Last month, Lady Gaga delighted Little Monsters by releasing the first single—titled “Disease”—off her forthcoming seventh studio album (known to fans as LG7), out in February. With lyrics such as “I could play the doctor, I can cure your disease,” the dark-pop track revolved around the idea of confronting one’s inner demons and fears—and trying to integrate them within oneself rather than trying to cure or reject them. “‘Disease’ is about facing that fear, facing myself and my inner darkness, and realizing that sometimes I can’t win or escape the parts of myself that scare me,” Gaga said upon its release.
The track—and fashion-filled music video—is one of the best releases of the year, but Gaga didn’t stop there. Last week, the singer also released a live, piano-led acoustic version of the track, and now, today, a new electric guitar rendition. “After I spent some time on the production for The Antidote Live—which was built around me at the piano—I started thinking about how I may go even deeper,” Gaga tells Vogue of the new version. “Since the chorus of ‘Disease’ was written at the piano, that version was in some parts really delicate and almost somber. So, something I always try to do when I’m singing a song again is to go deeper, and I wondered if we took some of the electric guitar energy that’s on the pop version and stripped it back—would I find another level to the song? And I did.”
The new video for the electric guitar version, shot in one long take, serves up an even rawer and more stripped-back version of the song, which Gaga produced. Singing to the sounds of longtime guitarist Tim Stewart, Gaga sports a long blue vintage slip dress, and puts special emphasis on the lyrics and emotions—versus the high-fashion spectacle and theatrics she delivered in the main music video. “With the electric guitar, there’s a sense of fun that I found in the torture of the lyrics, and some of Tim’s choices with the chord inversions gave it a sense of ‘hurt,’ and I thought that was really interesting and something I hadn’t discovered before,” she says. “I sang and performed the song in this way, where I’m really playing in my own hurt. In a way, I think I both sang it to myself or someone I felt hurt by—someone I wish I could change—which I suppose could be me, too.”
Gaga is no stranger to experimenting with different sounds, of course. Throughout her career, the star has toyed with a variety of genres—from dark-pop to country to jazz. For the star, that sense of play and discovery is what drives her creativity forward. “I love producing—I always have—and something that was really important to me making my seventh studio album was blending live instrumentation with programming,” says Gaga. “I’ve done this throughout my whole career, and always have tried to sonically push myself into different places with that formula.” Even her soulful new single, “Die With a Smile” with Bruno Mars—a track that earned her two 2025 Grammy nominations, for song of the year and best pop duo/group performance—showcases that variety.
On LG7, meanwhile, which has a February release date, Gaga says you can expect the unexpected; the star allowed herself the freedom to create without limitations or labels—but with a clear emphasis on dark-pop, a sound she made her signature on The Fame Monster more than a decade ago. “The album is chaotic from a genre perspective—it is genre-bending, and I think in that way is a deeply personal look into my mind as a producer and the way I think about music,” Gaga teases. “When I write and produce and sing songs, I am always drawing upon my knowledge of the history of music, and so many artists and producers that came before me. In that way, this album is a celebration of a lot of the music that made me who I am, because when I returned to a darker pop style of pop, all my early experiences with music came out.”
The record also does some personal storytelling. “I wrote a lot of various fantasies and escapes,” says Gaga. “The only place reality is really present is that these fantasies are coming from a real person, trying to soothe their inner chaos. That’s where I found the reason for why I make this music. Each song is an exercise in personal chaos—a way to deal with myself.” But seeing how this is a Gaga record, get ready to dance through it all, too. “The album is not extremely serious in that it’s very fun and meant to be enjoyed at a party, in a club, or at home having personal fun time—to be free of your worries at home or walking through life,” she says.
