via @shookavenue
The Sounds of Mayhem
Sonically, Mayhem primarily explores industrial music and electropop. On the surface, this seems like territory the Grammy-winning superstar has walked before, but there is a lot more going on here. This is an album that embraces ‘80s synth-pop and ‘90s grunge influences. She channels David Bowie on the funk-infused “Killah” and there are hints of Blondie and Prince all throughout the album.
She also conjures herself. Hearing Gaga literally say “Gaga” in the chorus of “Abracadabra” resembles the intro of one of her signature songs, “Bad Romance,” while “Garden of Eden” feels like a personal shoutout to fans of Artpop, her audacious EDM-leaning 2013 album that even she admits was ahead of its time.
These sonic references illustrate the diversity of Gaga’s influences as an artist, but they also indicate a confident embrace of all the sides of herself, even the ones that wouldn’t necessarily seem to mesh well at first glance. Believe it or not, this is new for Lady Gaga. Her collaborations with Tony Bennett showcased her knack for jazz and vocal versatility but lacked the trademark in-your-face, visual component of her self-expression. Joanne and A Star is Born took softer approaches that foregrounded her songwriting and demonstrated a more acoustic, “tug at your heartstrings” sensibility. It’s not that these aesthetics didn’t work, but they were individual shades of Gaga rather than the whole shebang.
Unlike those other eras, Mayhem does not seem to abandon any sides of Lady Gaga (except for maybe the jazz, but even then, one can argue that the age-old genre informed some of the musicality on this record.) Overall, the soundscape primarily centers on a synth-pop aesthetic, but the rest of Gaga is all there on various tracks. The album showcases Gaga’s vocals and songwriting, both of which could have easily taken a back seat on a dance-heavy album.
At the same time, the experimentation at work on the production side does not take a back seat either. Just as there are layers upon layers of vocal and harmony lines—which Gaga demonstrated to her fans in a behind-the-scenes look at the making of “Disease”—there are also layers upon layers of intricate production details from her use of analog synthesizers to dark and heavy bass lines. There’s a lot of influence here from the style of French producer Mike Lévy, more commonly known by his stage name, Gesaffelstein, of whom Gaga is a professed longtime fan, and who has several writing and production credits on the album. Kudos to Gesaffelstein as well as collaborators Andrew Watt and Gaga’s real-life fiancé Michael Polansky for helping to hone a cohesive, yet expansive sound that placed the vocal and production forward in equal measure.
A New Look at Fame
Another element to this album that feels both vintage and fresh is the thematic exploration of fame that permeates throughout the piece. Gaga is no stranger to this topic. After all, her first album was literally called “The Fame.” That being said, that album was composed and produced prior to her own rise to superstardom. It was as if Gaga was summoning the persona of a celebrity as performance art without having the lived experience of what that life might actually feel like. She even referred to herself as a student in “the art of fame.”
On “Mayhem,” however, Gaga is no longer a student; she is now the teacher. Her exploration of the glamorous and darker sides of celebrity is apparent on tracks like “Perfect Celebrity” and “Shadow of a Man.” On the former, she remarks on the fractured identity between her true self and her alter ego with a growling frustration, like a wounded animal lashing out. On the latter, Gaga reflects on her decades in the music industry and the experience of often being the only woman in the room. Her portrait of fame is more complex here than on that debut record. When she sings the lyrics, “You love to hate me,” one cannot help but consider the moments in her career when she was unfairly picked apart by the media, from unfair jokes at her expense during her early years to the recent debacle that was Joker: Folies à Deux.
Gaga’s whole career informs the sonic and thematic landscape of “Mayhem.” There is the aesthetic of O.G. Gaga along with the maturity of an artist who temporarily left her comfort zone to try, well, everything. Now, she has returned more informed and more confident. Her 2020 dance-pop record Chromatica did not achieve this combination as successfully, partially due to the promotional limitations during the year in which it was released but also because that record was not quite as ambitious as this one is.
When Gaga first rose to prominence, a major part of her outlandish persona was the chaotic nature of it all, from the meat dress to the “Telephone” music video. Now, that chaos is on display again—the album is, after all, called Mayhem—but it’s the artist’s life experience and newfound perspective that have made this era far more substantive and ambitious than a simple “return to form” implies. That phrase cheapens the impact of this complex and versatile pop star’s attempt to make the many facets of her artistry cohere.
