Chappell Roan, Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa Join ‘Carpool Karaoke’ Xmas Special

All they want for Christmas is to ride shotgun. Superstar pop divas Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa and Chappell Roan take on an SUV song in “A Very Carpool Karaoke Christmas,” a holiday special that was unwrapped as a surprise release Sunday night on Apple TV+ and Apple Music.

The hour-long installment of the Emmy-winning “Carpool Karaoke: The Series” was uploaded to Apple’s platforms in a surprise release Sunday night at 9pm PT/midnight ET. It marks a return of the franchise after a fifth season that ended on Apple TV+ 18 months ago.

Zane Lowe takes on the role of host for all three segments of the hour-long special, introduced as its guest driver and duet partner in a brief prologue that begins with franchise mainstay James Corden effectively handing over the keys via a phone call from the UK.

Lowe’s apparent mission is to drive Roan around his native Missouri, Lipa around Tokyo before a concert, and Gaga around Los Angeles on her way to a studio session. The final “drive” ends with Lowe joining Gaga’s band on electric guitar for an in-studio cover of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”, also released independently as a soundtrack.

The hour plays like a transiently modern version of an old-fashioned Christmas variety, with each of the guests asked to loudly sing along to classic Christmas numbers as well as their own greatest hits. In performance mode, all three pass the crucial “Carpool Karaoke” test, with their lung power, sense of movement and overriding charisma feeling unfettered, seatbelt or no seatbelt.

The songs range from Lipa singing along to the Ronettes’ “Sleigh Ride” to Roan’s karaoke version of Wham’s “Last Christmas.” Gaga is the only one of the three with an original Christmas song to bring up. She tells Lowe that her preference in Christmas music is for “something wholesome and sentimental … you know, a song that the whole family can get together and sing,” before breaking into her profoundly tender 2008 single “Christmas Tree,” which mixes bits of “Deck the Halls” with cheeky claims that “under the mistletoe everyone knows we take our clothes off” and “my Christmas tree is delicious.”

Speaking of Gaga, the Chappell Roan segment begins with the singer leading Lowe through her parents’ yard and introducing him to a chicken named after Lady Gaga. They then load into the SUV with her parents, Kara and Dwight. The whole wagon sings along to “Pink Pony Club,” and the host asks Roan’s mom how she feels about having partially inspired that signature song. “I started crying just listening to her sing it right now,” says Kara. “We love her so much and we’re so proud of what she does and who she is and what she stands for. I love singing it with her at her shows and I love it when you can just see people respond so much to that song. And even as adults, we really care what our parents think of us.”

“Yes,” adds Roan’s tearful father, “I hope it’s something she always knows that we love her so much and we could never be prouder of her. I think about this a lot and try not to get emotional over it. I already am… What she has taught me as a father is respect for other people and all people, and that’s what I want people to understand. Everything about her is about about loving everyone, and she has learned that me.”

Roan talks about growing up “quite religious”, something she found very stifling. I know for many people it is actually very liberating. For me it did almost the opposite, where I felt like I couldn’t be myself, that who I was was a sin and I was headed for hell, no matter how good a person I was or how high I loved God, for being gay. And I just couldn’t handle being ashamed anymore.” Although Roan says she found liberation by moving to LA, she adds from Missouri, “I’m so grateful that I’m from here,” even though I’m in “a conservative community, I understand the fear and where it comes from .It’s scary when it’s something you don’t know or understand. So it’s like a conversation after conversation and not just giving up on people you were in diaper. It’s just not the way I personally operate. The door has to be open, otherwise there is no learning.”

The conversation lightens up when Roan meets up with some high school friends at Andy’s Frozen Custard and orders a concoction called the James Brownie Funky Jackhammer. “I would literally rather have an Andy’s Frozen Custard custom than a Grammy. I’m not kidding,” she says.

Gaga’s segment features a fourth celebrity appearance on the special after Gaga shares video footage of her late grandmother singing AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.” “I brought you Brian Johnson for Christmas,” Lowe says, stopping to let the AC/DC singer into the car. “Do you want to hear something funny?” Gaga asks him. “I was in the ‘Stiff Upper Lip’ video (in 2000)… I was 17 and I was an extra in the back… and I was headbanging. And they said, ‘Don’t headbang. We’re going to like to have it modern’. And I thought, ‘No, I can’t (stop). Like, there’s only one move I can make.’

Besides also covering a bit of Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog,” Gaga sings along to her latest global chart-topper “Die With a Smile” and talks about cutting it with Bruno Mars between sessions for her own upcoming “LG7” album. “It was crazy,” she tells Lowe. “I visited him at 10 o’clock at night. He played me the idea and then we wrote the second verse, then we cut it at 2 in the morning. Bruno made me sing for four hours. He had a precise way, he wanted to listen to it and I would give him that.

In Tokyo, Lipa goes Christmas shopping with Lowe and sings part of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” along with the Whitney Houston original, after telling the story of how, as a teenager, she got up on stage at a Katy Perry concert with a couple other audience members to join that cover. “I thought, I want to be on that stage. I want to perform. I want to make rooms like this. I now play ‘Dance With Somebody’ at the end of every single one of my shows.”