“I just woke up from a dream/Where you and I had to say goodbye/And I don’t know what it all means/But since I survived, I realized/Wherever you go, that’s where I follow.”
So croons Bruno Mars — who seems as if he had literally been on Mars — at the opening of “Die with a Smile,” the power-ballad belt-off with Lady Gaga that we never knew we needed.
Bruno and Gaga were hardly on our dance card couplings for 2024. This was not Gaga and Beyoncé on “Telephone” in 2009 or Gaga and Ariana Grande on “Rain On Me” in 2020. And this was most certainly not Mars and Anderson .Paak leaving the door open as Silk Sonic in 2021.
Upon first hearing of this powerhouse pairing — with 28 Grammys and 13 No. 1 singles between them — on Thursday before its Friday drop it smacked of desperation. As if these two indisputable icons — who, in our wildest dreams, never seemed to go together like peanut butter and jelly — didn’t think they were enough all on their own, both nearing pop’s middle age at 38. (Bruno, 39 in October, has got Gaga by about five months.)
Truth be told, even with all that they have accomplished, they have both seen better days in the ever-changing, ever-fickle pop superstar sweepstakes.
As much as the Grammy-winning “Leave the Door Open” was yet another smash for Mars, his Silk Sonic project seemed to hint that he was in on the one-note joke that he was becoming with his retro R&B-pop — however surefire they were. (See No. 1 hits “Uptown Funk,” “24K Magic” and “That’s What I Like.”)
Likewise, Gaga was, well, not making us gag anymore — and that Paris Olympics performance certainly didn’t help. After her Oscar-winning turn in 2018’s “A Star is Born” seemed to put her back in pop’s stratosphere, she had the bad luck of releasing her last album, 2020’s underappreciated “Chromatica,” when COVID didn’t give us any place to just dance.
And with her high-profile role as Harley Quinn in the upcoming “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the stakes are even higher for Mother Monster.
But interestingly, “Die with a Smile” is more of a Bruno song featuring Gaga than the other way around. He owns it from the first note, out-singing and out-show-offing on a song that starts out as a guitar-strumming “Shallow” ditty — quickly making you forget all about Bradley Cooper —before it becomes a balls-to-the-wall wailer.
It’s the pop reset that Mars needed after new-jacking ‘90s R&B, it’s like “When I Was Your Man” on steroids.
Even the performance video — also released in the wee hours of Friday morning — is a throwback to the “When I Was Your Man” ‘70s late-night nostalgia.
But who cares? In a summer that was sorely missing of superstar statements, “Die with a Smile” — christened with its inaugural live performance at the Intuit Dome” in Los Angeles on Thursday night — has us living for Bruno and Gaga all over again.
