‘Abracadabra’ Single Review: Lady Gaga is Back and Better Than Ever?

A synth intro with a driving beat, an incredibly catchy chorus with unintelligible half-words thrown around, and lyrics evoking death and the devil — what is this, a Lady Gaga song from “The Fame Monster?” No. It’s a whole new project, a decidedly 2025 affair, the third single from her new album, “Mayhem.” Its name? “Abracadabra.” Fitting for what has been a magical comeback for Gaga this year.

“Die With a Smile” — Gaga’s recent collaboration with Bruno Mars that earned her a Grammy this year — has done massive numbers, nearing 2 billion streams on Spotify. It’s a melodic, slow ballad, showcasing Gaga and Mars’ vocal prowess. “Abracadabra” is not that. To understand this newest song one has to go further back than a few months, all the way to 2009’s breakthrough album, “The Fame Monster” — containing hits like “Bad Romance” and “Paparazzi.” That was a Gaga album that blew away the pop landscape with several revolutionary hits, involving gritty synths on top of provocative, often nearly nonsensical lyrics. That’s how one must understand “Abracadabra.”

Producer Andrew Watt crafted an unbelievably driving backing for Gaga to shine on, with the song’s beat including a powerful bass drum interspersed with the occasional fun fill. The instrumentation has all the ingredients to make a Gaga classic, with punchy piano chords sitting on rapid, pulsating synth bass lines.

That would all count for nothing, though, without Gaga herself on top of it all, singing a signature chorus with quasi-words like “Abracadabra, amor-oo-na-na / Abracadabra, morta-oo-ga-ga.” What could that possibly mean? No one knows — and that’s the beauty of it!

The song has no real unifying lyrical theme, instead opting for vague references to “a poem said by a lady in red” and “the magic of the dark moonlight.” But in a weird way, that’s exactly what it needs. Some vague sense of otherworldliness, death, and magic to get the listener in the right headspace before then being completely blasted by a chorus that may be 2025’s catchiest yet — a wall of sound that simply cannot be ignored.

One question that could plague “Abracadabra” is its originality. To be clear, Gaga’s style has changed significantly since her days of “The Fame Monster,” with songs like “Shallow” and “Die With a Smile” epitomizing that evolution. In some ways, “Abracadabra” sounding like old Gaga music feels more like a mimicry of a past, successful style than a new sound.

But, in a world of listeners clamoring for artists to return to their past music, Gaga is the perfect one to fulfill the mission, and with “Abracadabra,” she did so in her own style — loud, weird, and, oh, so fun.

—Staff writer Alessandro M. M. Drake can be reached at alessandro.drake@thecrimson.com.