Mayhem by Lady Gaga // Album Review
This album truly is mayhem - it's clear that Gaga drew from so many different influences that make up the tapestry of sound this album represents. From David Bowie, Queen, Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna - the synthy 80s influences are among the clearest artistic references and aesthetics on this record. She fully embodies the sparkling theatrics that pop music of that era radiated and makes it all her own. Nine Inch Nails was another major influence for her as well, with the prominent grungy alternative elements that are recurring throughout. She also seemingly drew from her own pop contemporaries with hints of Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, and The Weeknd's influences on certain songs as well.
Above all, the greatest influence this album draws from is Gaga herself. For nearly 20 years, she has continuously refined and perfected this very distinctive sound that remains true and recognizable no matter what genre she is experimenting with at the time. Whether it's pop, rock, country, jazz or literally anything else in between, no matter what she's making it is always certainly going to be unmistakably Gaga. To be a musical chameleon in the way that she has throughout her entire career is a testament to the true, once in a generation level of artistry that she holds with her work.
So much of this album feels so closely linked to parts of her debut album, The Fame, which turned out to be very intentional creative path to take when making this record. "There have been times in my career where I had an idea in terms of how to conceptually approach a record. But I would say that this album, from start to finish, was like pieces coming together," Lady Gaga said in an interview with Billboard. "I did not want to turn it into anything artificial, I really wanted to allow myself to just follow the music. By doing that, it started to slowly remind me of my earlier work."
To return back to the mindset she was in when she was just starting out, completely free to say whatever she wanted through her music and not be confined to anyone else's expectations, is such a powerful space to be in as an artist. These callbacks to her 2008 debut aren't redundant in any way either, Gaga executed this sound in an ever fresh and reimagined way, capturing the same magnetic energy that defined her early work while evolving it into something unmistakably modern. For her to return to that dark, defiant sound, which was so different than anything anyone ever heard at the time she debuted, is a testament to Gaga's ability to continuously redefine herself while staying true to her artistry. It's a bold move that not only honors the groundbreaking work of her early years but also breathes new life into it, proving that her music remains as boundary-pushing and relevant as ever. This return feels like a reclamation of her unique sound and a celebration of her enduring influence in the industry.
Gaga is her own greatest reference. That fact became clearer than ever with the release of the first two singles of this album. With "Disease", the opening song of Mayhem and the lead single, she signaled this full return to her dance roots with this bold and melodramatic club banger. It was written early on in the album process, which marked a major turning point for her and her collaborators, making "Disease" a cornerstone moment for the album. She worked with producers Andrew Watt and Cirkut on this song and the majority of Mayhem.
Following the release of "Disease" was the absolutely incredible "Abracadabra", a song that is among the most self-referential moments of Mayhem. "So much of what I did with 'Abracadabra' was about claiming music and imagery that’s my own invention — meaning the combination of those things is my own invention, and I wanted to really own that for myself," Gaga said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. She added in another interview with AP News that "...very often as a woman in music, they say it was other people. You're a product, like you were made. Something that was really important to me on this was really taking from myself my own inventions."
This song kind of feels like a blend of "Bad Romance", with hints of Born This Way and ARTPOP too. The category is dance, always. The energy and theatrics is just on another level with "Abracadabra", I love that she knows where she shines the most as an artist and fully went all the way with this song. The post-chorus is so insane, I'm obsessed with the way she sings "feel the beat under your feet, the floor's on firе". It's such a wild song, it's truly one of her best singles in a very long time. A gorgeous lyric that always stands out is, "Phantom of the dance floor, come to me, sing for me a sinful melody", she operatically sings in the bridge.
In an interview with Elle, Lady Gaga talked about how "the song is about facing the challenge of life and the challenge of the night and finding the magic in it all." She also added, "When you have to face the world, the people around you, your life, your unique circumstances, your unique fabric in the world. And when you feel challenged with really showing everybody who you are."
Lady Gaga is a true mastermind of crafting perfect pop songs, which she has showcased time and time again throughout her career. The first four tracks of Mayhem in particular are among the greatest runs of her entire career. The album opens as a vivid chronicle of a night out, with the third and fourth tracks signaling a subtle shift in tone. "Garden of Eden" is an all-time career highlight, there were so many times I was so blown away while listening to this album for the first time and this is a prime example of why. Again, this song sounds like a blend of every era of her career thus far, like a perfect mix of The Fame, ARTPOP, and Chromatica. It's also very true early 2000's pop, I hear a lot of Gwen Stefani's influence in her performance on this. Even with the some of the throwback references, it is done in a very fresh way, kind of through a post-BRAT summer lens. It's a song about temptation, redemption and finding solace under club lights - all themes that have been deeply embedded into her music thus far. "I've been feelin' this familiar feeling, like I've known you my wholе life," she sings, "take you to the Gardеn of Eden, poison apple, take a bite".
"Perfect Celebrity" also offers an interesting new perspective to the point of view her early work expressed. With songs like "The Fame", "Paparazzi", "Starstruck", and more from her debut, Gaga was writing from the perspective of knowing she wanted to be famous, she wanted to be a pop star, she wanted all of the glamour and more that was to come with that lifestyle. Now she writes from the point of view of having all of that and more, but things aren't always what they seem to be. Gaga's relationship with fame has changed significantly during that time, so "Perfect Celebrity" is her rumination from the other side of the coin now. While her reflections on fame and celebrity have evolved, and she has this pent-up anger within the song, she still candidly acknowledges that her drive and desire for the spotlight remain. "You love to hate me, I'm the perfect celebrity", she sings.
"What that song is ultimately about is that, for myself and for many people now, there's the real us and then there's the clone of us that we project to the world — and having a complicated relationship with that, and almost raging out on that record about it," she said in an interview with Paper Magazine.
Gaga embraces this duality, recognizing that if she didn't still crave all of this, she wouldn't continue creating and sharing her music with such passion. Her star power is undeniable, "Perfect Celebrity" gives insight into that evolution she has experienced both personally and professionally since she first began releasing music. "I look so hungry, but I look so good," is among the most evocative lyrics of this song that really struck me when I first heard it. "Tap on my vein, suck on my diamond blood, choke on the fame and hope it gets you high, sit in the front row, watch the princess die".
"I had this feeling inside myself of, 'You can't write about that. You can't show this part of yourself.' And then I was like, 'No … embrace it, what do you want to say?'" Gaga recalls of the writing process in an interview with Billboard. "It became complicated so quickly; owning that I wanted to be a star, and that it did bring a lot of complication to my life. So then, it's also that anger that I felt towards myself, that I brought this on myself." She also added, "I was nervous to put it on the album. But part of Mayhem is that I just put it all out there."
While all of the music Gaga has released over the years has been great and showcases different facets of her artistry, Mayhem stands out as a profound representation of her musical roots. I cannot stress enough how much this truly embodies her essence in the music. Her influence is unparalleled, and I love the confidence she exudes in this work.
Following the explosive start to the record, she takes the rest of Mayhem in a lot of interesting directions that were kind of surprising upon the first listen, but has just kept getting better and better each time I return to it. Gaga's mantra throughout the creation of the album was "Go with the chaos", which she fully embodied throughout Mayhem. "Vanish Into You" serves as sort of a transcendent comedown following the wild, bold energy the first four songs present. It's so anthemic and one of the best recent examples of 80's pop influences being intertwined into modern sounds. The production sounds so lush, which is one of the defining qualities throughout the entire record.
Mayhem goes from really fun and experimental disco tracks like "Zombieboy", to glittering synth tracks like "How Bad Do U Want Me", which is a song that sounds like it could have been featured as a vault track on 1989 or Midnights. The album is also filled with beautiful love songs that bring so much heart and depth to the story it tells. Mayhem is a blend of everything, a true encapsulation of her past present and future as both an artist and as a woman. It's also so clear just how happy she is at this stage of her life, which shines through most of all in this music. Of all the great love songs she has written through the years, it's clear just how real it all is for her now and how much she truly means the words she's singing. Her fiancé, Michael Polansky, is also credited as a songwriter on a number of the songs from Mayhem, as well as an executive producer for the record, which is a really beautiful and symbolic piece of their love story.
"What Mayhem says about my relationship to love is that sometimes I'm a complicated person, and I don't know that I've always been that easy to be with. My partner has this unique situation with me, where he's in a relationship with both Stefani and Lady Gaga, and I've tried to integrate myself into one person. But my mayhem is that there's a lot of me's, and I've tried to express that in my videos so far for this record," she said in an interview with Paper Magazine. "You know, in the album art with the broken glass, the fragmentation, the cut up imagery, like what does it mean to be completely broken? But broken people find other broken people and then we fall in love, and then we hold each other together the best that we can."
Among the biggest highlights of the album "Killah", which we see Gaga go full Prince with killer production by French DJ and producer Gesaffelstein, who worked on a few other songs from Mayhem. Her performance on SNL was the turning point that made me fully fall in love with this song. It's a wild blend of industrial funk, rock, and electronic music, creating this uniquely hypnotic experience that is unlike any other song either of them ever made before. "Gesaffelstein and I are both dark in that we're just rebellious with our music. So it's not about one sonic aesthetic, it's about our energy," Gaga said in an interview with Paper Magazine. "But, yeah, 'Killah' is an ultra-confident song. I love that song, I loved making that song and I can't wait to perform that song. And the bridge is one for the books to me."
"LoveDrug" is another stellar moment of Mayhem, it's a dancefloor anthem that captures intense personal emotions under an electrifying beat. "I don't wanna feel, I don't wanna cry, so I'm gonna dance until I feel alright," she sings in the chorus, "I just need a dose of the right stuff, I just need a hit of your love drug". It overall sounds like a matured return to the themes and aesthetics of The Fame, with it particularly serving as a parallel to "LoveGame", even down to the way the titles are stylized. "LoveGame" showcases a more playful side to love, while "LoveDrug" has this sort of urgent and all-encompassing need for connection. On the surface, it sounds like another really great dance track, but the rawness and depth to the lyricism is so complex.
"Shadow Of A Man" in turn feels like a reflection of Gaga's entire career thus far and why it was so important for her to return back to where it all began musically for her. It's an interesting blend of all the different styles of pop music she has experimented with over the years, while also feeling closely linked stylistically to artists like Michael Jackson or David Bowie. It also holds an empowering message from all that she's learned during her time in the music industry, particularly through the lens of the female experience. "I mean, that song is like, so much a response to my career, you know, and what it always felt like to be the only girl in the room a lot of the time, and to always be like, standing in the shadow of a man because there were so many around me that I learned how to dance in that shadow," Lady Gaga said in an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music. "Well, I don't feel like, controlled or oppressed, I feel free."
At its core, the essence of Mayhem lies in reclamation, embracing the truth that the hardships we face in life don’t define us. Instead, they teach us to rise above and eventually find joy, even in the chaos. The journey she took to create a song like "Shadow of a Man" is a testament to that truth. "When I made that song I was imagining actually that I was singing walking down these streets like, I still am so inspired by this town and that feeling," she added in her interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music. "Like, if I could give anyone, you know, a feeling or a memory or an experience of mine that I've had, the first would be the power of learning other people's stories and being available to like, understand another person in the world like, that's been the most, like the most beautiful thing that I've experienced. And then I would say, 'Your own artistic energy and the fight and your own ability to persevere and to like, dance through life knowing that like, you might not win sometimes.'"
The last two songs are quite different than the rest of the album, as they are traditional ballads that are unapologetically honest and deeply romantic. "Blade Of Grass" is truly one of the best songs Lady Gaga has ever written, it gives me chills every time I hear it. The song was inspired by a conversation she and her now fiancé, Michael, once had about how she would one day want him to propose to her. "We were in our backyard and I said, 'Just take a blade of grass and wrap it around my finger,'" she said in an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music. "And then I wrote 'Blade of Grass' because I remembered the way his face looked and I remembered the grass in the backyard and I remember thinking he should use that really long grass that's in the center of the backyard."
Every lyric is filled with so much meaning and so much emotion. "You said, 'How does a man like me love a woman like you?' she sings in the pre-chorus. "I said, 'Hold me until I die and I'll make you brand new'. It is deeply representative of the power of love and this really special time in her life right now. I am always so struck by the bridge of this song, which is a verse that she and her fiancé wrote together. "I'll give you something, yeah, it's no diamond ring, the air that I'm breathing," she sings. "Forever's not enough, a song we'll both sing".
When I first saw the track list of Mayhem, I didn't know if it was going to actually have a place on this record or if it was just tacked on at the end because it was popular. Not that I didn't enjoy that song for what it was up to that point, but I just couldn't see how it would have fit in with these bold, grungy, dark pop songs like "Disease" and "Abracadabra" that were first introduced as the sound of Mayhem. When I heard "Die With A Smile" in the context of the rest of the album and directly following "Blade Of Grass", I was moved to tears for the first time by it. The way Bruno sings the opening lines, "I, I just woke up from a dream, where you and I had to say goodbye", is just so gorgeous and beautifully fits with the narrative of the previous track. There is this certain timeless feeling that this song exudes too, with these very universal feelings of finding true love and wanting to hold onto it for an eternity. "Wherever you go, that's where I'll follow, nobody's promised tomorrow, so I'ma love you every night like it's the last night," they sing together.
Lady Gaga truly does take the listener on an entire journey from where we started at the beginning of this record, all the way to "Die With A Smile". This song beautifully represents all that this album is for her, a true reflection of this new chapter of life, while still looking back on all of the elements that make her who she is.
Mayhem is truly Lady Gaga at her core. These are her roots as an artist, and she delivers them with the kind of precision and authenticity that can only come from years of mastery. It's some of the best music she's made in the past decade, which is really saying something because she has continually outdone herself over the years. Each track is infused with the boldness and fearless creativity that catapulted her to stardom, yet it also feels like an honest reflection of her journey, showcasing how far she's come while staying true to who she has always been.
Thanks for reading! Check out more of my reviews of Lady Gaga's music here and linked below - many more are coming soon!
Photo Credit: Frank Lebon, Lady Gaga, Interscope
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