It seems all those “Justice For ARTPOP” efforts paid off. The next step of Lady Gaga’s evolution came on Feb. 28 with the official release of “Stupid Love,” her first new non-A Star Is Born music since 2017’s “The Cure.” The track — an upbeat, energetic dance track splashed with pulsing retro-synth beats and samples – is an explosion of color and joy. Reminiscent of her ARTPOP and The Fame Monster eras, it’s undeniably exactly what Gaga’s fans have been wanting for years. On top of that, Gaga released a music video that looked like it was shot in a republic far away in another galaxy, in which different tribes rock rainbow rave outfits and have self-empowering dance battles — but actually, it was shot on an iPhone!
Gaga launches into this bop with uplifting lines: “You’re the one that I’ve been waiting for, gotta quit this cryin’, nobody’s gonna heal me if they don’t open the door, kinda hard to believe, gotta have faith in me.” Gaga meant these lyrics to be a rallying cry for people to accept love into their lives, and let go of their hang-ups. “I’m pretty sure that when we all decide to be vulnerable, it’s really scary, and I think it’s very scary for a lot of people and there’s all kinds of laws and constructs and things that have built all around us and you know what? I really want to do and want this song to come out and I’d love for it to collapse as many of those walls as possible and people to be saying, ‘I want your Stupid Love. I love you,'” Gaga explained on Apple Music’s New Music Daily With Zane Lowe.
While some might think that DJ White Shadow – who worked with Gaga on “The Cure,” Born This Way, ARTPOP and on A Star Is Born – is behind this new dance track, he said that he’s not involved in Gaga’s next album. “I sat this one out,” he told E! News in February when discussing LG6. “I’ve heard it. It’s not my art to share with you, but I can tell you this, [as] with everything that she does, it’s genius. I’m excited for her to put it out. I think that it’s really good.”
Instead of White Shadow, Bloodpop and Tchami produced the new track. Bloodpop is best known by Gaga fans for working with her on Joanne, and for working on Justin Bieber’s Purpose. He co-wrote and produced “Sorry,” and Rolling Stone reports that the announced the new song’s producers shortly after Gaga confirmed the release. Bloodpop also remixed Grimes’ 2019 track, “We Appreciate Power,” and she confirmed that she also has heard Gaga’s new album. “LG6 is very good. LG6 is a great record,” she said on Feb. 21.
Because it’s 2020 and Lady Gaga could probably put out an album full of “leaks,” this new song hit the Internet almost a month before its official release. Fans weren’t upset, but Gaga was less than pleased, especially during her AT&T TV Super Saturday Night concert. The night ahead of Super Bowl LIV, Gaga performed at the Meridian at Island Gardens in Miami and many fans in attendance shouted out the song’s name in hopes she’d play it. Gaga’s reaction to one fan screaming “Stupid Love” went viral, and another great meme of 2020 was born.
no stupid love #SuperSaturdayNight pic.twitter.com/j7fDi9Y0kn
— Skywalker💫 (@LadyGagaXme) February 2, 2020
While the Little Monsters are calling Gaga’s next album LG6, some think that she’s already confirmed her sixth album’s title. The current fan theory is that it will be called Chromatica, because the word can be found on the single art (which features a shot of billboard advertising “Single Love” with a pair of pink lips.) “Chromatic,” according to Rolling Stone, means “[Music] relating to or using notes not belonging to the diatonic scale of the key in which a passage is written” and “relating to or produced by color.”