Lady Gaga Lives for the Applause of ‘Chromatica,’ Praises Producer Tchami for Getting the Album to Its Happy Place

Jazz Tangcay
·3 min read

Lady Gaga wrapped her weekly “Gaga Radio” series on Apple Music today (Aug. 28) by talking with French House producer Tchami, with whom she collaborated on “Rain on Me,” “Babylon,” “1000 Doves” and “Stupid Love” from her sixth album, “Chromatica.” Tchami’s first big credit as a producer was “Applause” from Gaga’s 2012 album “Artpop.”

Lady Gaga revealed that she had originally intended to release “Sexxx Dreams” as a single until she heard “Applause.”

“A track was played for me and I lost my sh–,” she said, reflecting on their previous collaboration and praising the producer for helping bring to life one of her — and the fans’ — favorite songs that she had ever written. “Every time I play it, the crowd goes crazy.”

Discussing the collaboration with Burns and Bloodpop, Gaga described the music-making process for “Chromatica” as an egoless one. “It was an open, artistic and a creative space.” She confessed that the closeness helped her open up to collaborating.

Added Tchami: “You say the word ‘open’ and that’s exactly what it was.” Diving into his work, Tchami said Bloodpop played him 10 to 12 demos on the first day and asked which one he wanted to work on first. “It was a very collaborative effort, and that to me is everything. When you find the right people in the right room, in the same room, you can make magic.”

“If there were 10 ears in the room, we would still go, ‘Is it only one bass line, and we’d talk intelligently about what it was supposed to be,” Gaga continued. “It’s special to honor that you guys sat with me and we talked about the music, ripped the songs apart, put them back and passed them around. … ‘Chromatica’ came alive and everyone wanted what was best for the music.”

Tchami’s favorite track from the album? “1000 Doves” is “the one that wins [my] heart,” he said.

“You made it so happy,” Gaga added before reciting the first verse to Tchami. “I wrote that at the piano and I was crying. I could cry that you put that to dance music.”

She went on to reveal that she had thought about redoing the vocals because they were sad, describing the verses as the “saddest on the record” and the song as “Joanne 2.0”

Said Gaga: ”You and Bloodpop took it and made it something that I can jump around to. I don’t want ‘Chromatica’ to be sad. There’s no sadness on ‘Chromatica.’ On ‘Chromatica,’ I’m fine.”

Listen to the full interview on Apple Music.

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