Lady Gaga has never been one to do things by halves, and at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards, she reminded the world why she remains one of pop culture’s most daring and imaginative forces. After securing the coveted Artist of the Year award, Gaga surprised fans with a remote performance broadcast live from Madison Square Garden, where she is in the midst of her Mayhem Ball tour.
The set was anything but ordinary. In typical Gaga fashion, it blurred the lines between theater, fashion, and music, leaving audiences entranced.
A Gothic Spectacle of “Abracadabra”
The performance opened with her single “Abracadabra,” staged on a platform designed to resemble a grand opera house from another century. The architecture, dramatic in scale and dripping with Gothic undertones, set the scene for Gaga’s arrival.
Descending slowly from the platform, she appeared in a blood-red Elizabethan ball gown, the voluminous skirt towering over the stage and commanding attention. As the opening chords echoed, the skirt parted to reveal dancers encaged in gilded structures, moving in haunting synchronization. Theatrical yet unsettling, it was pure Gaga: spectacle meeting symbolism.
Midway through the song, she seamlessly shifted into a white Victorian-inspired outfit with scarlet accents, creating a striking visual contrast that underscored the song’s themes of duality and illusion. It was equal parts opera, fashion show, and rock concert.
“The Dead Dance” Brings Wednesday to Life
For the second half of the set, Gaga performed “The Dead Dance,” a chillingly catchy new single created for the second season of Wednesday. The track already had fans buzzing after the release of its Tim Burton-directed music video, and Gaga’s VMAs performance brought it vividly to life.
Swapping grandeur for precision, Gaga and her dancers replicated the eerie choreography from the video, delivering sharp, jerky movements that perfectly matched the song’s macabre energy. The choreography, a nod to Wednesday Addams’ now-iconic dance from season one, was updated with Gaga’s flair for dramatic performance.
The four-minute showcase felt like a celebration of both her artistry and the spooky season. For many watching, it was less of a “remote performance” and more like being transported into Gaga’s dark, cinematic universe.
The Mayhem Ball Tour: Gaga in Her Element
This performance also served as a reminder of Gaga’s ongoing Mayhem Ball tour, which kicked off in July. Supporting her sixth studio album, Mayhem, the tour includes an ambitious 63 shows spanning the U.S., Australia, Japan, and Europe.
Early reviews have praised the tour for its mix of over-the-top stage design, intimate acoustic moments, and Gaga’s unmatched ability to transform each venue into a full theatrical experience. The Madison Square Garden show, where the VMAs performance was filmed, has already been described by critics as one of her career highlights.
The Story Behind Mayhem
At the core of all this spectacle lies Gaga’s most personal work in years. Her album Mayhem, released in 2024, has been hailed for its fearless genre-hopping and emotional depth.
In an interview with Rolling Stone last December, Gaga explained the philosophy behind the project. “The album reflects my love for music: a mix of genres, styles, and dreams,” she said. “It jumps from one style to another in a way that feels almost chaotic, but ultimately, it’s about love. That’s how I deal with life’s chaos: by finding peace in love.”
She went on to describe the songs as fragmented memories stitched together, each representing mistakes, lessons, and moments of clarity. Some tracks are sonically aggressive and confrontational, while others feel delicate and romantic. “To me, that’s true chaos,” Gaga reflected. “It’s hard to see the light at times, but the real challenge is when you occasionally glimpse it.”
For Gaga, Mayhem isn’t just another album—it’s a narrative of resilience, surrender, and survival, packaged in a soundscape that refuses to conform.
A Legacy of Constant Reinvention
The 2025 MTV VMAs proved once again that Gaga is an artist who cannot be contained by tradition. Winning Artist of the Year was a testament to her continued relevance in a crowded industry, but it was her performance—half haunting opera, half gothic rock opera—that cemented the night as hers.
More than 15 years into her career, Gaga is still redefining what a pop performance can be. Whether she’s wearing a meat dress, delivering a stripped-down piano ballad, or turning Madison Square Garden into a haunted opera house, her ability to reinvent herself remains unmatched.
And if her VMAs showcase is any indication, Gaga’s reign in the worlds of music, fashion, and culture is far from over.