Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga has spent her career refusing to be pinned down. Born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986, in New York City, she played piano from early childhood, performed at open-mic nights as a teenager, and briefly studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts before leaving to chase music full time. She took her stage name from the Queen song “Radio Ga Ga.” Across pop, dance, jazz and film, she has collected more than fourteen Grammy Awards and an Academy Award, built a fiercely devoted fan base she calls her “little monsters,” and proved as comfortable on a Hollywood screen as on a pop stage.

The Fame and instant stardom

Before her own breakthrough, Germanotta wrote songs for other artists. Then her 2008 debut album, The Fame, made her a star on her own terms. Its first two singles, “Just Dance” and “Poker Face,” both topped the Hot 100, and the record’s reissue, The Fame Monster, delivered “Bad Romance,” one of the most recognizable pop songs of its decade. She won her first two Grammys for the era and quickly became known as much for her theatrical fashion and staging as for the music itself.

Born This Way and a cultural moment

In 2011 Gaga released Born This Way, an album whose title track became an anthem of self-acceptance and LGBTQ+ pride. The record cemented her standing as a pop force with a message, and her outspoken activism made her one of the most visible advocates in mainstream music. She followed with the EDM-heavy Artpop in 2013, then surprised many by pivoting to classic jazz, recording two albums with the legendary Tony Bennett, Cheek to Cheek (2014) and Love for Sale (2021), both of which won Grammys and showed off a side of her voice that her dance hits had largely kept hidden.

A second career in film

Gaga’s range carried into acting. She won a Golden Globe for the television series American Horror Story, then earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her lead role in the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born, opposite Bradley Cooper. She co-wrote most of the film’s songs, including “Shallow,” which won the Oscar for Best Original Song along with a Grammy. She later took on dramatic roles in House of Gucci and Joker: Folie à Deux, balancing screen work with new music.

Chromatica, Mayhem and beyond

Her 2016 album Joanne stripped back the spectacle for a more personal, rootsy sound, and 2020’s Chromatica returned her to the dance floor, led by the chart-topping duet “Rain on Me” with Ariana Grande. She scored another huge hit with “Die With a Smile,” a duet with Bruno Mars, and released the album Mayhem in 2025. In the United States she has earned six number one singles and six number one albums, a record of consistency that spans nearly two decades and several reinventions.

Activism and the little monsters

Gaga has paired her career with sustained advocacy. With her mother, Cynthia, she founded the Born This Way Foundation, focused on youth mental health and kindness, and she has been one of the most visible supporters of LGBTQ+ rights in mainstream music. Her bond with fans, the “little monsters,” runs deeper than most pop fandoms, rooted in a shared message of self-acceptance that traces back to the Born This Way era. She has also stepped into national moments, performing the Super Bowl LI halftime show in 2017 and singing the national anthem at the 2021 presidential inauguration.

A voice that anchors the spectacle

For all the costumes and staging, the constant in Gaga’s career is the voice and the songwriting underneath. The jazz albums with Tony Bennett showed a trained, supple instrument that her dance hits often kept in reserve, and Joanne and the A Star Is Born soundtrack proved she carries a song with almost no production at all. That foundation is why she has been able to swing between EDM, rock, jazz and film without the work feeling scattered: whatever the genre, the same singer and writer is at the center of it.

Before the fame

Gaga’s rise was not as sudden as it looked. She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private school in Manhattan, played piano from the age of four, and performed at open-mic nights as a teenager before a brief stretch at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Bullied for her looks as a young woman, she later turned that experience into a central theme of her work and her advocacy. Before her own record deal, she wrote songs for artists including Britney Spears and Fergie, sharpening the pop craft that would soon power her own hits. By the time The Fame arrived, she was a fully formed writer who simply turned the spotlight on herself.

Most loved songs

A spread across her career. Each title opens through the in-site player.

From shock-pop spectacle to Oscar-winning ballad, Gaga’s catalogue covers more ground than almost any of her peers. If one of her songs is stuck in your head, type it into the search box above to find the track.