Lady Gaga releases new song, ‘Perfect Illusion’

Lady Gaga has been taking a short break from music over the past little while, earning herself a Golden Globe for her performance on American Horror Story: Hotel and focusing on her acting.

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Now the Mother Monster (as she’s known to her fans) has released a new song, titled Perfect Illusion. Last year’s Till It Happens to You, a song from The Hunting Ground movie soundtrack, nabbed her an Academy Award nomination. Her 2013 conceptual album, Artpop, didn’t really resonate and it’s been a while since we’ve heard the typical Gaga sound.

The singer revealed her album art on Twitter before the song dropped on Tuesday night, showing a tougher, more militant Gaga.

That aggressiveness comes through in Perfect Illusion, which has a ’70s rock tinge to it. Ever-influenced by other musical styles, Gaga evolves her sound while still maintaining the catchiness that made her a Top 40 juggernaut in the first place.

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Reminiscent of hit songs Bad Romance and Poker Face, Perfect Illusion just might be another step in Gaga’s musical evolution. In an interview with BBC Music, Gaga said that she composed the song on a typewriter, and it was meant as a social media commentary.

“How do we navigate through social media?” she asked rhetorically. “How do we look through these images that we know are filtered and altered, and decipher what is reality and what is a perfect illusion?”

Listen to the song, above, and see what you think.