Lady Gaga and Tim Burton chose an island built using pre-Hispanic farming methods in Xochimilco, a tourist area in the south of Mexico City, as the setting to seal a new collaboration between the pop superstar and the famed film director. The project combines dark, gothic and fantastical elements, characteristic of the theatricality that defines both artists’ work.

The result is the music video for the song “The Dead Dance,” released on Wednesday (Sep. 3), which is part of the second season of Netflix’s series Wednesday. In it, Gaga also stars as Rosaline Rotwood, a deceased instructor from Nevermore Academy who helps Wednesday Addams (played by Jenna Ortega) in her mission to save her family and friends. (Gaga also recently released a deluxe edition of her Mayhem album this week, with “Dead Dance” as one of three new bonus tracks.)

“The Dead Dance” takes place on the Island of the Dolls, surrounded by vegetation, a crumbling house, and hundreds of old dolls of all sizes. Over time, exposure to the elements has left the dolls dirty and worn, with peeling paint on their faces, tattered clothing, missing eyes, and no hair, creating a chilling and eerie atmosphere.

Filmed in black and white, the clip features choreography reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” where Gaga emerges from the mist, rises, and begins to move and sway to the rhythm of the music.

Prior to its release, videos and memes circulated on social media in recent months hinting at the collaboration between Gaga and Burton. Fans speculated after the Batman Returns and Beetlejuice director visited Mexico City, where he launched an immersive exhibition showcasing his most iconic works and characters. During that time, the filmmaker also toured Xochimilco and the nearby magical town of Tepoztlán, located just outside Mexico City.

Meanwhile, Gaga returned to Mexico City in April after a 13-year hiatus to perform two sold-out concerts at the GNP Seguros Stadium. The show, titled “¡Viva La MAYHEM!”, featured the opera that had captivated audiences earlier this year at Coachella.

But before both artists showcased this “haunted” location to the world, the Island of the Dolls had already been featured as a setting in the documentary by British musician and producer Steven Wilson, which accompanies his 2008 solo album Insurgentes, captured through the lens of Danish photographer Lasse Hoile.

In 2010, in an interview with the Mexican newspaper El Universal, Wilson shared that the most beautiful part of filming in Mexico took place precisely at that location. “Mexico is like one big film set; it’s very cinematic and surreal, and incredibly inspiring for creating sounds and images,” the musician said. “Originally, we hadn’t planned to film so much in the country, but after being there, we were hooked.”

At the end of last April, fellow pop star Christina Aguilera shared images on her Instagram account from her visit to Xochimilco, where she was seen enjoying time with friends and toasting with beer. In one of the snapshots, the diva is shown wearing a colorful flower crown reminiscent of the iconic painter Frida Kahlo’s signature style.

Several decades earlier, during the height of the so-called Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, Xochimilco and its “chinampas” served as the setting for classic films like María Candelaria, directed by Emilio “El Indio” Fernández and starring Dolores del Río and Pedro Armendáriz. The film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946.

In 1987, Xochimilco and its network of canals and artificial islands were declared a Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO, as they represent “an exceptional example of the Aztecs’ efforts to create a habitat in an environment hostile to humans.” The urban and rural structures created from the 16th century during the colonial period have been admirably preserved.

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Has BLACKPINK’s Lisa moved on from Labubus? At the very least, it seems like her latest fixation is on Monchhichis.

The K-pop star shared a post on her Instagram today, Sept. 4, accompanied by the caption, “Some sleepless nights.” The post featured a short and sweet carousel of photos of the “Money” singer in Japan, grabbing sushi and showing off her outfit. What drew us to the post, beyond Lisa’s obvious sense of style, was her bag charm.

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While Lisa is clearly a lover of Labubus (she basically started the craze), the Thai star was seen swapping out the monster doll for a fluffier Monchhichi keychain. The vibrant yellow doll was fixed to what looked like a Louis Vuitton P9 series bag in red with tan straps and monogrammed detailing throughout. The Monchhichi charm is the Sweet Lollipop Girl model in yellow with little pigtails and a colorful bib. You’ll likely be able to snag your own via Monchhichi’s website or through eBay.

You may be reading this, thinking to yourself, “What’s a Monchhichi?” We’re glad you asked. The plushie is from Japan and was originally created by the Sekiguchi Corporation back in 1974 so they’ve been around way longer than Labubus. The design is meant to look like a monkey, equipped with a tail, ears and a pacifier. The body is often made of soft faux-fur, while the face, hands and feet are made of plastic. The peculiar name Monchhichi is an amalgamation of the French word ‘mon,’ or ‘mine,’ and the Japanese onomatopoeia ‘chichi,’ which mimics the sound of a baby sucking a pacifier—hence the attached pacifier.

To help you dip your toes into the wonderful world of Monchhichi, we’ve compiled a couple of options for you to browse from Urban Outfitters. The retailer stocks plushies and keychains of the monkey dolls, similar to Lisa’s own, ranging in price from $24 to $55. UO also features a slew of Monchhichi-themed merchandise from quilted laptop cases and clocks to books and pins. They’ve even got a collaborative Monchhichi x Hello Kitty plushie and keychain, depicting Hello Kitty in Monchhichi-esque garb. So stinkin’ cute.

If you really want to get into the Monchhichi lore, you’ll also have to know about Bebichhichis. Similar to their larger counterparts, these dolls are monkeys too. They’re baby Monchhichis, which are a pretty major part of the iconic Monchhichi toy family. The cutesy iteration was introduced during the Monchhichi series’ 30th anniversary.

More Monchhichi That We Love

Lauren Alaina’s multitasking skills are being tested.

She starts a half-hour phone call about her current single — “All My Exes” featuring Chase Matthew — while changing diapers for her daughter, Beni Doll Arnold, born June 11. As the chat continues, she veers briefly from answering a question to talking with the baby, consoling the child through a bout with acid reflux. She never loses her place in the actual interview, though there’s little overlap between the concurrent threads.

“It’s actually hilarious,” Alaina muses, “that I’m over here changing diapers and breastfeeding around the clock, and this is our current single.”

“All My Exes” isn’t a song that draws on motherly instincts — or even, one could argue, adult traits. Instead, it reflects an embarrassing public moment from a period when Alaina, now 30, was still on her own.

“I was 22, 23, living in Nashville and dating other country music artists and dating other people in the business, and comedians, and all the wrong people, basically,” she says. “I wrote this song about one of those guys, getting into an argument downtown.”

Not that the argument was the inspiration for “All My Exes.” Alaina wasn’t actually around when the song got started. Ben Johnson (“Bar None,” “Truck Bed”) and two pop writers, Whitney Phillips (Justin Bieber & Ariana Grande’s “Stuck With U”) and songwriter-producer Jimmy Gutch, dug in on “Exes” during a Zoom write at the peak of the COVID era in 2020 or 2021. Phillips brought in a hypnotic hook —

“I ain’t saying that you’re right about me/I’m just saying all my exes would agree” — that formed the backbone for that day’s work.

The “All My Exes” title naturally brought George Strait to mind. Johnson wasn’t bothered by the similarities.

“Everybody already loves ‘All My Ex’s Live In Texas,’ ” he says. “I just think it’s fun to kind of flip that on its head.”

They crafted a chorus and an opening verse in about two hours, building it around a slinky guitar riff with a soul-pop feel. Johnson sang on the demo with an expectation that it would turn into a guy-and-girl duet, and over the course of the next two years, several artists expressed interest in finishing “All My Exes.”

“We kept rewriting the verses, trying to make it fit for different artists,” Johnson recalls.

Listening back to the demo at one point, Johnson felt like it might fit Alaina, who he calls “one of my best friends.” He persuaded her to put her voice on the demo, and they subsequently agreed that “Exes” might benefit from making Alaina the lead voice and attempting to find a male collaborator to pair with her. Alaina’s then-boyfriend and now-husband, Cameron Arnold, thought it sounded like a hit and encouraged her to tackle “Exes.”

Alaina and Johnson tweaked the song, and they set up a more formal writing session when Phillips was visiting Nashville. They shaped it around Alaina’s mutually headstrong breakup on Third Avenue, though phrasing made “Second Avenue” a better first-verse lyric.

“I wasn’t a big go-downtown person until this six-month stretch of my life,” Alaina remembers. “I kind of mirrored this song about that fight, and he was just saying that I was too opinionated, and too loud, and too much. And I was like, ‘Well, you’re not the first to tell me this, thank you very much.’ ”

Alaina and Arnold became friends with Matthew when both singers were opening acts on Jason Aldean’s 2024 Highway Desperado tour, and Arnold reached out to Matthew on his own with “Exes,” openly lobbying for a collaboration. “So Cameron A&R’d the record, basically,” Alaina says with a laugh.

Matthew’s participation required yet another revision on “All My Exes.” “Once we knew Chase was going to be on it, I think Lauren and I got together and tweaked a few more things for Chase,” Johnson says. “Maybe that’s four writing sessions on it.”

Producer Joey Moi (Morgan Wallen, HARDY) was spending large blocks of time in Los Angeles following the opening of Big Loud Rock, but Big Loud partner/CEO Seth England started priming him to fit in a session for “Exes” next time he was back in Nashville. They cut it at Blackbird Studio A with a small band — electric guitarist Tom Bukovac, acoustic guitarist Bryan Sutton and keyboardist Alex Wright — redoing Johnson’s demo and adding a few extra embellishments, including some Bukovac hooks that built onto the original riff.

“He elaborated on it in the post-chorus, when the turn comes back around,” Moi says. “And all of the guitar melodies that are in the chorus — that’s all stuff we added in the studio.”

They recorded Alaina’s vocals at Moi’s Big Loud studio in a fairly easy session. Despite the singer’s penchant for big notes, “All My Exes” called for a more restrained performance. “You don’t really have to use a ton of technique to sing this song,” Alaina says. “It’s kind of an earworm, and those songs are usually easier to sing.”

It’s an approach that Moi has advocated for since she signed with Big Loud in 2022.

“I’ve really preached that with her, because she always wants to do those big ad-libs,” he says. “In this climate, stylists beat powerhouses. Even in real contemporary music, it’s not powerhouse anymore. Even the powerhouses there, like Ariana [Grande], she will lean heavy on style, but she can do all the moves. Sabrina [Carpenter] is a powerhouse, but she does all of the real super-stylistic stuff.”

Moi enlisted a co-producer, Jacob Durrett (ERNEST, Cole Swindell), to run a separate vocal session with Matthew in Nashville. Durrett also programmed the drum part, using 808 beats to provide a pop undercurrent beneath the country sound of the singers’ voices.

They changed a lyric about Knoxville — the hometown of the guy Alaina originally referenced — to Nashville, reflecting Matthew’s residence. And while they dropped a few harmonies into the pre-chorus, the bulk of the singers’ performance was in unison in different octaves. “We tried to do harmony on the chorus, and it just felt bigger with the octaves,” Alaina says.

“All My Exes” was one of five Alaina recordings that Big Loud released to digital partners in advance of her next album, and it set a personal streaming record for her in the track’s first week. That made it an easy pick for her current single, issued to country radio through PlayMPE on July 28. Both Alaina and Arnold thought it was the right choice, even if it doesn’t match her current story.

“I will forever use this as an example against people who go, ‘Well, you know, that’s just not really me. I’m not going through that in my life,’ ” Moi says. “I’m like, ‘Well, look at this.’ ”

Alaina is less concerned about aligning her personal and professional story than she is about making her business work for the family. “I hope it’s a multi-week No. 1 song on the radio and changes our life,” she says. “We’ve got a little girl to take care of.”