Lady Gaga – Abracadabra Review

Magic has made its way into pop music once more. Taking on a multitude of tones, from the dance-pop spills of Dua Lipa’s Houdini to this, Lady Gaga’s lady in red led Abracadabra. Catchy work is at the forefront of the electropop genre and Gaga has certainly nailed this feeling. But that is where Abracadabra, the second single ahead of Mayhem, falls. There is an occasion of nostalgia at work here, a sense not of connection to Gaga but to the tones heard within, the repetition of a genre crying out for new sounds, fresh voices, and getting it in abundance. For Gaga to wade back into the war and come through with a near-four-minute expression of fiery club scenes to the tone of a track crawling back to her decade-old sound, is as bold as it is reductive. Still, Abracadabra has all the hallmarks of an exceptional, intense Gaga effort.  

Crucial to any dance-pop effort is the production qualities, which certainly serve as the best part of Abracadabra. Those tense tones, the deeper shots of fury and incredibly explosive instrumental moments cover the lacklustre lyrical efforts. Gaga is still self-inserting with the expected and welcome confidence of an artist mounting a comeback after time away from the pop music her hive of fans are desperate for. This checks all the boxes but with a tame tone to its lyrics. For all the talk of fire under your feet or in your eyes, there is very little to get worked up about, no crutch of brilliant perspective or sense of salvation through the thrill of moving to a beat. Mayhem is certainly relying on this sense of liberation through life-affirming songs but, even with the catchy tone within, Abracadabra is a ways off of fulfilling this tone.  

Death or love tonight is what Abracadabra aims for. Cast a spell for one or the other. But there is a lack of intense or interesting perspective on the one or the other choice proposed by Gaga. There is no sense of distance between the two and she blurs the joy and grief with relatively static results. Abracadabra certainly makes the most of her voice, which is as sensational as it always was, but it serves no purpose when the lyrics are muddied by these expressions of firm yet static perspectives on living through the beat of a dancefloor. To do so is to pair yourself with the intensity and form of a strong beat, which Abracadabra certainly has. What it lacks, though, is a lyrical style which does not feel fifteen years past its prime. Hopes of being held in another person’s heart feel relatively primitive given how complex yet clear electropop can now handle these tones of love and life.  

Is Gaga behind the times? No, not necessarily. There is an occasion for the straightforward and while her chorus interjections do little, if anything, to firm up the death or love choice, they provide an essential momentum of dance-pop. Whether the floor will continue its raging blaze under our feet when the wider Mayhem project releases is yet to be seen, but Abracadabra does not sound particularly confident. A solid dance-pop song, nowhere close to anthemic but equally as far from being cast aside. Solid pop work, but no more than that. Abracadabra has little magic to it, ironic given its tame and immediately knowable presence as a magic cop-out. But therein lies the comparison between this overused catchphrase and the relevancy of it to Gaga’s song. Abracadabra works with what we know and never dares to challenge it. A death knell when it comes to dance-pop of modern times, where risk is everything.