Lady Gaga — From The Fame to MAYHEM, Every Album

Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986, in New York City. She grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and started piano lessons at four, learning to play by ear.

Her first album, The Fame, came out in August 2008. It peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, but its first two singles, Just Dance and Poker Face, both went to number one on the Hot 100. A year later The Fame Monster added eight new songs, Bad Romance, Telephone with Beyoncé and Alejandro among them.

Those three are in the Greatest Hits playlist on this page.

She has also worked well outside pop. She recorded two jazz albums with Tony Bennett, Cheek to Cheek and Love for Sale, and starred in the 2018 film A Star Is Born. Its song Shallow, with Bradley Cooper, won her the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

She has won 16 Grammy Awards, and seven of her albums have reached number one in the US.

The Fame set the tone in 2008: synth-pop and electro made for the club, with Paparazzi, LoveGame and Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) behind the two number one singles. The Fame won the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Album, and Poker Face won Best Dance Recording.

Born This Way arrived in May 2011. The title song debuted at number one on the Hot 100 and became the 1,000th number one in the chart's history, and the album sold 1.1 million copies in its first week in the US.

Judas, The Edge of Glory, Yoü and I and Marry the Night were the other singles. ARTPOP followed in November 2013, a record she said was meant to feel like a night at the club, led by Applause, which reached number four in the US.

Joanne, released on October 21, 2016, was named after her late aunt and swapped the synths for a quieter, more acoustic sound. Perfect Illusion and Million Reasons are the singles. Chromatica, on May 29, 2020, went back to dance music.

Stupid Love was the lead single, and Rain on Me, with Ariana Grande, debuted at number one and won the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

MAYHEM came out on March 7, 2025, and debuted at number one, her seventh album to top the Billboard 200. Disease and Abracadabra are the singles, and the album closes with Die With a Smile, her duet with Bruno Mars, which went to number one on the Hot 100 in January 2025. MAYHEM won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album.

What sets Lady Gaga apart is that the songs are written before they are produced. Under the synths, Poker Face and Born This Way are simple melodies you could play on a piano, and Million Reasons barely needs more than that. The costumes and the videos got the headlines in 2009, but the hooks are why people still put these records on.

She also keeps coming back to the dance floor. Seventeen years separate Just Dance and Abracadabra, and both are built on the same idea: a big chorus over a beat you can move to. Play the 84 songs in order and you hear her try rock, country, piano ballads and industrial synths, and still sound like one person from Just Dance to Die With a Smile.