In the lead-up to Lady Gaga’s latest album, Mayhem, there’s been a lot of talk about Gaga returning to her roots. It’s been five years since her last pop release, the Nineties-house-inspired, cyberpunk concept album Chromatica. Chalk it up to timing (it was released at the dawn of the pandemic), but the album didn’t inspire the type of fervor it deserved upon its release. Since then, she’s been back to focusing on movies and jazz, even combining those other two modes for Harlequin, a companion soundtrack to Joker 2 last fall.
For Little Monsters, it’s been too long. “Disease,” the album’s first single, was like an oasis in the Gaga desert upon its release: a visceral, macabre dance-pop moment that harkened back to some of the heavy-metal-inspired moments of Born This Way. Next single “Abracadabra” solidified her comeback: a frenetic, high-energy, ballroom-influenced track that referenced the best of The Fame Monster.
Mayhem is the type of fan service that doesn’t dilute the artist herself. Gaga feels like her most authentic self from start to finish on this album: There’s no characters, concepts, or aesthetic impulses overshadowing the songs. Instead, she’s made one of her most sonically challenging and uniform albums yet: a mix of Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie, Prince and her Fame Monster-era self, rolled into the year’s strongest pop release yet.
In line with the singles, much of Mayhem is made for the darkest, sweatiest dance floors. “Garden of Eden” is loose electroclash, fizzy but pulsating with one of the album’s most addictive pop hooks: “I could be your girlfriend for the weekend/You could be my boyfriend for the night,” she sings. On “Perfect Celebrity,” Gaga does her best Trent Reznor impression. The opening chords of the song harken back to NIN’s With Teeth before she reflects on the true monster that is fame. “Choke on the fame and hope it gets you high/Sit in the front row, watch the princess die,” she delivers with venom on the second verse. The track is sinister and heavy, an easy highlight in her whole catalog.
Gaga’s main collaborators on the album were Andrew Watt and Cirkut (as well as her fiancé Michael Polansky, a muse who gets an executive-producer credit for the full LP). But the real dream team arrives when she links with French DJ and producer Gesaffelstein on “Killah,” a song that fuses Bowie’s “Fame” and “I’m Afraid of Americans,” showcasing how he’s always been her biggest blueprint.
And while Gaga teased a heaviness for much of the album rollout, the album peaks with some of its frothier moments. “Zombieboy” is a little Artpop meets The Fame, a cute and sexy track that’s one of many surprisingly funky moments on Mayhem. On “How Bad Do U Want Me,” she does her best Taylor Swift impression, giving hints of Swift’s “Gorgeous” and 1989-era synth-pop. Meanwhile, the “Don’t Call Tonight” bridge is pure Eighties bliss. It’s one of countless small moments that make each song really pop; many of the songs feature outlandish musical outros that make you want to run back as soon as they’re over.
The last few songs lose their steam. “The Beast” could have made a perfectly fine closer, with her modernization of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” As romantic and beautiful as “Blade of Grass” is, it feels like it would be better suited for a different album. Same goes for “Die With a Smile,” her blockbuster duet with Bruno Mars. Gaga’s power-ballad impulses sometimes get the best of her — and oftentimes make for classic moments on her previous albums — but here, they get swallowed by the 12 major standout tracks that precede them.
She may call herself the perfect celebrity, but with Mayhem, Gaga makes it clear she’s one of our more perfect pop stars: an artist with an unshakeable sense of self and identity who can self-reference without it feeling like a cheap play for nostalgia. Because even when Gaga is thinking about the past, her eyes are always glued towards the future.
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