It's official! Lady Gaga will perform LIVE at the 2013 VMAs on Aug. 25.

YES! YES! A thousand times YES! Clear your schedule the night of Aug. 25, because you will hereby be GAGGING on Lady Gaga's live performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Still breathing? No? WELL, TOO BAD, LUNGS, because in addition to this being Mother Monster's first VMA appearance in two years, it will also be the very first live performance of the lead single (title still TBA, but Gaga announced an Aug. 19 release on Facebook) off of her upcoming third full studio album, ARTPOP. Well, I've got one thing to say: This is truly -- OH MY GOD I CAN'T BREATHE.

Aaaaaand we're back. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this answer to our prayers just raises so many more questions! Will Gaga perform the album's rumored first single, "Applause" -- WHICH MAY NOT EVEN BE CALLED "APPLAUSE"?!?!? Will her newly pierced septum make a cameo? Will her ARTPOP performance just consist of staring at her newly sculpted wax figure while that "Mirror, father, mirror..." refrain from "Ghost World" plays?!?! Whatever it is, we can't WAIT because OBVIOUSLY the Lady is gonna go all out to make sure she tops her VMA past. And we think you'll see that that's, like, damn near impossible in the photo retrospective we've assembled below, but if there's one woman to do it...

...it's Lady Gaga. Now, let's celebrate with a look back at Gaga's most iconic VMA moments!

1.) That time Lady Gaga channeled the Phantom of the Opera on the red carpet: The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards marked Lady Gaga's first appearance at the iconic award show. Obviously, being Fame-era Gaga, she was not only going to relish the moment, but she was going to use it as an opportunity to freak people out. #MissionAccomplished.

Check out more of Lady Gaga's iconic VMA moments on the next page!