Photo: Lady Gaga via YouTube

Fans of Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars are in similar positions: It’s been a minute since the last big drop – a full-on collaboration with another artist whose skills pulled the pop star away from the usual sonic vectors – and even longer since a collection of new songs that embodied the signature sound, her busy electronic tones and non-denominational funk. Monster awaits the fitting successor to 2020’s celestial dance-pop odyssey Chromatica enjoyed 2021’s Love for salea second series of duets of jazz standards with the late Tony Bennett (after the 2014 Cheek to cheek), in the meantime; the wait to see if Bruno would achieve the international reach of 2016’s New Jack Swing and the G-Funk time capsule 24K Magic was made easier by 2021’s An evening with Silk Sonicthe chart-topping debut with the all-rounder Anderson .Paak, also from the West Coast, whose pimply vocal style tipped the time-displaced pop historian instincts of the mercurial Mars towards the Beggin’ music of the 1970s. Since Gaga was only weeks away from a Joker: Foil for Two With the band’s press tour and Mars on his way to his annual performance at Park MGM in Vegas, it’s no surprise that “Die With a Smile,” the pair’s first duet, isn’t a major musical event. It eschews fast tempos and dance numbers in favor of triumphant vocal harmonies that ward off the sense of impending world catastrophe.

While the Johnny Cash Show aesthetically obvious in the music video and at the live premiere in the newly christened Intuit Dome in LA, they pick up the Western atmosphere that has permeated a year in which Morgan Wallen, Beyoncé, Shaboozey and Post Malone’s releases (at least between fresh Tortured poets Deluxe editions), “Die With a Smile” doesn’t quite take the same leap. It’s a powerful ballad that benefits from a colorful cast. Boomer whisperer Andrew Watt – who has produced Elton John, Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne and the Stones, as well as major albums by Posty and Miley Cyrus – is featured alongside SilkSonic Co-producer D’Mile and 24K Magic Employees (and money-hungry pop star James Fauntleroy. Letting Gaga loose on a love song with sky-high emotional stakes is like lugging an AR-15 to a gun duel. She feels in her comfort zone when she’s screaming it out as loud as she does here, while the burly rhythm section carries the “Grenade” man’s more strident tendencies without slowing the track down too much. (Though you have to imagine Watt would love it if the thing went full-on “Live and Let Die,” leaning more on the tension between hushed, determined verses and droning, authoritative chorus.)

As well SilkSonic saw two versatile artists focusing on a very specific load of historical reference points. “Smile” identifies doomerism, countrypolitan style and the timeless pull of the adult contemporary torch song as major themes alongside Amazon Prime’s Emmy-nominated Stand outthe Tony-winning Stereophonicand mega-viral singer Chappell Roan. It’s a smart, if safe, choice for pop heavyweights who can knock this kind of performance out of the park rain or shine, and it’s hard to fixate on the livelier, quirkier song the duo might deliver in a parallel universe when interlocking vocal lines rocket into the stratosphere. (To be fair, there are probably just as many Earth variants where the theatrics of these two do something overbearing.) It’s hard to say what “Smile” suggests—whether LG7 is imminent or the Park MGM staff are just banding together as a clique for a group project—but it’s nice to see them tiptoeing around the zeitgeist.