a “classic-sounding” Lady Gaga album was going to be some sort of meta examination of her own music and image?As she explained it when we spoke in February, the answer is, in a way, all of the above. At 38 years old, and after some time lost to fibromyalgia and personal trauma, Gaga finally felt ready to reclaim a sound that belonged to her. She also, thanks in no small part to her fiancé, the entrepreneur Michael Polansky, felt supported enough to do it. Which is proof that, for a world-famous pop star anyway, a little normalcy can be the most productive change of all.Listen to the Conversation With Lady GagaThe pop superstar reflects on her struggles with mental health, the pressures of the music industry and why she’s returned to the sound that made her famous.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppIn an announcement for “Mayhem,” you referred to your “fear” of going back to the pop music that your earliest fans loved. Why were you scared of that? You know, I made my artistic way living on the Lower East Side starting around 17 years old, and worked the New York music scene as much as I could. Ultimately that landed me into making “The Fame,” my first studio album. That music came out of the culture of people that I was living with at the time. I was surrounded by musicians, photographers, club promoters, people that lived and breathed art. It was a community of support, and one of the reasons I was afraid was I was so far away now from that community. It also felt like maybe I would just be recycling something that I had done before. But ultimately I decided that I really wanted to do it and that this sonic style and aesthetic really did belong to me.How do you characterize that sound? My sound is an amalgamation of the music that helped me fall in love with music. So it’s got classic rock in it, disco, electronic music, ’80s synth. It’s sort of like picking and choosing my favorite fragments of songs that I loved throughout my childhood. It is everything I love about music but all in one place. I didn’t always do that. Sometimes, in my records, I decided, OK, I’m going to make my version of a country record. More

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      10 Outrageously Great Lady Gaga Deep Cuts

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      Revisit the pop star’s catalog as her latest album, “Mayhem,” arrives.Kevin Mazur/WireImageDear listeners,Today, Lady Gaga released “Mayhem,” her first pop album in nearly five years. If you have ever prayed for a Gaga song that sounds like “Reputation”-era Taylor Swift belting to the heavens atop an expertly chosen Yaz sample, rejoice and join me in blasting “How Bad Do U Want Me” on endless repeat.Suffice to say you know Gaga’s hits: “Poker Face,” “Paparazzi,” “Bad Romance,” “The Edge of Glory,” “Shallow” and “Rain on Me,” to name just a handful of my favorites. But the 38-year-old New Yorker born Stefani Germanotta has never been one to do things halfway, so many of her album tracks are just as good as (if not occasionally better than) her singles. In honor of “Mayhem” (and its aforementioned ninth track), I chose 10 standout Gaga deep cuts for today’s playlist.I’m still processing how I feel about “Mayhem” as a whole, so look out for my review early next week. But since it is an album that frequently references the sounds of Gaga’s past, this compilation can also serve as a quick refresher on her back catalog. Gaga’s artistic personality has many facets, and I’ve tried to represent as many of them as possible here. Which is to say that if you don’t love or agree with every single song I’ve chosen, that’s OK. There can be 10 songs on a playlist and nine don’t resonate for you — but if one does, that changes everything.Now serve, Pluto,LindsayListen along while you read.1. “Scheiße”This wildly underrated album track from “Born This Way” (2011) indulges in my favorite recurring Lady Gaga lyrical theme: her inability but ardent desire to speak German. (This will come up again later.) Written after a euphoric and liberating night partying in Berlin, “Scheiße” embodies the electroclash excess and skyscraping maximalism that makes “Born This Way” one of Gaga’s strongest LPs. And the “German” she speaks throughout the song is actually gibberish, with a slight French accent at that. Iconic. To quote one of the commenters on the YouTube video, “I’m German and I can confirm I did not exist before Gaga dropped this song.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      9 Spellbinding Songs About Magic

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      Lady Gaga’s latest has inspired a playlist.Lady Gaga debuted her madcap video for “Abracadabra” in a Mastercard commercial during the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.Dear listeners,If you’ve noticed anyone walking around with their paws up, speaking in tongues and raving about the floor being on fire, allow me to explain: In an ad Sunday night during the Grammy Awards, Lady Gaga debuted a new single. It’s called “Abracadabra,” and it’s a gloriously nostalgic return to form, reminiscent of the infectious gibberish hook of “Bad Romance” and the go-for-broke electro-sleaze she perfected on “The Fame Monster” and “Born This Way.” Rejoice, ye elder millennials: A star has been reborn.As I’ve been strutting around all week with “abracadabra, abra-cadaaaabra” on an endless loop in my head, I’ve been thinking about how many great songs throughout pop music reference magic — as a tried-and-true metaphor for the mysteries of love, or just as a thematic excuse to get a little weird. (For Gaga, it’s a little bit of both, but always with emphasis on the latter.)The ’60s gave us spellbinding classics like the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Do You Believe in Magic?” and the Drifters’ “This Magic Moment.” But “Abracadabra” is just the latest proof that pop still has magic on the mind: In the last year or so, there have been not one but two Top 20 hits called “Houdini.” (Though never forget that Kate Bush beat them both to it.)Since a definitive playlist of every song ever to conjure magic would be incredibly long and contain quite a few overindulgent duds, this collection reflects my own tastes. Which is to say that it omits Eminem’s “Houdini,” as well as the song it samples, that other “Abracadabra,” by the Steve Miller Band. Personal preference! But it does feature enchanting tunes from Electric Light Orchestra, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and, of course, Gaga’s latest incantation.Like a poem said by a lady in red,LindsayListen along while you read.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Doechii’s Victory Lap, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks from Valerie June, Coi Leray, Destroyer and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Doechii, ‘Nosebleeds’Doechii was tearful and emotional — but primed with facts — when she became the third woman to win a Grammy for best rap album. She was also prepared; “Nosebleeds” was released almost immediately. Over stark, pushy, bare-bones electronic sounds, she gloats, “Will she ever lose? Man I guess we’ll never know” and declares her readiness for arena concerts: “I look good from the nosebleeds.” The track is barely over two minutes, but its last stretch segues into an entirely different sound: a double-time beat with Doechii cooing that she needs no advice from anyone who’s “never suffered.” The moment was hers to seize. JON PARELESLady Gaga, ‘Abracadabra’She’s overheard your theory that nostalgia’s for geeks — and she couldn’t care less. Lady Gaga mines the sonic and aesthetic shards of her own past on the insistent “Abracadabra,” the third single from her upcoming album, “Mayhem.” Fashioning an anthemic chorus out of self-referential nonsense syllables (“abracadabra, morta oo Gaga”) is so “Bad Romance,” but the verse’s thumping house piano refines the more recent sound of her mixed-bag 2020 release “Chromatica” into something sharper and more urgent. Gaga’s not forging new ground here so much as she’s remixing her former selves, reminding her many imitators who they learned their strangest moves from and grasping so strongly at dance-or-die self-seriousness that she somehow ends up doubling back into absurdist fun. LINDSAY ZOLADZValerie June, ‘Joy, Joy!’The resolutely upbeat Valerie June insists that everyone can find “that joy joy in your soul,” no matter what. Her twangy, wavery voice, doubletracked in not-quite-unison, rises over a brawny two-chord vamp that gets buttressed by saxophones, cymbals, cranked-up lead guitar and a string section, massing to overpower any doubts. PARELESGiveon, ‘Twenties’“Thought that if I put you first enough / we would last for sure,” Giveon laments, with neat wordplay, in a vintage-style soul ballad complete with strings and electric sitar. The reminiscences quickly lead into recriminations over “six years gone down the drain,” and none of the retro trappings cushion the pain. PARELESMoses Sumney featuring Syd and Meshell Ndegeocello, ‘Hey Girl(s)’Moses Sumney has revamped “Hey Girl,” a slow-jam come-on from his 2024 album “Sophcore,” to make it more gender-fluid by handing over verses to guests. Syd teases, “You say you ain’t done this before,” and Meshell Ndegeocello moves evolutionary goal posts, intoning, “I am not a woman, I am not a man / I am a water- and carbon-based life form you’ll never comprehend.’ The track’s easy-rolling syncopation and suavely supportive horn arrangement welcome them all. PARELESWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More