This podcast episode is part of the Billboard editorial staff’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 list. Find our accompanying Lady Gaga essay here, and all the rest of our essays and podcasts related to the list here.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
Lady Gaga gave fans everything they could have asked from her in 2025: a satisfying new album with a dazzling advance single, a new arena tour massive in both its artistic scale and its commercial success, and hundreds of Classic Gaga moments in between. She launched an old-school press and media blitz, appeared at seemingly every award show and big cultural event, and headlined some of the year’s hugest concerts. Basically, she showed the kids how it’s done — with “kids” by this point in her 17-year pop career also including a totally new generation of stars, several of whom now explicitly look up to Gaga as the model for pop stardom exemplified at its highest levels.
This Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast looks at how Lady Gaga ended up at No. 3 on our list — thanks to a year where she reminded everyone, particularly the longtime Little Monsters, why she’s one of the best to ever do it. (You can find Katie Atkinson’s essay on Lamar’s stunning sequel year here.) Today, Billboard charts senior analyst/writer Eric Frankenberg joins host Andrew Unterberger to relive Lady Gaga’s jam-packed 2025, and dive deep into whether she not only confirmed the greatness of her legacy this year, but also proved she could still be as big and as impactful as this current generation of pop leading lights.
Over the course of our extended discussion, we also ask all the most pressing questions about Lady Gaga’s 2025: What makes “Abracadabra” more than just a rehashing of past glories? How the hell did “Judas” become the most-streamed Born This Way song on Spotify? Did Coachella, Rio and the Mayhem Ball take her to her highest heights yet as a live performer? Was her Harlequin: One Night Only HBO special secretly the highlight of her year? Will her 2026 be about her tying the knot with fiancé Michael Polansky (and will she perform at the wedding)? How will she fare at the Grammys this upcoming weekend? And perhaps most importantly: How different, if at all, would Gaga’s career (or pop music in general) be moving forward if her 2025 had never happened?
Check it out above, along with a YouTube playlist of some of the greatest moments of Lady Gaga’s 2025 — all of which are discussed on the pod — and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for complete podcast coverage of this year’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 list!
And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:
Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe
Also, please consider giving your local congresspeople a call in support of trans rights, with contact information you can find on 5Calls.org.