Regardless of how you feel about Lady Gaga, she has all of the qualities necessary to be a great Carpool Karaoke guest. Chief among them: She really commits to the karaoke.
Watch: Lady Gaga sings Carpool Karaoke, does not think Corden’s meat dress jokes are funny
Constance Grady is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater.
Gaga stopped by The Late Late Show Tuesday night to sing with James Corden, and girl arrived fully prepared to belt, harmonize, and do some synchronized chair dancing. She even toned down her fashion to ensure that she’d fit into the car, looking uncharacteristically subdued in a gold sequined pussy-bow blouse (Melania Trump shoutout?) and black leather leggings. There wasn’t a meat dress in sight — at least, not until Corden put one on as part of a montage of her most iconic looks. Gaga was less than amused.
They started things off with a spontaneous a cappella rendition of Ludacris’s “Move Bitch Get Out Da Way,“ which is truly the only appropriate song to sing when faced with LA traffic. From there, they swung off into “Perfect Illusion,“ from Gaga’s new album Joanne, and “Bad Romance,“ where Corden was astonished to learn that the “romama” syllables at the beginning of the song are the beginning of the word romance. “Oh, I see,” he said wonderingly, “you’re saying, ‘Romance, ooh la la!’”
After “Edge of Glory,“ which Gaga and Corden were so into that they finished the song with an impassioned hand clasp, they did some vocal warmups, and we came to the true high point of the segment. Corden tried to get Gaga to warm up by saying “Benedict Cumberbatch” over and over again, and it quickly became clear that Lady Gaga has no idea who Benedict Cumberbatch is.
“Benedict Cumberbatch is bloody good as Sherlock Holmes,” Corden said.
“Wait, what is that?” said Gaga.
Gaga is pretty sure that “Benedict Cumberbatch” is a series of nonsense syllables that a random British man made up for a vocal warmup, and the world is a beautiful place.
Obviously everything had to go downhill from there, so we headed straight into “Born This Way,“ which, Gaga admitted, she wrote in 10 minutes flat. Then they veered off into verisimilitude by trying to sing O-Town’s “Liquid Dreams,“ but Corden didn’t have the music and neither of them really knew the words, so their excursion started to look like when normals go on a road trip and try to sing, instead of like when trained vocalist superstars try to act relatable for late night talk show hosts.
Still, they quickly paid homage to Gaga’s early days with “Poker Face,“ before finishing up with “Million Reasons” from Joanne, giving Gaga a chance to really show off her belt.
Whatever you want to say about Lady Gaga, you can’t say she doesn’t commit to a bit. She came to sing some carpool karaoke, and she did sing some carpool karaoke.
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