I was six when Lady Gaga’s debut studio album “The Fame” was released. With its sleazy, dance club take on pop music, Gaga quickly rose to superstardom. Gaga’s music is unapologetically hers, and she is uniquely herself. Whether dripping in fake blood at the VMAs, experimenting with new hairstyles (soda can rollers and bows made of her own hair) or wearing the infamous meat dress, Gaga rewrote the script of the female pop star, reimagining something weirder and freakier for herself and (as she calls her fans) her “Little Monsters.”
My earliest memory of music is listening to “The Fame,” the only album downloaded on my mom’s iPod, in the living room on Saturday mornings. My little sister and I were fervent Little Monsters, jumping around the house scream-singing “Poker Face.” When I first listened to “Mayhem,” I found myself transported back to 2009 and the early days of Gaga where the magic of her music was the power to be yourself.
“Mayhem” is a shiny pop-rock album chiefly produced by Gaga, Andrew Watt and Cirkut. From the Super Bowl teaser of the “Abracadabra” music video to the award-winning duet with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile,” the buildup to Gaga’s seventh studio album stoked anticipation — would this be the long-awaited return of Gaga?
Unlike some of her previous ventures into musicals, some of them good (“A Star Is Born”), some that were maybe missteps (“Harlequin” and “Joker”), “Mayhem” returns to what Gaga does best: an album in big, bold capital letters. While newer pop music has embraced lowercase pop stars with breathy lyrics like Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams, the 14 tracks on “Mayhem” ring loud and true. These aren’t just love songs; they’re grand, theatrical anthems of all things wonderfully strange.
In “Abracadabra,” Gaga is a witch casting a spell, crafting a song out of the syllables of the words she sings. “Abracadabra, amor-oo-na-na / Abracadabra, morta-oo-gaga / Abracadabra, abra-oo-na-na,” she chants. “Abracadabra” is, of course, a sequel to the 2009 hit “Bad Romance,” where she makes a song by saying the syllables, “Rah, rah, ah-ah-ah / Roma, roma-ma / Gaga, ooh-la-la.”
The synth-pop pulse of “How Bad Do U Want Me” crackles with passion while “Killah” channels retro-funk with a silky groove, a nod to Prince, who inspired the song. “Perfect Celebrity” satirizes the plastic, manufactured nature of fame as Gaga writes, “I’m made of plastic like a human doll,” a nod to her “Chromatica” track “Plastic Doll.” “Garden of Eden” drips with temptation and the anticipation of what could happen. The lyric “I’m falling over in my nine-inch heels,” is classic Gaga — high fashion and self-destruction all at once. In Gaga’s world, she even falls from grace in stilettos.
“Zombieboy” is Gaga at her most hypnotic, blending horror and romance into a seductive anthem. With its pulsing beat and lovesick lyric, “Oh, I can’t see straight / And my hands are tied / I could be your type / From your zombie bite,” the track feels like a successor to “Monster” from “The Fame Monster.”
Gaga’s return to the theatrical, avant-garde pop she championed with “Artpop” — her 2013 album that was largely overlooked and often deemed ahead of its time — feels fully realized with “Mayhem.” However, while “Mayhem” starts strong, the second half loses momentum. Tracks like “LoveDrug” feel repetitive and filled with cliches, while slower songs like “Blade of Grass” and “The Beast” sound more like the soundtrack to a slow-motion movie montage compared to the upbeat spectacle that is the rest of the album.
Even though the album has a few skip-worthy songs, “Mayhem” brings Gaga back to what made her debut so enthralling — maximalist pop and bold self-expression. Maybe she is using the same formula that worked in 2009, but her Little Monsters love it anyway. My sister and I will most definitely be dancing our hearts out to this album for years to come.
