Lady Gaga announces new single “Disease” from upcoming pop album

Doctor Lady Gaga is almost ready to see her next patients. “Disease,” the first single from the musician's upcoming pop album, is set to drop on Friday, October 25, after she announced the album via a cryptic website and playlist.

Gaga sent her fans on a sort of scavenger hunt for clues about the single. On the website gagadisease.com, the words “I could play the doctor” flicker on a black screen. The website links to another URL, icouldplaythedoctor.com, which mimics the visual effects of the first website with the words “I can cure your illness.” Using this phrase as a URL will redirect to another page that says, “If you were a sinner.”

Following the pattern, the teasing lyrics read: “I could play doctor/I could cure your illness/If you were a sinner/I could make you believe/Lay you don't like 1, 2, 3/Eyes roll back in.” “Ecstasy/I can smell your illness/I can cure you/Heal your illness.” On the last page is the title “Disease” and the release date of October 25th.

Gaga started the countdown to the single in September when she announced plans to release her seventh album, currently untitled, in February. At the time, she shared that the project's first single would be released in October. The news came through an interview with fashionin which she described the origins of her sonic return to form. As it turns out, it goes back to her fiancé Michael Polansky.

“Michael is the person who told me to make a new pop record. He was like, 'Baby. I love you. “You have to make pop music,” she said. Polansky, who had this realization upon seeing Gaga on the Chromatica Ball tour, added, “As anyone would do for the person they love, I encouraged her to surrender to the joy of it.” At Chromatica -tour I saw a fire in her. I wanted to help her keep that alive and just start making music that makes her happy.”

Gaga recorded her seventh album at Rick Rubin's Shangri-La recording studio in Malibu. Looking back at their 2020 album Chromatica, She shared: “This album was about an absolutely terrible time for my mental health. I was in a really dark place.” The new album, however, “is in many ways about that time, but from a place of happiness rather than misery.”

In September, Gaga shared Rolling Stones: “The pop album is nothing like that Chromatica. It's a completely different record. I don't know if I'm even ready to talk about it yet, but I know it's coming out soon and I will. What I would say is, it's all for me. It should be taken as a time in my life. And I'm also really excited about the idea that I don't have to stick to an era if I don't want to. I can have a few at a time. This feels unhinged (laughs) and more like me or Harley. Or whoever.”