▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. “Free Woman”
This is technically the only official single on this playlist, but it’s a particularly underappreciated one, from Gaga’s 2020 album, “Chromatica.” “Free Woman” is a thumping electronic anthem that rewrites the sometimes rote script of “empowerment pop” into something more deeply felt and personal. “I’m still something if I don’t got a man,” Gaga asserts on the chorus, just before the song explodes into fist-pumping catharsis.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. “Hair Body Face”
After she establishes herself as a folky singer-songwriter, Gaga’s “Star Is Born” character suddenly pivots to pop, enraging her rocker-purist boyfriend Jackson Maine. When the film was released, Ally’s pop songs — especially the slinky and suggestive “Why Did You Do That?” — prompted a spirited debate: Were they supposed to be bad on purpose? Because they were kind of amazing, this being Lady Gaga and all. In an interview with The Times’s Kyle Buchanan, Diane Warren, who was a writer on “Why Did You Do That?,” settled the matter, stating, “I would never sit down to purposely write a bad song.” But there’s an Ally pop song I like even better on the soundtrack: the sumptuous “Hair Body Face.” If Gaga had released this song as a solo artist, perhaps on an EP with her 2017 hit “The Cure,” it would have been huge.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. “Fashion of His Love”
Gaga wrote this infectious “Born This Way” bonus track after the death of her friend Alexander McQueen — the designer behind some of her most memorable early looks — but its tone is far from somber. Instead, Gaga pays tribute to McQueen’s legacy with a fittingly over-the-top pop anthem that basically sounds like a bunch of early Madonna hits put in a blender switched on high. Just when you think the song can’t get any more ecstatic, she proves you wrong by throwing in a key change at the end.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. “Dope”
I tend to roll my eyes at most songs centered around love-as-drug metaphors — overused at best; offensive at worse — but for Gaga (and Roxy Music) I make an exception. This wrenching rock-operatic piano ballad from “Artpop” spotlights Gaga’s emotional conviction and daredevilishly acrobatic vocals. Every time I have tried to sing along to this song, I have embarrassed myself.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. “Come to Mama”
Here’s Gaga embracing Cass Elliot-style sunshine pop, albeit with a modern edge. It makes sense that this is one of my favorite tracks on Gaga’s 2016 album “Joanne”; it was written in part by the artist who led Tuesday’s Amplifier playlist, Father John Misty. (If you have trouble imagining that, listen to his demo.)
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
10. “Gypsy”
Finally, I told you we’d eventually get back to Berlin: “I don’t speak German, but I try,” Gaga sings at the end of this whirlwind tale of life on the road. Though the title itself is a cringey misstep, this track is nonetheless one of the strongest on “Artpop,” representing Gaga at her most Springsteenian. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen her perform it with Kermit the Frog.
